It was Callum.

Maude felt her mouth fall open, and she turned away from Jaspar’s fight, feeling hyper aware of her heart pounding through her chest.

How is this possible? She thought. He never took his sword lessons seriously, and as of nine months ago, he was a mediocre, at best, swordsman…Why is he here, holding his own against Jaspar Rosenberg?

Maude paused in her thinking, considering how protective of Callum her father had always been. A better question is probably why Callum is here in the first place, Maude thought. Under what circumstances would my father send Callum to war in the first place? I can only imagine him doing that if the empire was on the verge of losing or extremely desperate.

Maude swallowed hard. If the empire is truly on a losing path, then there would likely be some other key people of the empire at this battle, just like the king suggested, Maude thought. In which case, if Aulbert wins this battle, they very well could win the war.

I suppose if Callum is here, she continued in her thinking, then the king’s intel is really good, and the emperor and my father must also be a part of this battle, Maude thought.

Maude looked back over Jaspar’s shoulder to see how his battle with Callum was progressing. This time, Callum’s gaze caught her eye.

“Traitor,” Callum growled at her, his face full of contempt. Maude felt Jaspar stiffen. Maude’s heart started picking up in her chest, and she felt her hands tighten into fists.

How am I a traitor if the empire and the emperor fucked me over in the first place? Maude thought, her stomach tightening. It would be another story if I had been treated well.

Maude felt her emotions building. Normally, she would have attempted to nip them in the bud before they started to build, but for the first time in a long time, she knew her feelings were justified.

How dare he call me a traitor when he worked so hard to make my life a living hell in the first place! Maude felt like her blood was boiling.

“Jaspar,” she murmured, somehow managing to keep her emotions controlled on the surface.

“What?” she heard him ask back.

“Do you mind protecting me while I fight your opponent?” Maude asked. “Please,” she added.

Jaspar paused the conversation, and defended himself from several of Callum’s attacks, and even a dirty trick or two that Callum tried to pull.

“Are you sure?” he asked as soon as he got a moment to reply.

“I’m certain,” Maude replied, firmly.

“Absolutely not,” Callum shouted, going after Jaspar in another flurry of attacks. “You cannot fight me until I’m done with your lover, Maude,” Callum replied. His face had a malevolent grin plastered over it. “Wait your turn, filthy sword saint.”

Maude heard Jaspar take a sharp breath. “Do you know him?” he asked her.

“I do,” Maude murmured gently, while blocking the blow of an oncoming soldier. “He’s my half-brother,” she added.

“What?” Jaspar hissed back. “Your half-brother?”

“The fact that I even share a drop of blood with her disgusts me,” Callum replied, snarling.

“Let me fight him,” Maude said again, going on the offensive with her newest partner.

The man sneered at her as he took a couple of steps back. “If you had fought like this for the empire, my brother would still be alive,” he said, his face full of contempt.

Maude was surprised, which allowed the man to catch her off guard. His sword was headed right towards her eye, and she managed to block it just in time. She studied the man’s face closely to see if she recognized any features that he might have shared with his brother.

I don’t recognize anything about him, Maude thought. Though, it’s not impossible that I just didn’t get to know whomever his brother was all that well. There had been a lot of men in my unit.

She nodded softly at him. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she replied.

The man’s face only reddened more. “You are the reason he died,” he replied, trying to slash her again. She easily blocked it.

“You’re wrong,” she replied, shaking her head at him and blocking another one of his strikes. “The emperor is to blame for your brother’s death,” she replied. “He sent us on a suicide mission.”

“You could have saved him,” the man replied. Maude noticed that his cheeks were wet.

I played around with people’s lives in the past, Maude thought. This is my karma.

“Maybe,” Maude admitted. “But such a junior battalion should not have been where we were anyway,” she said. “There’s a chance that we would have been slaughtered even if I had fought,” she stated.

Her enemy growled at her, and she found her opening again. “I am sorry,” she said, as she dealt a lethal blow.

The man crumpled to the ground, and Maude made her way back over to where Jaspar was.

“Let me fight my brother,” she demanded. Jaspar’s arms were filled with little cuts, from where Callum had been able to catch him.

“Of course,” Jaspar replied. Maude came in on his left, and forced Callum to pay attention to her sword over Jaspar’s by deliberately aiming for places she’d easily be able to kill him at.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Callum growled at her. “How dare you interrupt my fight,” he said. His face broke out into a malevolent grin almost immediately afterwards. “Though, it wouldn’t be a bad thing for me to take out the sword saint. Especially since you’re weaker since you’re spreading your ability out across so many different people.”

I can’t wait to make his grin eat shit, Maude thought. That’ll wipe his shit eating grin off really quick.

“Did father force you to take your lessons seriously, finally?” Maude asked Callum. She felt Jaspar’s shoulder blades gently hit her back, the same way she had been letting him know that she was there.

I’m glad that he, of all people, has my back, she thought. I can feel safe and just focus on my fight with Callum.

Callum scowled at Maude. “Your tutor was always so focused on teaching you that I barely learned anything from him.” He slashed his sword at Maude and she only barely managed to block it. “As soon as you were gone, we switched him out for someone willing to teach the future duke of the empire.”

Maude felt her heart drop. She wasn’t quite sure what Callum meant by “switched out,” but she could only hope that her sword tutor hadn’t lost his life for the so-called “privilege” of teaching her the art of the sword.

Callum’s malevolent smile broadened. “And I quickly turned into a much stronger swordsman under the new tutor’s tutelage.”

Callum swiped at her again. He’s fast, she thought. Much faster than he used to be.

“And how dare you interrupt my fight?” Callum asked with a sneer. “I told you to wait,” their swords clanged together, “your,” clang, “turn,” clang!

