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 himto 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.
