CHAPTER 11
“Again,” Gwinifer ordered as she circled me.
She’d spent the past half hour instructing me in techniques that required little movement, only the adjustment of stance and balance. I hadn’t expected her to be patient, yet sparring seemed to be one of the few things Gwinifer took completely seriously.
She guided me without striking, only feigning the movements and correcting my clumsy positions. I found myself utterly absorbed, barely noticing time slip past. It seemed a useful skill to learn, something that might one day help me if I committed to practising as she so clearly did.
She asked me to remove my ring, but after one assessing glance at my cotton sweater and worn denim, she decided they would suffice for now.
For the first time, I understood why Gwinifer always wore that scarf. Narrow, slit-like openings marked her neck, resembling the gills of a fish. She’d hidden them flawlessly until now, but with her scarf removed and her shoulders drawn back, I caught a fleeting glimpse of them.
I didn’t stare for too long, hoping she hadn’t noticed and wondering if they made her uncomfortable, given how carefully she concealed those features.
“Your feet aren’t wide enough. Lead with your left foot and rotate your body,” she said.
I drew in a steady breath and swung again, aiming for her chin just as we had been practising. In a heartbeat, she blocked my hand and twisted it sharply, her elbow snapping up beneath my jaw, and I stumbled back, letting out a sharp grunt as the impact reverberated through my face.
“I thought you wouldn’t hit me,” I said, cupping my jaw.
She gave a lazy shrug. “Consider it motivation for next time.” Gwinifer ran her hands along the length of her black sleeves. “I’m growing cold again since I barely have to move to block you.”
My teeth still throbbed from the way they had rattled.
“Take a break,” she said, already turning away. “And maybe wear something lighter next time. That sweater is slowing you down.”
I cursed under my breath, heading toward the bench and grabbing a water bottle from the floor.
“Put your hair in a bun next time,” Gwinifer added. “It’ll stop it from getting in your face, especially when we get to defence moves.”
“Anything else?” I asked sardonically.
Her eyes swept over me. “You could use some cardio. You’re already winded, and we’ve barely warmed up.”
“Noted. Does this mean you’re actually going to teach me?”
She glanced at Reagan, who had been silently observing us the whole time with an unreadable expression. He gave a casual shrug. Gwinifer’s gaze returned to me.
“I will,” she said, though she didn’t look as annoyed as she wanted me to believe. “But don’t expect me to indulge you whenever the mood strikes. If you want to learn, you’ll commit. No half-hearted effort. No excuses.”
“I want to learn,” I said, meaning it.
“Good.” She straightened. “Every morning at seven. Starting tomorrow. Don’t be late.”
“Wait, we’re done for today?”
“I have a patrol to get to,” she replied flatly, already turning toward the door. “That’s why we start early. Until tomorrow, Red. See you later, Your Highness.”
Reagan’s eyes flicked upward, briefly annoyed, then landed back on me. “I’m surprised you agreed to this. More fun than you thought?”
It wasn’t that. I just didn’t know what to do with myself. Should I have reminded him that my presence here wasn’t voluntary?
I wiped the sweat from my brow. “Maybe I just want to be able to punch you if I have to.”
His lips twitched. “I’d be worried, but you’d be better off with the bread knife.”
Heat flushed my cheeks, but I tried to pay him no mind and instead recalled our last conversation. The grief in his expression had vanished, or at least was carefully concealed.
“I was thinking earlier that I need to give you access to the study,” he said. No mocking edge this time.
I stared up in confusion. “Do I need a key?”
“Not a key. The study is hidden, and you need to summon the entrance, remember? The one you said was curious.”
Both times I had been there, I was with him, and it didn’t occur to me how I would get in if I went alone.
I stood from my seat, ignoring his hand, and followed him towards the door.
“Here will do,” he said, stopping in front of a plain wall. “You have to kiss the wall and repeat the phrase ‘let me in’ three times.”
I glanced between him and the stone, frowning. “Really?”
“If I said yes, would you do it?” Reagan challenged.
