Unlike Tereus’s previous training, this did not pass in a blur. First of all, there was the fear: of Tereus, of being found out, of how her friends were doing. Maddie was able to put that fear aside while she trained her magic -- her improving willpower helped immensely -- but when training was done the worries bombarded her. She tried her best to sleep, but without the intense physical activity of her combat training to exhaust her, she spent many sleepless hours at night. Even a morning dose of wine didn’t prevent her from being groggy.

That brought up another fear: that Tereus would notice her grogginess and think something was up. Part of her knew it wasn’t rational, but the more the worries piled on, the less realistic they had to be to upset her. Finally, after almost a week of training, Maddie began to fall back on some of Corentin’s teaching. She ignored most of the navel-gazing but used the breathing exercises he had taught them. She also decided to practice using her sword for a few hours during the day to tire herself out. At first Tereus gave his usual scoffs at her performance, but after a few sessions he began to call out suggestions and improvements. Eventually he started getting more involved in her training, showing her forms. The sword took getting used to; it was incredibly large but light as a feather. There was no way to practice parrying or blocking, since the sword would cut through anything that was not a divine artifact. Tereus had one dagger he had received from his father, but compared to Brigantia’s blade it looked like a needle.

After a week of both magic and sword training, Tereus decided to combine the two.

“You can focus your magic through your blade,” he announced out of nowhere.

Maddie thought for a minute about that, then asked “How?”

“Take a stance, blade up. Focus on the blade as if it were made of shadow and manipulate it.”

Maddie focused on her weapon. The black blade was almost like a condensed shadow. She pressed her will onto it the way Tereus had taught her.

The blade became incredibly heavy. No longer able to hold it, Maddie dropped it. She and Tereus both jumped back as the sword sunk into the tiled floor. The tip hit first and the sword sank into the floor until not much more than the handle stuck out. It had sunk at an angle that left it almost horizontal.

“Watch it!” Tereus growled.

“I…I couldn’t hold it. It got too heavy. I’m sorry.”

Tereus narrowed his eyes and looked at the sword. It had roughly bisected a mosaic depicting his father. Maddie could see how it might look intentional to Tereus. She cringed as he examined the damage.

Then he reached down to pull the sword out of the ground. He had been able to lift it before. Maddie was pretty sure he’d held it at one time. This time he strained to move it. It seemed to weigh a ton. They both imagined that it moved a fraction of a digitas, but no amount of strength could move it any more.

“Pick it up.”

Maddie hesitantly reached down and lifted the sword out of the tiles. Once again it was weightless. Tereus looked at her with suspicion, but the fact that he could no longer lift the sword meant that something had changed.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“What did you do?” he snarled.

“I…I tried to tell it to change. It seemed like it was made of shadows, so I used my will and--”

“--locked it to your own resonance.”

Tereus paced back and forth like a caged animal. Maddie carefully placed the sword on the ground. For an instant she was tempted to slide it back into the hole it had made, but she didn’t want to upset Tereus any more than he already was. A moment of disrespect could cost her her safety, she thought. Tereus muttered and Maddie strained her ears as best she could while staying still and keeping her expression neutral.

Not that her face was ever really neutral while she was in Tereus’s domus. She was terrified, all the time. She couldn’t discern any words.

Tereus’s face was a stormcloud as he stared back and forth between Maddie and the sword. Maddie shrank back under his glare. This only served to focus Tereus’s attention on her. She took a step back, trembling. He took a step toward her and she fell on her butt. She was just about to scramble backwards when his gaze shifted back to the sword.

“What’s done is done,” he spat. “Do as you wish, but don’t disturb me for the rest of the day.

When she was sure he had left the courtyard, she flopped onto her back. The tiles were warmed by the sun and she gazed at the sky, wishing she could just leave and go back to her friends. But she couldn’t, not until she got the key. Tereus hadn’t been wearing it, so she assumed it was hidden somewhere in the domus. If it was in his private chambers she wouldn’t be able to get it until he left, which was hard. He spent most of his time outside with her when he wasn’t occupying the place she needed to look. She dragged herself upright and stretched. She left the sword in the courtyard as she walked inside. She might as well search the rest of the house in the vain hope that Tereus might have left the one thing most vital to his plan laying around.

Poking through the rest of the domus, predictably, turned up no key. She was disgruntled, so her search was more cursory than it should have been. After a few hours she used her breathing techniques and focused her mind. Thus calmed, she began her search again, this time more thoroughly. She was rummaging through a chest in the cubiculum where Tereus slept when she heard the door to the tablinum (office) open. She froze for a moment and started to panic when she heard Tereus’s heavy bootsteps coming toward her. She hastily closed the cabinet, wincing when it made a loud sound. The steps reoriented and Maddie stood to face Tereus.

“Something you need? Something you misplaced in my personal chamber?”

Maddie’s conscious mind shut down momentarily. She stuttered as she faced him. Was he always 10 feet tall?

“Finally you reveal yourself, little mouse. Weeks I spent teaching you my secrets, when I knew in my heart you would betray me.”

Maddie snapped into focus. Tereus had been walking toward her as he ranted, leaving the doorway open. She dove for it, trying to get past Tereus. She didn’t make it, but he grabbed the back of her tunic and threw her into the atrium. She landed hard on her side and rolled, trying to scramble to her feet as Tereus stormed toward her.

It was still only midafternoon and shadows were plentiful. But her sword was nowhere near her. As Tereus approached her, she slipped through his shadow and tried to land on the other side of the atrium, where her sword still lay next to the gash in the floor.

In the shadow-place, she found a shadow near her sword and slipped out of it.

Except she didn’t. Instead she rebounded off something hard that knocked her back. She had never really felt like she had a physical form while inside the shadows, but she was sent reeling back. She stumbled backwards and felt another opening behind her, leading to the greenhouse. As soon as she realized that the opening flickered to a new location and Maddie plummeted through.