For four years, "Gilles" was nothing more than a shadow in the service of Sir Balduin. Being the squire of a fallen Questing Knight did not mean polishing medals; it meant dragging a ninety-kilo man out of taverns, cleaning vomit from his gorget, and sleeping in the damp straw beside his horse to protect it from thieves.
But Geneviève had a goal. She had realized that the strength of the nobles did not lie in their "blue blood," but in muscle memory and steel. So, she began to steal the only thing Balduin still had to offer: his art.
By day, Gilles' training was brutal and passive. Sir Balduin, in his rare moments of lucidity between binges, felt the need to "keep in shape." Having no one to duel with, he used his squire. He would give Gilles an old rotten wooden shield and a stick, then draw his blunted training arming sword. "Defend yourself, boy! Keep it up!" Balduin would yell, unloading blows that could have broken an arm. Geneviève learned to parry not for sport, but for survival. She learned that if she kept her feet flat, she fell. She learned that if she backed away in a straight line, she stumbled. Her body became covered in black and yellow bruises, a map of pain she hid beneath her tunic. But in those beatings, she developed her eye. She learned to read the knight's shoulder before the blow was launched. She learned to "slip" away from the blade rather than blocking it by force, compensating for her lack of mass with speed. Every bruise was a lesson carved into her flesh: here you were slow, here you lowered your guard.
The true transformation happened when the moon was high and Balduin's snoring filled the camp. While the knight slept the sleep of the just (or the drunk), Geneviève committed the supreme crime. She opened the greased leather scabbard and drew her master's war sword: a two-handed blade, heavy, balanced to kill orcs and armored men. For a peasant, merely touching such a weapon meant the cutting off of the hand. Wielding it meant hanging.
The first few nights, she could barely hold it horizontal. Her wrists trembled, her tendons burned like fire. She did not have the protein diet of a noble born to the role; she had muscles built on black bread and onions. But she persisted. She would retreat into the woods, far from the firelight. There, in total darkness, she mimicked what she had seen champions do in tournaments or Balduin in his moments of past glory. She repeated the movements in slow motion. High guard. Step, thrust. Ox Guard. Cutting blow. The weight of the steel stripped the skin from her palms, turning them into hard leather. At night, she fought against ghosts: the Orc that had killed her father, the arrogant knight who hadn't saved him. She learned to use the inertia of the heavy sword to compensate for her inferior strength, transforming her body into a deadly pendulum. It was not an elegant style. There were none of the flourishes of the fencing schools of Parravon. It was a dirty, silent style, born in the dark, made to kill quickly and return to the shadows.
Geneviève could not read the Book of Chivalry. But Sir Balduin, tormented by his failures, prayed aloud every evening before collapsing. He recited the litanies of the Lady of the Lake, the oaths of protection, honor, and courage that he had broken a thousand times. Gilles listened while polishing boots. While Balduin recited the words like a sentence, Geneviève absorbed them like a promise. She memorized the Chivalric Code word for word. But where the knight saw rigid rules for nobles, she saw a spiritual guide. "Defend the weak, for their breath is your honor." Balduin said it weeping. Geneviève repeated it mentally while gritting her teeth against the pain in her arms. She began to understand that the true power of a Knight came not from the sword, but from the absolute conviction that one's own life was expendable for a higher cause. She believed in the Lady not because she saw her in lakes, but because she had to believe that a justice existed superior to the rotten one of dukes and barons. That blind faith, combined with the stolen training, began to change something inside her. Her Aura began to manifest not as light, but as a steel resolve that even the horses felt, calming at her touch.
After four years, "Gilles" was no longer a girl in disguise. She was a weapon forged in secret, tempered by abuse, and sharpened by faith. She was only waiting for the hand of destiny to pick her up.