Chapter 24
Jane
“Come with me. We’re not training here today,” Gwin announced by way of greeting.
Joy and I hesitated before following her out of the training room.
“Where are we going? We always practise there,” I said, my gaze lingering on her long sleeves and the tight shirt that looked warmer than usual.
She stopped beside a door and lifted two folded sets of clothes, holding them up for us. “Outside. You’ll put these on. They’ll protect you from the elements.”
I raised a brow.
“Time to train with the grown-ups,” Gwin said, settling her weight onto one hip. “Like I’ve been doing with Red. And now you, snowflake. Let’s hope you’re not as hopeless as your sister.”
It caught me off guard. I had only just agreed to return to practice with her. I’d hoped it would help distract me from the thoughts and feelings that wanted to cleave my chest in two.
“Is this really the best idea?” I asked. “Training with experienced fighters, people who can actually wield?”
“I’m not doing you any favours letting you train separately,” Gwin replied, tilting her chin toward the room behind us. “Go change.”
Joy would hate this. I took the clothes anyway, if only because arguing would get us nowhere. We changed into the garments she had given us, sturdy and snug, light enough to move freely, before following her deeper across the Hall’s grounds.
Wan morning light filtered down as we left the castle, slipping through one of the back exits and heading toward a stretch of land crowded with pines. Soon, the familiar shape of the Hall vanished behind us.
Joy glanced around cagily, as though she half expected an ambush.
When the trees finally parted, I lifted my brows, stunned by what I saw. A mountain loomed in the distance, its base wrapped in pine, jagged rock climbing toward a snow-capped summit.
Yet it was the clearing beneath it that held my attention. From conversations I’d overheard about security, I recognised the long building lining one side as their barracks. Three floors of weathered brick and wooden doors, likely housing dormitories and communal spaces for patrollers like Gwin.
They filled the grounds, sparring, shouting commands and flinging in and out of sight.
“Welcome to battle mage training,” Gwin said, pride threading through her voice.
I’d heard there were several stations like this outpost scattered throughout Mountheim.
Joy stilled as she took it all in, and I did the same, drinking in every detail of the site in front of us. Until my gaze snagged on someone.
He stood at the centre of it all, dressed only in sturdy brown trousers and boots, locked in the midst of a sparring match. It was impossible to miss him, especially with the loose ring of onlookers that had formed to watch.
Gwin sighed, folding her arms. “He’s not here often, but when he shows up, he enjoys flaunting himself.”
“Will we have to fight like that?” Joy asked, reluctance and worry warring in her words.
“No, not like that. That looks like lazy work to me,” Gwin replied. “Come on. I want to introduce you.”
Curious glances followed us as we made our way deeper into the site. The sound of bodies colliding and conversation surrounded us.
“I want to introduce you to Astrid, one of our most talented patrollers,” Gwin said as we neared a woman with brown hair braided down her back. “Astrid, meet the Darling sisters.”
Astrid detached herself from a group and approached us, hands clasped behind her back. “Welcome,” she said evenly, her eyes flicking to my side. “Do both of you go by Darling?”
“Call me Jane,” I said, noticing her stance, the deliberate placement of her feet.
“Joy,” my sister offered, her brow creased as her attention drifted back toward the surrounding matches.
I followed her gaze, but mine lingered on a sparring pair, one pinned atop the other, a sinewed arm braced against a throat.
Reagan straightened, extending a hand to the man who had been beneath him a moment earlier. The movement flexed the lines of his bare back, muscle rippling as he hauled the other to his feet.
It had been almost a week since I’d last seen him. He hadn’t been at any of the meals in the past few days.
Seeing him now was no easier than it had been the last time, when he’d left the balcony promising to find a solution and come for me once he had it, despite what I had said.
I hadn’t even tried to sound convincing.
I wanted him to know I wouldn’t hold him to anything, especially Ladyship. He had looked anything but relieved.
And now, he didn’t look my way, his eyes trained on the man he’d just fought. Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew that I was there.
“I hear this is your first training,” Astrid said to Joy, pulling my attention back to her.
“I don’t understand why we’d need this,” Joy said, loose strands of blonde hair slipping free of her braid and catching in the wind.
“You don’t need it,” Gwin answered her. “But you’ll love it when it helps you control your own power. And I wager you’ll be better than your sister, which, frankly, wouldn’t be difficult.”
I met her wry gaze, willing to let it distract me. “And think of it this way,” I said, turning to my sister, “you’ll have an excuse to hit Gwinifer when she gets on your nerves.”
Gwinifer smirked.
“Actually,” Astrid said, “Joy will train with me. But if the idea helps you, I don’t mind.”
Joy’s chest rose in a bracing breath, but she followed the battle mage.
Gwin led me to a spot set slightly apart from the building, closer to the fighters already engaged.
The warmup she began was the same from previous sessions, and we slipped into a familiar routine.
To my disappointment, my form had clearly regressed, and I couldn’t have been less focused.
