She leaned back, stretching her arms wide over her head and letting her shoulders crack a bit. It had taken her at least two hours to sit down and redraw most of the blueprints, but it had been worth it. They were good guidelines.

As the chair moved softly across the fuzzy carpet, Rowena stood up and tied her lavender waves into a short ponytail. She didn't want her hair to look too disheveled as she slipped out of her indoor dress and stood there in her undershirt and a pair of white bloomers that reached beyond her knees.

Getting in and out of such a dress was much more difficult than she had expected, and the dread of getting back into it by herself was already looming over her like a shadow, but she couldn't undo what she had already done.

With a sigh, she let herself fall onto her hands and used the momentum to lift her legs straight up into the air. It was hard. Her shoulders ached as soon as her weight shifted, and the pressure on her palms made her feel as if they were going to burst.

Why did she suddenly feel like looking at the world from a new perspective? Originally, she had planned to collect her drained Mana and stay that way. But now, after a night of sleep and an abundance of time to think since the day before, she had decided to keep the idea of carrying her bow. Just for emergencies - whenever there was time for her to actually retrieve it, of course.

Until then, she had noticed that even with the increased Mana, she still did not have enough control over the muscles in her arms. So she had to concentrate on them a bit more, the war of attrition in the graveyard had shown that she couldn't last long.

But even if the movement itself felt familiar and the Mana inside her had helped her body to become more durable, just standing on her hands was a completely new feeling. She could tell that her head was turning red from the blood flowing into it, but it was such a different sensation from what she had known as Celia. It was much harder to bear.

'Just a bit,' she told herself, her elbows shaking as they barely held her up. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.

She thought of her old instructor, Carlos. He used to make her do this to speed up the strengthening of her arms and shoulders. It was supposed to get her used to the feeling of Mana in her arms and train her real muscles at the same time.

It would help her draw a bow, even if the muscles in the shoulder area for that were slightly different, but it would also be a great foundation for later when she would wield a melee weapon.

The longest session of this particular training method had lasted about two hours and had ended with Celia simply falling to the side, fortunately breaking nothing as she hit the ground and lost consciousness from exhaustion.

Rowena had no desire to repeat such a failure, but it would be helpful if she could stay in that state for a few minutes, as many times a day as she could manage without being noticed.

Well, she had told her brother about her ability to use Mana, but she hadn't revealed the depth of her knowledge, nor had she any intention of learning how to fight from scratch.

She knew how to do it, of course, so it wasn't truly "from scratch", but her body needed to relearn, especially to regain the dexterity, strength, and endurance it once had.

She had trained her body to be more flexible. Mana had made her more durable and also stronger. The wooden sword had served to mimic her most natural movements in battle.

But none of the things she was doing felt really familiar to her. Rowena's body received all these things differently than Celia's.

Her Mana recognition was extremely high, so her core and pathways had built and grown tremendously in such a short amount of time. Her tendons had easily adapted to her stretching regimens in the capital's basement.

But her muscles weren't that strong. Not even compared to other women, and not even for her height and build. Of course, she didn't want to become a bouncer, she just wondered why her body was so fragile.

It was just like the time she had realized that Rowena's body was starting to fall apart on a cellular level. Even if it had been minimal and unnoticeable to the bare eye, it wouldn't have gotten better over time. Surely she would have died one day without any interference from anyone else.

"This sucks," she muttered, feeling slightly queasy, "I hate it."

She didn't necessarily mean the handstand she'd been doing for the past ten minutes, but the fact that nothing in her head made sense.

There was so much going on and the blood rushing to her brain just made everything worse in this position.

Besides, she couldn't do this every day. Originally, one would do this on a daily basis, using less and less Mana so that the body's natural muscles could pick up the work.

Mana, especially in the way Pan had provided it to her according to their contract, was stacked on what was physically available. But if there was nothing available, there was nothing to stack.

Even a triple of zero remained zero in the end.