I bristled, and the bastard’s eyes gleamed with amusement.
“Just put your hand on the wall, Darling,” he said, his lazy tone crawling under my skin.
“Call me Jane,” I said, and did as he bade.
Reagan stepped closer, settling his hand over mine, his voice dropping to a baiting murmur. “Does it bother you when I call you Darling?”
His breath ghosted against my ear. I didn’t turn, nor did I recoil. He liked to toy with people, or perhaps just with humans. He certainly seemed to have an opinion about us.
“It truly doesn’t matter to me,” I said.
Silence. The hard surface beneath our hands rippled, the way a tiny stone would break the stillness of water. Gentle waves flowed outward, grazing my palm, analysing it. A soft glow traced Reagan’s knuckles, following the lines in his veins and spilling into mine.
“It’s done. Now it recognises you and will let you in,” he said, removing his hand and stepping away.
“Don’t I need powers like yours to summon the door?” I asked.
“You don’t need it. The Hall does that for you.” Reagan sighed. “I need to go.”
I turned to him, feeling a certain urge to pry. “Problem?”
He arched a brow, glancing at me over his shoulder as he stepped toward the exit. “No, everything’s perfect,” he said, too lightly. As the door swung open, the clatter of shoes and murmured chatter drifted in. “Cerridwen and I have some planning to do for the Rite.”
“What is this Rite?”
“The Aurora Rite. It’s a celebration in Mountheim where we return mana to nature. Many of my people come to the Hall. There’s music, food, some blissful ale, and a traditional ritual.”
“Return what?”
He laughed through his nose. “Mana is the power source for the mageborn. It’s what lets us cast charms. It’s how we can fling and how we can enchant a long list of things.
” He gestured with his chin to the wall, as if referencing what he’d just done.
“We have to replenish it from time to time because it is a limited resource that comes from nature. The Rite is a celebration for the source, where we honour it and give back some of our energy so we can continue to draw it in the future.”
“A limited source. Is that why you looked so tired after that day . . . with the Strzygas?”
“Yes,” he said glumly. “Unfortunately, wielding lightning takes too much out of me now.”
Now that he’s weaker because of the sentence.
I made a thoughtful hum. “And how do you get your mana back?”
“It replenishes as we rest. It’s the most common way.” Reagan’s eyes narrowed as he looked me over. It was hard to tell what he was thinking. “You seem very curious about this topic. It’s . . . entrancing, but it makes me wonder.”
Shouldn’t I be asking questions? He didn’t seem angry, but there was something there.
“I’m a curious person,” I said, echoing what he’d said to me once. “This celebration. Am I invited to it?”
Reagan paused, then gave a small shrug. “Why not?”
◆◆◆
“I don’t understand how it works.”
I stood by the dining-room window, watching Finnegan lean over what looked like a map of the country. The emissary had barely finished his breakfast when I pressed him for answers.
“The hidden study?” he asked, glancing up at me without removing his hands from the map.
“How can the castle summon the study for me? How can a room even vanish?”
“The Hall is imbued with power drawn from many people,” Finn explained. “Reagan’s, Cerridwen’s, mine. Glamouring a room is no different from charming a relic.”
“A relic?” I repeated, my eyebrow lifting.
He straightened from the table to face me, a faint twitch ghosting along his lips.
“I forget you are new to all of this. A relic is an artefact that stores its own power. We wear them like ordinary accessories. Anyone can use one, even someone who cannot draw from a source. The Hall works in much the same way.”
I paced around the wooden table, slow and thoughtful. “What do people do with them?”
“Many things. Warding people and places, tracking, protection, portals.”
“Portals?” I spun on my heel.
Finn offered a lazy smile. “There are books that explain all of this in painstaking detail, you know.”
Well, if that was not a dismissal. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be bothering you.”
“You’re not.” His voice turned warm and teasing. “And I know I am far more entertaining than any book, but you do have time to read.”
“Right.”
