Chapter 3: Blood on Stone
The Academy bells tolled eight times. Each chime echoed like a war drum, rippling through the marble halls and into the cold, narrow corridors of the student towers. Outside, frost clung to the stones, painting the campus in a veil of pale breath.
Jean stood at the edge of the Ceremonial Circle, the place where students were once knighted before the custom was abandoned. The stones beneath her boots bore hundreds of names—ancient and recent—etched in golden veins across obsidian. Luther names stood among them, glowing faintly with celestial runes.
But her name was not there.
It never would be.
She did not kneel before the Circle.
She turned her back to it.
Her footsteps echoed alone.
---
In the Academy's departure wing, the administrators handed out sealed assignments to graduates. Cloaks were exchanged. Blades were blessed. Friends embraced. Most wept, others feigned pride. Jean waited without expression. She didn't expect goodbyes.
But someone waited for her.
A man stood by the archway, half-shrouded in a gray travel cloak. His hands were gloved, his posture like a blade barely sheathed. His face was shadowed beneath a wide hood, but she knew him. She'd known him since she was ten.
Ragnar Varin.
A loyal retainer of her family.
Or rather, a watcher.
"Jean," he said, voice low, respectful—but not warm.
"Ragnar." She didn't stop walking. He fell into step beside her.
"You weren't supposed to finish top of your class."
"You're not supposed to follow me."
He smirked. "The Clan sent me to ensure you don't forget your place."
She stopped at the edge of the archway, where the road sloped down from the Academy into the waiting wilds below.
"I haven't forgotten anything," she said. "Especially not what they did to my mother."
Ragnar's smile faded.
"She was the Consort of the Patriarch," he said. "Not his wife. The line of succession—"
"Don't speak about bloodlines to me," she snapped, quiet but lethal.
He studied her, then slowly bowed. Not out of respect, but duty. "You're to represent House Luther now. Whatever that mark on your palm is, the elders demand it be hidden. You're not to speak of visions. Or gods. Or 'divine light.'"
Jean lifted her hand.
The sigil glowed softly beneath a wrap of silken gauze.
"I'll speak when I need to," she said. "And not before."
Ragnar stepped aside. "The Shattered Marches are unstable. Bandits, cults, and something worse. You'll need to survive. Do that, and they might finally look your way."
Jean walked past him without a word.
She didn't need them to look her way.
She needed them to regret not looking sooner.
---
Outside the gates, the wind was sharp, dry, and cruel. The world beyond the Academy was vast and unforgiving—forests like black webs, rivers choked with ancient bones, and ruins that whispered to travelers who dared sleep near them.
Jean adjusted her pack, slung her saber across her back, and stepped into the wilderness.
Her assignment was clear:
Suppress a rebellion in a ruined province known as Lethrendale.
Bring order. Kill no more than necessary. Return with proof of loyalty.
A test of command.
A test of control.
It would be easier if she didn't know what really waited there.
At dusk, as the stars blinked into existence, Jean made camp beneath an old stone bridge over a dry riverbed. She built no fire. Ate little. Slept even less.
Something had started following her by the second night.
Pale eyes in the brush. A scent like snow and ash. The softest of growls when she dreamed.
On the third night, it came.
Not with teeth bared or claws drawn, but with purpose.
A great wolf, tall as a horse at the shoulder, with fur of silver and frost. Its eyes glowed blue with age and light. Its presence banished the wind itself.
Whitney.
The divine guardian. Her divine guardian.
Jean rose slowly from her bedroll, her saber already in hand. But she didn't draw it. She met the wolf's eyes.
"You're late," she whispered.
The wolf blinked once.
Then spoke—not aloud, but into her thoughts.
"And you're early. But we're here now, aren't we?"
Jean smiled.
The road ahead was long.
But she would not walk it alone.
---