Rowena didn't want to fight, that idea hadn't changed, but she wanted to be prepared in case she was forced to fight. In other words, she had to try to build up at least a little bit, but she wouldn't be able to do that from the day after next.

Tomorrow would be her last day in the north, at least for a few weeks. It would take them approximately eight days to head south until they reached Kadena, the capital of the Lodden Empire. Even though they would only be there for a few days, they had to include the return trip, as she would be returning to Varnhagen after that, before returning to the Arlen capital sometime around the Victory Banquet.

With a sigh, she lowered her feet back onto the fluffy carpet, standing up straight after swaying a bit, feeling dizzy and submerged for a moment. For better or worse, the training was at least not as horrible as having to climb back into her dress all by herself afterwards.

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Maybe she also put in more effort, because she knew she wouldn't do much the day after as well as the time spent on the journey to Lodden.

There was not one day she had simply enjoyed, not being anxious, or concentrating on doing something specific. Simply a bit of… true leisure. As she couldn't have that for a while, she should use whatever she could.

So she packed up her new blueprints and hid them the same way she had in the past, before pulling a fancy golden rope next to her bed to call her maid.

Norina didn't even need two minutes to knock on her door and came in slowly after hearing Rowena's "Come in."

"You called for me, my lady?"

Rowena had to send her out so she could tend to her business, but now she smiled in her direction. Not a big smile, but at least an honest one.

"Yes, I would like to join my brother for dinner tonight."

Silently, a group of seven people in plain clothes walked slowly down the cobblestone street. It was so noisy that they didn't even need an excuse not to talk to each other, as happy cheers filled the outer walls of the city.

The young woman in the midst of the group exhaled as she scanned the market.

"So many people," she said softly.

Yet all the men and women around her heard what she had said, even though the background bustle was very present to them as well.

"A lot of them are visitors from the villages around the capital," a handsome blond man chimed in.

"With the news of what happened at the border, people want to hear the stories for themselves from the source," the brown-haired one explained. He had dyed his hair with Mana, by layering it on like a mask.

"Look at this, my lady," a girl with frizzy blonde hair and a green dress pointed to a nearby booth and waved her lady over excitedly.

"Don't call me that, Norina," the lady replied as she walked over to her, seeing a stall selling what looked like chicken skewers just a few feet away.

With an apologetic look, the maid walked over and turned to the woman manning the stall, pulling out a few copper coins. "May I have ten skewers?"

"Oh, you must have a large group of friends," the woman remarked with a broad grin, looking over at the men and women standing a little further away, "oh my, and how handsome they are. Is one of them your boyfriend?"

When she winked at her, it was clear that she was joking around. Norina, who was not good in such situations, quickly paid the price and blushed before running back to her mistress.

"What happened?" asked Sir Sean when he saw her returning flustered.

"Nothing!" she shut him down immediately and offered her purchase, "Anyway, I got one for each of us and three for the young lady."

There was a brief moment of confusion, but it didn't last long as they collectively remembered who they were dealing with. And sure enough, the first skewer disappeared as if it had never existed, faster than they had expected.

Rowena didn't care that they were staring at her, because it was always lost on her. She liked it. Not only that, but there were garlands spun between the houses in the streets, some with their family insignia on them, musicians playing instruments, dancers twirling, and people enjoying themselves everywhere.

But that was not all she saw. "If you wish to take a closer look, you may do so. We are only here for today." The festival would continue tomorrow, but they would be on their way to Kadena by then.

"Don't say that, la-" Sir Sean had to think for a moment, faked a cough and rephrased, "We're here to protect you, we can't simply walk away."

"But I won't get lost if at least one person stays behind," she reasoned, looking squarely at her brother, "isn't that so?"

He knew what she meant. "Yes, that would be correct."

There was no danger around, and if there was, they would be close, and besides, he would still be next to her, since he couldn't leave her alone.