Though he indulged me, I let Finnegan return his attention to the map. My gaze drifted to the window, to the clouded sky above the snow-dusted pines.
If relics could be used by someone without powers, they might serve me well. Especially a protection relic. I’d received too many warnings to ignore them. This could be the one sensible precaution while I remained here.
Tugging absently at the sleeve of my sweater, my eyes lowered to the faint circular lines of my sentence mark. It no longer seemed to reach my elbow.
Was it fading?
“Jane,” Finnegan said, his voice tinged with amusement. “You look like you’re studying a puzzle. Forget the books. Ask your questions. Give me a distraction until Cerridwen comes.”
“You will regret that. I have too many questions.” I stepped closer and took the seat beside him. “But perhaps just one. Do sentence marks fade over time?”
“Yes. They fade until you have served your time and no longer have to stare at them.”
I traced the diminishing lines with a finger and, without meaning to, wondered how long Reagan’s sentence might be. I remembered glimpses of his forearms, but I had never seen marks on them.
Before I could catch myself, my gaze lifted to Finn’s pointed ears. He noticed, sweeping a hand through his hair and letting a few strands fall over the tips. I looked away, though he kept that lazy smile.
“I was talking to him,” I ventured. “Reagan. He told me how . . . it happened.”
Finn hummed, his eyes gleaming as if trying to read the direction of my thoughts.
“It is not a secret,” he said.
“Yes. Well . . .” I hesitated. “I did not ask him, because it is none of my business, but after what happened in that forest and all the warnings I keep receiving, I wondered . . . what took his parents?”
His expression changed at once. The relaxed lines tightened and turned sombre. Too late, I realised the subject was a delicate one for him as well.
“I am sorry. I should not have asked.”
“No,” he breathed out quietly. “Elinor and Thomas died because someone used a very dark power. Someone who, unfortunately, escaped. It was an ambush by Wraiths.”
My fingers curled around the armrests. “The . . . monsters?”
“Yes, but Wraiths were just pawns in someone’s conspiracy against this estate.
They were not usually this close, not in those days.
I didn’t see the ambush myself, but the group was strong and calculated.
This is what happens when someone feeds a Wraith and grants it enough power to drain a person dry. ”
“So someone else is responsible?” My chest tightened.
Finn nodded.
“And Reagan never found them?”
“He searched for years and left Mountheim more times than I can count. But eventually the trail went cold, and they slipped away.” He released a long, weary sigh.
“What happened to his parents afterwards?”
His mouth thinned to a hard line. Every muscle in his face locked, a far cry from the ease he had carried only moments ago.
“The touch of a Wraith is a cursed thing. They would have become creatures of the same kind, drained until nothing remained. Reagan didn’t let that happen.
He ended their existence to set their souls free, so they could meet Zara and Godric.
It’s one of the very few times that a hex can be sanctioned. ”
A cold hollowness swept through me.
Did that mean he’d killed his own parents? I could not bring myself to ask outright. My thoughts stumbled to my own father, and I recoiled from the imagined horror of such a choice.
“Did you know them well?” I asked. “His parents.”
“I have known Elinor and Thomas since I was eleven. Elinor was like a mother to me. She scolded Reagan and me the same way whenever we snuck into the Northern Forest to hunt the creatures there. We used to compete to see who could kill more, and she would be furious for days.”
I gasped. “You hunted them for fun?”
Relief threaded through my voice. He had changed the subject deliberately.
“We were clearly idiots.”
Surprisingly, I found myself chuckling.
There was such dry fondness in his tone that he sounded almost . . . relatable.
I offered Finn a tight smile. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
His expression flickered, lips curving in a controlled way. “It happened long ago.”
Still, I thought I could see the sorrow and grief beneath all that charm, though I didn’t need to draw it out of him.
“Hm, I actually forgot to thank you for covering for me at the Capital,” I said. “I should have said it sooner. I still don’t know how you managed it.”
He dismissed it easily, as though helping a stranger came naturally to him. “Don’t lose sleep over it,” was all Finn said.