Three weeks changed everything.
Not his rank.
Not dramatically, anyway.
Keizeix had learned quickly that acquiring a humanoid torso did not magically grant him mastery over it.
For the first several days, every motion required thought.
Shoulder.
Elbow.
Wrist.
Grip.
Torso rotation.
Eight legs beneath all of it.
Shirespoke attacked those weaknesses relentlessly.
"Again."
Keizeix raised the training sword.
Shirespoke struck.
Keizeix blocked too high.
A second strike tapped his ribs.
"Dead."
"You're enjoying this."
"Again."
Keizeix reset.
Shirespoke attacked.
Keizeix stepped—
No.
Not stepped.
Shifted.
Two front legs adjusted.
One rear leg anchored.
His torso rotated.
The sword moved with it.
Block.
Shirespoke changed angle.
Keizeix caught the second strike too.
Then the third.
The fourth knocked his sword aside.
Shirespoke's blade stopped beside his neck.
"Dead."
Keizeix exhaled.
"Improvement."
"You're still dead."
"Improved death."
Shirespoke considered that.
"Again."
---
The first week was almost entirely body control.
Swordsmanship came second.
Shirespoke made him walk narrow stone paths.
Turn without crossing his legs.
Rotate his torso while keeping his lower body stable.
Reach behind himself without accidentally shifting six limbs in the same direction.
Catch objects with one hand.
Then the other.
Then switch between them while moving.
Keizeix hated nearly all of it.
Which meant Shirespoke kept doing it.
By the sixth day, Keizeix could sprint across the courtyard, rotate his upper body independently, catch a thrown wooden block, and continue moving without falling over.
By the seventh, Shirespoke started throwing two.
Keizeix caught the first.
Missed the second.
It struck his forehead.
"Why is everything aimed at my head?"
"Because your head keeps failing to move."
"Excellent teaching philosophy."
"Thank you."
---
During the second week, something started changing.
Not physically.
Mentally.
The sword stopped feeling completely foreign.
The first time it happened, Shirespoke attacked from Keizeix's right.
Keizeix didn't think.
His hands adjusted.
Blade centered.
His upper body relaxed.
Distance.
Timing.
Pressure.
Something ancient in his memory aligned.
Not ancient to this life.
Another life.
A wooden-floored dojo.
Bare feet.
Protective armor.
The smell of polished wood and sweat.
A shinai in his hands.
His father's voice once telling him not to chase the sword.
Control the distance.
Control the moment.
Keizeix's body moved.
Shirespoke's practice blade came forward.
Keizeix didn't retreat.
He shifted just enough.
The attack passed beside him.
His own sword snapped forward.
Shirespoke blocked.
But only barely.
Both stopped.
Keizeix blinked.
Shirespoke stared at him.
"What was that?"
Keizeix already knew better than to answer carelessly.
He looked at the sword.
"I don't know."
Shirespoke's eyes narrowed.
Keizeix added honestly, "The movement just felt right."
That answer didn't satisfy him.
But it was all Keizeix intended to give.
"Again."
This time Shirespoke attacked faster.
Keizeix lost badly.
But the feeling returned.
Distance.
Rhythm.
The invisible boundary between two fighters.
In another life he had known a word for it.
*Maai.*
He kept that word inside his own head.
Shirespoke attacked.
Keizeix adjusted.
Not like a spiderkin.
Not entirely.
His eight legs couldn't reproduce human footwork.
So he stopped trying.
Instead, he translated the principles.
One pair controlled forward pressure.
Another controlled retreat.
Rear legs anchored his center.
The others gave him rotational freedom no human swordsman could possess.
Kendo had taught him to manage distance with two feet.
Now he had eight.
The result became increasingly strange.
And increasingly effective.
---
By the tenth day, Shirespoke stopped smiling as often.
Not because Keizeix was doing poorly.
The opposite.
He watched more carefully.
Keizeix practiced the same cut hundreds of times.
No complaints.
No shortcuts.
Raise.
Cut.
Reset.
Raise.
Cut.
Reset.
His palms hardened.
His shoulders strengthened.
He learned not to fight his sword.
He learned that excessive force ruined control.
He learned that his spider body allowed him to maintain angles that would be awkward or impossible for a humanoid opponent.
Most importantly, he remembered discipline.
Not techniques exactly.
Fragments.
Ideas.
Center line.
Pressure.
Commitment.
Don't swing simply because you can.
Make the opponent move.
Make them reveal something.
Then attack.
Shirespoke tested him one afternoon.
No warning.
No instruction.
He simply entered the courtyard with a wooden sword and attacked.
Keizeix reacted.
Their blades struck.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Shirespoke increased speed.
Keizeix gave ground.
Not chaotically.
Deliberately.
Shirespoke pressed.
Keizeix retreated another half-body length.
Then stopped.
His rear legs anchored.
His torso remained loose.
Shirespoke's next strike came exactly where Keizeix expected.
Keizeix redirected it.
Turned.
Thrust.
Shirespoke shifted aside.
Keizeix's wooden sword passed within inches of his chest.
Silence.
Shirespoke stepped backward.
Keizeix lowered the blade.
"That was close."
Shirespoke didn't answer immediately.
He studied him.
"You've never used a sword before."
Keizeix kept his expression neutral.
"Not in this body."
Technically true.
Shirespoke continued staring.
Keizeix could almost hear the suspicion forming.
Finally Shirespoke asked, "Why do you understand distance?"
Keizeix considered the safest answer.
"Maybe I understand fighting."