It took some more arguing, especially with Norina, to get them to explore the festival on their own, as only Rowena and Colin remained in the center of the marketplace. It was an awkward moment that the young lady used to chew on her remaining meat.

By the time she had gobbled down the third skewer, they had already resumed their walk. "I'm surprised you let me come here."

"I was also surprised that you asked me to let you." She had suddenly made that request at dinner the day before.

Frankly, he didn't want to let her, since she had just betrayed his trust and shouldn't be rewarded. At the same time, he felt conflicted. She hadn't gone to Eisenwacht with bad intentions, at least not that he could find any evidence pointing in that direction.

She also got hurt, so she should have some good memories of that place. Another reason for him to feel guilty was undoubtedly that he had interfered in something he shouldn't have, so he was a reason for her to be unhappy.

It was one thing if she was unhappy on her own accord, but he didn't have to give her a reason for it on top of that.

They walked through the crowd, remaining silent for a while, until Rowena suddenly stopped walking. "Oh," she exclaimed.

As her brother followed her gaze, he could see an older couple standing at the edge of the market, talking to each other. He knew who they were, he couldn't have forgotten them so quickly.

"Would you like to greet them?"

"I would like to, yes. May I speak with them privately?" Her face was stern, but her question sounded a bit uncertain. She needed to talk to them without him overhearing.

Surprisingly, Colin let out a short breath and shrugged. "You have ten minutes. I'll wait here."

"Thank you." With that, she walked over and greeted the couple as they looked in her direction, doing a double take. "I thought I might find you here somewhere."

"Young lady...?" Confusion was visible on Iris' face. "You really did come. But how is your health?"

"I'm a miracle, as the doctor said this morning." There was not much she could really explain here, as it would probably blow her mind. "More importantly, I don't have much time."

She took a rolled up piece of paper out of a small bag she had strapped around her waist and gave it to Ansgar, pretending to hold his hand to show her deep appreciation for something. From a distance, with her back to him, her brother wouldn't be able to see the blueprints that had just changed hands.

He blinked as he looked at the paper, but took her hint to tuck it discreetly into his sleeve.

"It's a blueprint, similar to the one I brought you the other day," she said, not very loudly, "it's not for a specific sword, but an instruction."

"What instructions?"

"On how to forge an artificial Mana sword." Smiling, she took her hands back and folded them innocently behind her back. "A working Mana sword with a silver core."

"Silver?" Iris seemed confused. "Not Mana Stone?"

"The core is what it sounds like. You need virgin silver ore and Mana Stones to forge a Mana weapon."

"That would be difficult," Ansgar said, "It's a precious material, and we haven't done any adornments in seventeen years, so we didn't need silver."

Confused, Rowena looked up at them. "No silver?"

She had been sure that she could have bought it there, but since the sword had never reached the planning stage, Rowena hadn't really looked for the missing material.

"Hm," the now brown-haired girl said, while Iris and Ansgar just exchanged questioning looks, "What if I manage to acquire some in the Lodden Empire? They are famous for their silver mines." In fact, a silver mine was part of the reason for their little delegation.

"What? No, of course not!" Iris seemed rather shocked than pleased. "We could never ask you for anything like that!"

Even though Ansgar looked like a child in a toy store, it was probably because he would be able to try out this method. "I'm sure we can get some silver through Bruno's connections. It won't be that great, but it would be good enough as learning material."

They still had some Mana Stones left. They were originally meant for emergencies.

The couple looked at each other and understood what the other was thinking. They, too, had enough time to think and make decisions - and a decision they made.

Before anyone could utter a word, however, the sky darkened for a split second, drawing attention from all over the marketplace to the direction of the Varnhagen's manor, at something hovering right above their front yard. Silence all around ensued.

Looking up herself, Rowena went even more pale than she always was, though she could barely tell what she was seeing. "Holy shi... I mean, is that a drake?"

Really, honestly, all she wanted was a single day off.