Time and again, my attention drifted to Joy. Exercises like this, with so much contact, were uncomfortable for her, but Astrid never touched her. She guided with words, demonstrating positions herself and watching as Joy replicated them.
I wondered if Gwin had warned her before this practice, just as she settled at my side.
“Astrid’s one of the quickest learners I’ve ever seen,” Gwin said, following my line of sight. “She wasn’t comfortable either, in the beginning. Started with one person to practise. Then two. Then more. Now she’ll take on anyone. Her form’s impeccable.”
The battle mage murmured something to Joy, her expression impassive, never quite meeting her eyes. It wasn’t the cautious hesitation of someone unsure what to expect. She instructed at the same distance Joy kept herself, as if this was natural to her. As if she, too, preferred it that way.
“So you understand Joy,” I murmured.
“I do. And so does Astrid. They’ll benefit from each other.” Gwinifer tilted her head, her eyes narrowing briefly as she studied Joy. “Does your sister like women?”
I snorted, arching a brow. “Why do you want to know?”
Gwin’s mouth curved, her gaze flicking from Astrid back to me. “I’m not asking for myself.”
Understanding flared in me. I’d been assuming Gwin was still in love with the human woman she had visited when we first met. Yet with that single look toward Astrid, I realised she might have moved on long ago.
Gwin was not the sort to share personal matters easily, just as her familiar suggested. Now that she had, I couldn’t help but feel glad for her. The long looks she cast toward Joy seemed less like judgement and more like recognition.
“Not that she’s ever told me,” I said. “I think her type is more like Finn, even though Finn himself seems to annoy her.”
“Why is that, by the way?” Gwin asked.
I gave a deadpan look. “Because of the draught, obviously. She feels like she cannot trust him. That he drugged her.” Gwinifer chuckled. “I told her I was the one who asked him to do it, but she still blames him.”
She nodded, arms folded over her chest. Her attention locked on movement near the edge of the field.
A group of patrollers cut through the grass, their gait brisk and their expressions tight. They headed straight for Reagan.
Around us, conversations almost completely ceased. Even the clang of sparring dulled until only the wind made sound before the barracks.
A dark-haired woman in leathers stopped beside Reagan and the one I recognized as Heil, speaking close to their ears, three battle mages waiting behind her. Both captain and lord stood still, listening. Then the five of them turned toward the Hall.
“Something’s wrong,” Gwin said, already moving.
I followed, glancing back once at Joy and Astrid, both distracted now by the stir around them. Others fell in behind us, murmurs trailing as clouds slid across the sun, draining the light to a dull grey.
By the time we reached the line of pines, a young man with a neat brown beard matched pace with Gwin.
“What did you hear?” she asked. Shadows from the trees streaked her face in bruised shades of brown and grey.
“Someone left a message,” he replied. “No one saw who placed it.”
“What kind?” Gwin pressed.
He shook his head. “All I know is they found it by the gate.”
“They’re heading there now,” I said, following the direction of the patrollers. “But they’re not running. It must not be urgent.”
The man blinked at me.
“Hi,” I added, because it felt like the normal thing to do. “I’m Jane.”
“Freddy,” he said, offering a tight nod, his eyes keen and assessing me for a moment.
We reached the surge of patrollers spilling through the iron gates and around a stone pillar. A flicker of pressure filled my ears as we passed the dampening wards.
Outside, pinewoods circled Mountheim Hall. To the left, the city was close enough for us to glimpse its outline.
Battle mages rounded in front of the gate, their ashen faces telling me it would be bad.
It was worse.
Bile rose at the back of my throat. Multiple people gasped.
I covered my mouth, like I could keep myself from retching. The stench was overwhelming, clinging to the air like rot sealed in a closed room.
I searched for Joy, feeling relieved when I didn’t find her among the others. Then I forced myself to look again.
“Oh gods,” I breathed.
Gwin’s face hardened, her eyes wide in shock.
A glimpse of red and dark hair marked Heil and Reagan at the front of the scene.
“Two of Heil’s found her,” another battle mage murmured to Gwin and Freddy. “They said she wasn’t there one moment, and the next she was.”
“It’s not only a message,” Gwin said quietly. “It’s a threat.”
High above us, suspended between two iron beams, hung a woman.
Her eyes were closed, as though she was sleeping.
Her red hair, streaked with something darker, clung to her face in wet strands.
Blood matted her skin, drying across her cheeks and bare chest like paint.
It dripped from her head, which had been stitched at the hairline with what appeared to be real rabbit ears.
It was a grotesque resemblance to the animal features that every citizen of this estate bore just months ago.
The wind picked up again, rattling the metal beams until they moaned.
Her burgundy cloak had been pulled wide behind her like a broken wing, its corners pierced onto the iron tips. Words were burned deeply into the fabric.
THE CURSED brEED STILL BLEEDS FOR THEIR SAVIOUR, LORD OF FILTH