The Cursed Extra-Chapter 82: [2.30] The Accidental Decapitation
"The best pranks look like accidents. The best accidents look like fate. The best schemes look like bad luck happening to stupid people."
***
I turned, letting surprise and hurt cross my features, to see Vance Thorne approaching with his usual entourage of two sycophantic followers trailing behind him like particularly loyal dogs.
His golden hair caught the morning light like he’d stepped out of a portrait commissioned by a family that wanted to present its heirs in the most flattering possible manner. His expensive training gear was polished to the kind of gleaming perfection that spoke of servants who knew their jobs depended on maintaining it.
"Perhaps you should abandon the sword entirely and try needlework instead, Leone." His voice was pitched to carry across the yard. Maximum audience. Maximum humiliation. "I hear embroidery requires far less... physical coordination."
His followers laughed right on cue. Like trained seals performing for fish. Their amusement was perhaps a touch too enthusiastic to be entirely genuine.
I let my face crumple into an expression of wounded embarrassment. Eyes dropped to the ground. Grip on the practice sword growing even more uncertain.
"I’m just trying to get better," I stammered. "Professor Blackthorne always says that practice makes—"
"Practice makes adequate." Vance interrupted smoothly. His smile was sharp as a knife. "And I’m afraid some people will never achieve even that modest standard. It’s simply a matter of natural ability, Leone. Some families have it." His smile widened, showing teeth. "Others clearly do not."
He gestured toward the training dummy I stood beside.
"You’re currently using my training station. I’m going to have to ask you to find somewhere else to embarrass yourself."
I blinked at him. Let confusion cloud my features.
"Your... your station?"
"This dummy." He spoke with exaggerated patience, as if explaining something to a particularly slow child. "I have been training at this specific position since the term began. Surely even you can understand the concept of precedence. Some of us take our development seriously enough to require consistency in our practice environment."
His lackeys nodded with sage wisdom. As if he’d just uttered something profound enough to be inscribed on the academy’s walls. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖
I glanced around the training yard. Carefully noted our audience through lowered lashes while maintaining my posture of nervous submission.
Several students from other Houses had paused their own practice to watch.
More importantly, Rhys Blackwood stood near the eastern fence line. His father’s spear held in a ready defensive position as he observed our exchange with those sharp green eyes.
His expression held a complex mixture of sympathy and wariness. The look of someone who recognized my position because he’d been there himself more than once.
His jaw was tight. His grip on his spear had shifted subtly. Fingers adjusting to what looked like a combat grip rather than a simple training hold.
Perfect. An audience with exactly the right witness in exactly the right emotional state.
This couldn’t have played out better if I’d written the script myself.
Which, in a sense, I had.
"I’m so sorry," I said, immediately stepping back from the dummy with an apologetic bow. "I honestly didn’t know it was yours. I’ll just find another—"
My heel found the divot in the packed earth.
The one that definitely hadn’t existed yesterday. The one that Lyra had so carefully prepared during her pre-dawn preparations for exactly this moment. Barely an inch deep. Invisible unless you knew where to look.
My arms windmilled wildly through the air. My body lurched backward with the uncoordinated flailing of someone who had never developed proper physical control.
The wooden practice sword slipped from my grip at exactly the right moment. Spinning end over end through the air in a lazy arc that seemed to hang against the morning sky for an impossible instant.
Before connecting with the dummy’s neck with a sickening crack that echoed across the suddenly silent training yard.
The dummy’s head tilted at a grotesque angle. Held to its body by only a few stubborn strands of canvas and straw that groaned under the strain.
Dead silence descended like a curtain.
"Oh no," I whispered. Let genuine horror color my voice as I stared at the damage. "Oh no, oh no, oh no..."
My hands came up to cover my mouth.
Vance’s face underwent a fascinating transformation. Several shades of red and purple that would have been comical if I’d allowed myself to react with anything other than abject terror.
"You... you broke my training dummy."
The words came out strangled. Disbelieving.
"I didn’t mean to!" The words tumbled out in a panicked rush. My voice climbed toward registers that would have embarrassed me in my previous life. "It was a complete accident! My foot caught on something and the sword just slipped and I didn’t even know it would—"
"You incompetent fool!" Vance’s voice climbed toward a shout. His carefully cultivated composure cracked like ice on a warming pond. "Do you have any comprehension of how long it takes to properly condition a practice target? The hours of work required to break in a new dummy? I had finally gotten this one to the perfect firmness for my combination strikes!"
I scrambled toward the damaged dummy like I might somehow undo the catastrophe through sheer desperate will. My hands reached uselessly toward the dangling head.
"Maybe I can fix it? I could run and get some twine? Or perhaps some binding wire from the equipment shed? I could pay for it myself—"
The dummy’s head chose that moment to separate entirely from its body.
The last few strands of canvas gave way with a soft tearing sound that seemed impossibly loud in the frozen stillness.
The stuffed canvas sphere tumbled to the ground. Rolled a few feet with the lazy indifference of an object that had no understanding of the drama surrounding its detachment.
Came to rest at Vance’s polished boots.
It stared up at him with its painted-on eyes. Its expression of stitched surprise seemed almost mocking.
The silence that followed was so complete I could hear my own heartbeat.
Somewhere in the distance, someone coughed. A nervous, involuntary sound that was immediately stifled. A bird chirped from the branches of the old oak. The morning breeze rustled through the leaves with a sound like quiet laughter.
"I’m dead," I moaned, actually dropping to my knees on the packed earth. Dust rose around me. "I’m completely dead. My father’s going to absolutely kill me when he hears about this. These training dummies are probably expensive, aren’t they? Academy equipment always costs more because of the enchantments and quality standards. What if the academy decides to charge my family for damages? We can barely afford—"
I cut myself off. As if realizing I’d said too much. Revealed too much of House Leone’s precarious financial situation to an audience that had no business knowing such things.
My mouth snapped shut with an audible click. My eyes widened in a fresh wave of horror at this secondary catastrophe.
Several students exchanged glances at my slip. Whispers began to spread through the crowd like fire through dry grass.
Good. Let them talk. Let them spread the story. Every whisper reinforces my mask. Builds another layer of protection around my true nature.
Vance looked genuinely torn between his desire to wrap his hands around my throat and his equally strong impulse to simply walk away from this entire embarrassing situation.
His face cycled through several expressions. Rage. Disgust. Something that might have been pity if it hadn’t been so thoroughly contaminated by contempt.
Finally he settled on cold dismissal.
"Just... just get out of my sight." Each word was forced out through gritted teeth. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. "Before you somehow manage to break something else with your mere presence."
I gathered up my dropped sword with shaking hands. A touch I was particularly proud of, the way my fingers fumbled at the worn leather grip.
Shot one last anguished, guilt-stricken look at the now-headless training dummy.
And fled the yard with my shoulders hunched and my head down in the posture of complete and utter defeat.
My feet carried me quickly across the packed earth. Past the watching students who parted before me like water around a particularly unpleasant stone. Through the gate that led back toward the main academy buildings.
Behind me, Vance’s voice rose as he began explaining to anyone within earshot exactly why commoners and talentless failures like me shouldn’t be permitted anywhere near proper training equipment.
"This is exactly the kind of thing I’ve been saying all along. Standards exist for a reason. When you let just anyone access facilities designed for serious students—"
The rest of his monologue faded into indistinct noise as distance swallowed his words.
Hook, line, and sinker.
Just like I’d predicted.