She felt the vibration of how hard he was hitting her sword with his all the way into her elbow. She winced. He’s much stronger than he was, too, she thought.

“And you’re weaker than you should be,” Callum stated, as if he was reading her mind. The evil look in his eyes coming back. “This very well could be the fight that I finally kill you in.”

Maude heard Jaspar take in a sharp breath again. She was unable to look due to having to stop Callum from killing her in that moment, but she couldn’t help but wonder if his breath was in a reaction to what Callum had said, or to something else. Maude heard Jaspar beginning to fight another person behind her. Hopefully his gasp wasn’t due to an injury, she thought. Against her better judgment, she chose not to look away from her own fight. Maude felt her stomach squeeze as Callum continued to keep her on the defensive.

I shouldn’t be nervous to fight him, but I am, she thought. After all of these years, he was finally successful in making me afraid of his fighting skill.

“Father made me rigorously train for the last nine months,” Callum said with a scowl. “For the first time, I pitied you. How horrible it must have been to train for twelve hours a day for almost a decade.” Callum attempted to cut at her legs. She blocked him. His face had a look of pity on it. “How depressing that you’re not even as strong as you were back then,” he said. “I was hoping for a more challenging fight than this.”

Is he trying to taunt me? Maude wondered. Nonetheless, he is correct. I’m far too distracted by the war going on around me and Jaspar himself to give this fight my everything.

Callum’s blade was headed directly towards Maude’s face. She managed to block, only deflecting Callum’s blade at the last moment. She felt the tip of the blade cut into her cheek, and she heard herself gasp in pain.

In front of her, Callum smirked. “It seems you’ve lost your touch, sister,” he said.

Maude gulped. I should have spent more time in the training yard during my time in Aulbert, she thought. Will I actually be able to defeat Callum?

“Stop worrying about me, Maude,” she heard Jaspar murmur behind her. “Just focus on your own fight.”

“Alright,” she replied softly. Maude narrowed her focus so that she was primarily looking at Callum’s feet and his sword to help her better gauge his movements as he was performing them. In the background, she could still hear that Callum was trying to taunt her and throw her off, but she paid his words no mind.

The fight was intense. Whenever she thought that Callum would be able to end it, she’d still managed to block, allowing him to leave small cuts all over her hands and arms. But she was doing the same to him. Callum was managing to block her at the last moment as well.

How is it possible that we are evenly matched after only nine months? She wondered. Is daily practice truly as important as my father implied it was?

“Maude,” she heard Jaspar’s voice say again. “Don’t be afraid to pull your ability back to yourself if you need it. You’re a greater asset to the battalion alive than you are dead.”

Callum must have overheard Jaspar’s words because he laughed boisterously. “How far the mighty sword saint has fallen,” he said with a smirk.

Maude felt a new wave of heat rushing through her after he said his words. Right, she thought. This is why I wanted to fight him.

Rather than gathering more of her ability, she summoned some strength within herself, feeling herself go into a sharpened rage as she went on the offensive against Callum.

This fucking bastard has always looked down on me, she thought. And for what reason does he think he’s better than me? Just because my father and Zara told him he is?

Years of pent up fury were now being channeled through her blade. Callum looked surprised, and Maude felt the power of each of her own blows reverberating up to her shoulder.

She unleashed a flurry of attacks on Callum, using all of the Aulbertian moves that Jaspar had taught her. It had seemed that Callum had become somewhat familiar with them, probably from the empire’s troops learning them in battle, but Callum was most certainly not familiar with all of them.

Maude took steps towards Callum and he took steps away from her. He was completely on the defensive now, and she was just waiting for her opening.

As Callum was taking steps back, he tripped and fell over a large rock. He fell to his knees, Maude’s blade cutting into his throat, a small trickle of blood trailing down to Callum’s chest.

“Maude,” he said, sounding desperate. “Surely you can’t kill your sibling,” he protested. “You can’t kill me, right?” Callum laughed nervously. “We’re related by blood.”

“We’re only related by blood when you’re in this situation?” Maude asked, feeling her eyebrows raise at Callum’s statement. “But not all those times that you treated me like shit?”

Callum looked up at her, his face full of contempt. The clouds finally decided that it was time to release the rain that they were holding onto.

“If I let you live, you’ll turn around and stab me in the back,” Maude spat. Callum grinned at her sinisterly. “We were never family,” Maude added.

Maude pressed the blade deeper into Callum’s neck. “Surrender,” she commanded him.

Callum spat down at the quickly dampening grass, his hair growing stringy, and the rain mixing with the blood from Maude’s blade biting into his flesh. “Never,” he said, looking up at her, a look of pure hatred and condescension plastered onto his face.

“Then pay for everything you’ve ever done to me,” Maude said, digging the blade deeper into his throat.

Callum made a gurgling sound that made Maude’s stomach roll, as he fell back into the grass behind him. His brought his hands up to his neck as if he was going to try to stop the bleeding, while keeping his eyes focused on Maude. They were still filled with loathing.

Zara instilled her hostility for me into her son very well, Maude thought. A pity.

Maude watched as the life left Callum’s body, remembering all of the times he had tortured her, threatened her, or caused her pain. He had threatened to kill her more times than she could have ever counted.

It’s over now, she thought, watching his body go still, and his eyes glaze over. I no longer ever have to worry about him tracking me down and following through with that promise.

Her stomach rolled again, and her body started shaking. She leaned over, off to the side, and vomited next to him.

It may be kill or be killed, but she had still just killed her brother.

After her stomach was satisfied from emptying itself, she looked up in the rain, and met another pair of ferociously angry eyes.

It was her father.