Chapter 258: Vivianne and Kevin’s Training

*** A Day Later – Third Person POV

“Come on, Kevin…”

Vivianne’s voice echoed across the famed Crestwood training garden, a space reserved mostly for her family, and more specifically for those attuned to wind magic. But after some careful explaining—or, more specifically, after she explained that Kevin was a student of the very master who had trained her—they eventually relented.

They allowed her to use the space to train Kevin.

“Is this… pant… really necessary!?”

Kevin yelled as he ran circles around the huge square garden, already on his tenth lap, while Vivianne forbade him from using magic to enhance himself.

“This is how Cael trained me. I’m just doing the same to you…”

“I’m a mage—how does this make sense!?”

“I asked the same thing, but he didn’t really listen, did he?”

Vivianne only laughed, perched on the branch of an apple tree. She plucked one from the leaves and took a bite.

“Mmm… this one’s really sweet~!”

Kevin shot her an exasperated look and kept running his laps while Vivianne watched over him like a tyrannical ruler. What made it worse was how deliberately she tortured him by relaxing right in front of him.

The apple, for example.

’She’s the devil incarnate…’

Kevin muttered to himself, shaking his head as he continued running the thirty laps Vivianne had assigned him.

***

“…Thirty,” Kevin gasped, collapsing onto the grass the moment he crossed the invisible finish line. His legs gave out completely, and he lay sprawled on his back, chest heaving, staring up at the pale morning sky. “Thirty laps. You’re actually trying to kill me.”

Vivianne tossed her apple core at him. It bounced off his forehead.

“If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. That was just a warm-up.”

“Warm—” Kevin shot upright, then immediately regretted it as his vision swam. “That was ten miles. I ran ten miles.”

“Fifteen, actually. The garden’s bigger than it looks.”

“You’re enjoying this.”

“Obviously.”

Vivianne dropped down from the tree branch, landing beside him with an easy grace that made Kevin want to throw grass at her. She dusted off her hands and looked down at him with something that might have been approval.

“Get up.”

“I can’t.”

“Get up, or I’ll make you run another ten.”

Kevin groaned, pushing himself to his feet on legs that felt like they’d been filled with lead. He swayed once, caught his balance, and glared at her.

“Happy?”

“Thrilled.” Vivianne circled him slowly, her sharp eyes tracking every line of his posture. “That bastard always said your body remembers what your mind forgets. You can drill spell forms for hours, but if your body gives out in an actual fight, all that training means nothing.”

“I’ve been in actual fights.”

“Against students, and against people who pulled their punches because they didn’t want to get expelled for hurting the academy’s scholarship boy.”

She stopped in front of him, arms crossed.

“The people we’re going up against won’t pull their punches, Kevin. They’re not gonna wait for you to catch your breath or recharge your mind.”

Kevin’s face transitioned into a dramatic scowl.

“That’s harsh…”

“That’s why I’m the teacher, and you’re the one running laps at dawn.”

She turned away from him, walking toward the center of the garden where a series of training dummies had been set up. These weren’t the padded straw targets from the academy; these were constructed from reinforced steel, their surfaces scarred and dented from years of use.

“Alright,” Vivianne said, drawing a thin blade of wind from the air itself, “let’s work on your footwork.”

“My footwork?”

“Your movement’s clunky. You’re easy to read. If you can’t move well, you can’t dodge. And if you can’t dodge…” She let the implication hang, twirling the blade once before letting it dissipate. “Come at me.”

“Come at you how?”

“However you want. Magic, fists, that ugly little knife you keep hidden in your boot. I don’t care. Just try to hit me.”

Kevin hesitated.

“What knife?”

“I’m just making stuff up because it’s fun to say.” Vivianne’s eyes glittered. “You don’t get to train someone every day, y’know?”

“When did you get so power-hungry…?”

Vivianne paused mid-stride. Her hand drifted to her chin, fingers tapping once, twice—thoughtful, almost vulnerable. For a fleeting moment, she looked less like a tormentor and more like someone genuinely reckoning with the mirror.

“Blame Cael,” she said quietly, almost to herself. “He seems to have rubbed off on me.”

She turned back to Kevin, and the vulnerability vanished behind a grin—crooked, self-aware, trying just a little too hard.

“But I’m still the same, right? Innocent. Likable. Old Vivianne?”

She spread her arms. Posed. Beamed.

The image might have landed once. Before the laps. Before the apple core. Before she’d threatened ten more miles with the casual warmth of someone offering tea.

Kevin stared at her for a long moment. The wind stirred the grass between them.

“You made me run fifteen miles at dawn and then asked me to stab you with a knife I don’t actually have.”

“That’s not a no.”

“That’s not a yes, either.”

The smile on Vivianne’s face didn’t break so much as it quietly resigned. She turned, walked three paces to the nearest training dummy, and slumped against it with a theatrical thump, sliding down until she sat on the grass like a discarded doll.

“What have you done to me, Cael…”

*** First Person POV

[Darkfire Step]

“I don’t know. Don’t ask me.”

I reappeared beside the dummy Vivianne had sat next to, catching her completely off guard. She jolted in shock, stumbled over her own feet, and hit the ground with a thoroughly ungraceful thud.

“C-Cael…!?” Vivianne yelped.

“Master!” Kevin called out as well.

“You two seem to be working hard…”

Vivianne scrambled to her feet, brushing grass and dirt off her training clothes with quick, flustered movements. Her face had gone slightly red, whether from embarrassment or something else, I couldn’t tell.

“How long were you watching?” she demanded.

“Long enough.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one you’re getting.”

Kevin was already walking toward me, his exhaustion seemingly forgotten. His eyes scanned me up and down with the kind of intensity that meant he was looking for injuries or signs of trouble.

“You’re back early,” he said. “Everything go alright?”

“Define ’alright.’”

His expression darkened. “That bad?”

“Marcellus and I walked into a den of inquisitors, fought a High Inquisitor, tortured him for information, and found out the church is planning to kill tens of millions of people in three weeks.”

Vivianne’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

“…You’re joking.”

“I don’t joke about mass murder, Vivianne.”

The garden felt suddenly colder. The morning light that had seemed so gentle moments ago now looked pale and thin, like it might give out at any moment.

Then…

“I don’t know, that seems like something you’ll joke about…” She said.

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