That earned a snort.
"Cocky."
"You asked."
"I did."
Shirespoke circled him.
"Your hands are inexperienced. Your muscles make beginner mistakes. Your grip fails under pressure. Your shoulders still tighten before a committed strike."
Keizeix waited.
"But your judgment sometimes isn't beginner judgment."
Keizeix said nothing.
Shirespoke stopped directly in front of him.
Then smiled.
Not mockingly.
Proudly.
"I don't know where those instincts are coming from."
Keizeix remained still.
Shirespoke continued.
"But if you keep working like this..."
He tapped Keizeix's practice sword with his own.
"...you're a prodigy in the making."
Keizeix blinked.
That one landed harder than expected.
Shirespoke immediately ruined the moment.
"Don't look pleased."
"You just called me a prodigy."
"In the making."
"Still counts."
"Currently you're a talented idiot holding a sword."
"That's considerably less inspiring."
"Good."
---
The final week accelerated.
Keizeix became comfortable enough with his upper body that he stopped thinking about it every second.
His hands became useful outside combat too.
Eating became easier.
Opening doors became easier.
Writing became dramatically easier.
Everything about castle life suddenly made more sense.
He finally understood why Kaelor's evolutionary tradition had become so popular among the nobility.
Hands were incredible.
He could also now train for hours without losing his balance.
Shirespoke moved him from basic cuts into combinations.
Deflection.
Counter.
Thrust.
Rotation.
Recovery.
Keizeix's unusual lower body started becoming an advantage rather than a problem.
He could anchor himself against impacts.
Rotate without changing his primary position.
Shift sideways without turning his torso.
Attack while his lower body moved in another direction.
Shirespoke hated that last one.
Which made Keizeix practice it more.
On the nineteenth day, Shirespoke attacked him twelve times in rapid succession.
Keizeix blocked eight.
Avoided two.
Took one strike against the shoulder.
Then caught the final attack and countered.
Shirespoke stepped away before Keizeix's blade touched him.
"Better."
Keizeix lowered his sword.
"Only better?"
"Would you prefer terrible?"
"Prodigy was available."
"That was temporary."
Keizeix sighed.
Then a new voice came from the edge of the royal training courtyard.
"Don't give him too much credit."
Keizeix froze.
Shirespoke's mouth twitched.
The voice continued.
"It might make him even dumber than he already is."
Keizeix turned.
Sia stood beneath the archway.
Marike was beside her.
For perhaps the first time in his new life, Keizeix forgot to answer immediately.
Sia had evolved.
Her lower body remained unmistakably spiderkin, golden and silver armor flowing across the arachnid structure with the familiar white, crystal-like diamond marking gleaming across her thorax.
But above it now rose a humanoid torso.
And apparently evolution had decided subtlety was unnecessary.
Her features were almost unfairly refined.
Long silver-gold hair fell around her shoulders.
Her face was elegant without losing the sharp arrogance Keizeix knew far too well.
Her eyes still carried the same infuriating confidence.
She looked regal.
Dangerous.
And—
Keizeix's thoughts stalled.
Sia narrowed her eyes.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You were staring."
"I was evaluating."
Her expression darkened.
"Evaluating what?"
Keizeix recovered.
"Whether evolution improved your personality."
Shirespoke quietly looked away.
Marike covered a smile.
Sia's eyes narrowed further.
"And?"
"Failure."
Black-purple lightning crackled faintly around her.
Keizeix grinned.
There she was.
Sia moved into the courtyard.
Her new torso altered her movement the same way his had three weeks earlier, but she was already considerably steadier than he'd been on his first day.
Keizeix noticed that immediately.
"So."
Sia stopped several feet away.
"So."
"You finally caught up."
Her eye twitched.
"I reached the breakthrough nineteen days after you."
"You counted?"
"No."
Marike coughed.
Sia glanced at her.
Marike looked innocent.
Keizeix smiled.
"You counted."
"I was keeping track for training purposes."
"Of course."
She pointed toward his sword.
"I hear you've become insufferable."
"I was already insufferable."
"True."
For one small moment they simply looked at one another.
Something had changed.
Not enough to name.
Sia's expression softened almost imperceptibly.
Keizeix felt strangely pleased to see her.
That was irritating.
Sia seemed equally irritated by something.
Her gaze moved over him once.
Checking.
Arms.
Shoulders.
No obvious injuries.
Then she looked away far too quickly.
Marike noticed.
She wisely said nothing.
Shirespoke did not possess the same mercy.
"She asked how you were doing."
Sia's head snapped toward him.
"I asked whether he'd injured himself."
"Repeatedly," Marike said.
Sia looked offended.
"For training purposes."
Keizeix smiled.
"You missed me."
Lightning snapped.
"Say that again."
"You missed me."
Sia moved.
Keizeix raised his sword instinctively.
She stopped.
Looked at the weapon.
Then at him.
A slow smile appeared.
"Good."
Keizeix became suspicious.
"Good?"
Sia turned toward Marike.
"I want a sword."
Shirespoke laughed.
Keizeix stared at her.
"Oh no."
Sia looked back.
The familiar competitive fire had returned completely.
"You had three weeks."
Keizeix tightened his grip.
"You're starting from zero."
"So did you."
"Yes."
"And?"
Keizeix smiled.
"And I intend to enjoy every second of being better than you."
Sia smiled back.
"Enjoy it while you can."
Marike sighed.
Shirespoke looked delighted.
The training courtyard had become considerably louder again.
And Keizeix realized—
he'd missed that.