by Aiken G. A.
“I know you won’t understand,” Beatrix calmly explained. “It wasn’t supposed to be you. Not once Gemma showed up. I was so glad when she came home. The timing was perfect. Then that idiot Delora . . . she just ruined it all and I had no choice. But for me to get what I want, it had to be done.”
Keeley clung to the hope that this was just an accident, that her sister had stabbed her accidentally. Perhaps she’d just meant to threaten her with that blade and she’d stumbled or panicked.
But, as if to prove her wrong, as if to make sure Keeley understood exactly what was happening, Beatrix didn’t release the weapon. No. Instead, she pulled it across Keeley’s belly, attempting to disembowel her. If she was as strong as Mum or Gemma, Keeley’s guts would be pouring out onto the floor.
Keeley, however, was able to wrap her hands around the wound, keeping everything inside her body as she slid against the wall and down to the floor.
Beatrix tucked her blood-covered hand back into her fur muff and gave Keeley another one of those small, sweet smiles.
“I am sorry,” she said again, but Keeley didn’t really think she was. Because there was no sorrow in her face. No pain in her eyes. Actually . . . there was nothing in those eyes. And Keeley finally understood, there had never been anything in those eyes. All these years she’d been searching for a sign of . . . something. When she didn’t find it, she simply assumed she wasn’t looking the right way. But now she knew. There was nothing there. Nothing.
Sitting on the floor, Keeley watched her younger sister, whom she’d always protected, always cared for, calmly exit the chamber. She headed back toward the throne room, leaving Keeley and the rest of her early life behind.
CHAPTER 11
Caid had just pushed his sister’s broken nose back into place when he sensed something was wrong. It was the prey animal that lived deep in his soul; always restless, always anxious. Always knowing when danger was close by.
He released his sister and walked into the passageway. He saw Beatrix’s fur cape disappear around a corner, which meant she was not heading back to the throne room. He began to follow her. Protecting her was still his job until they got her onto her throne, but something . . .
“What’s wrong?” Laila asked as she rushed to his side, her eyes tearing from the pain he’d caused fixing her nose.
He didn’t answer his sister. His sense of dread was so overwhelming, he couldn’t. Instead, he simply turned toward the chamber he’d seen Keeley and Beatrix in.
“What’s wrong?” his sister asked again.
Caid ignored her, walking past her to the chamber entrance. Keeley was on the floor, her back against the wall, her legs bent at the knees, her hands covering her stomach, and a pool of blood leaking out around her.
She looked up at him with those dark eyes. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.
“Laila!” he cried out, now running to Keeley’s side and landing on his knees next to her hip.
“By the gods,” his sister gasped behind him. She crouched on Keeley’s other side, moved the blacksmith’s knees, and they both froze at the sight of the knife handle sticking out of her stomach and the blood that poured over her hands. “I’ll get help,” Laila said before she ran off yelling for assistance of the witches.
Caid was afraid to touch Keeley. Afraid to take out the knife. Afraid it would kill her instantly. For once, he didn’t know what to do.
A few seconds after his sister had run out, her voice still demanding help, Gemma ran into the chamber with Keran right behind her.
“Holy fuck,” Keran barked out. “What the fuck happened?”
Caid shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Where’s Beatrix? Caid!” He looked at Gemma. “Where is Beatrix?”
“I don’t know,” he said again. “I saw her leave, I think.”
“Was she being dragged? Was someone with her?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
Gemma gazed into his eyes but before she could ask anything else, the witches rushed into the chamber and pushed Caid and the others away so they had access to Keeley.
As Caid went to get up, Keeley’s blood-covered hand grasped his and he saw the panic in her eyes; watched tears slide down her face and into her hair.
“Centaur, move!” a witch ordered him. “Move!”
Their hands were pulled apart and Caid was pushed across the room by firm, confident hands.
“Please, my lord centaur, let us care for her.”
Laila took him by the arm, dragged him into the passageway. Gemma came out a few moments later, rushing past the witches hurrying in.
“Samuel!” she called out, motioning to her squire.
“What’s happened?” the boy asked, confused by all the witches moving in a panic. He seemed to be spinning in circles as he came down the passageway, trying to see why all the witches were running around him. “Keeley’s horse was going mad in the throne room and then she just took off! Now everyone is running. But no one will tell me anything.”
When he was close enough to hear her without screaming, Gemma ordered, “Find Beatrix.”
“What? She’s with you, isn’t she?” His eyes widened. “Gods, was she kidnapped?”
“I don’t know. Just find her.” Samuel started to go, but Gemma pulled him back. “If she’s alone when you find her . . . follow her. Don’t let her see you, though. Stay in the shadows.”
“I don’t understand. Why would she be alone? Why would you want me to—” He glanced into the chamber. It took him a moment, but when he realized that it was Keeley on the floor, bleeding, he started to run toward her. But Gemma quickly pulled him back.
“Go! Find Beatrix. She went—” Gemma looked at Caid over her shoulder.
He pointed toward the passage where he’d seen her cape disappear.
“And bring her back, yes?” Samuel asked.
“No. Just find out where she’s going if she’s alone.”
“If she’s alone—”
“Go, Samuel! Please.”
The boy ran and Keran called to Gemma. “We’re moving her!”
Caid pulled away from his sister and stalked back into the chamber.
“I’ll take her,” he said, crouching down beside Keeley.
“Someone should hold her legs,” a witch said. “We’re taking her to the healing chamber.”
Laila held Keeley’s legs and nodded at Caid.
Together, brother and sister lifted the blacksmith and followed the witches deeper into the mountainside.
* * *
After about ten minutes, the passageway Beatrix had taken split into two opposite directions and Samuel had no idea which way to go. He did not want to return to Gemma and tell her he’d lost her sister. Especially if she’d been taken by the Devourer or one of his minions.
As he stood in the middle of the two passageways, looking back and forth, he saw Keeley’s horse coming out of the left tunnel, running up to him.
Samuel reared back. The horse had already tried to pound him into the ground with her front hooves more than once since they’d started this trip. And he had no desire to be found by Gemma as nothing more than a pulpy residue left on the cave floor.
But the horse didn’t attack. She stopped, and when Samuel moved forward a bit, she backed up. By the third time, he understood she wanted him to follow, so he did. Running after her as she galloped down passageways and tunnels and through empty but—thankfully—lit chambers. They traveled down and down until they arrived at an opening that had no lighting and led into the far side of the valley.
Samuel stepped in front of the mare but stayed close to the wall and the darkness in case there was someone ready to take Beatrix and put her into chains.
But that’s not what he saw. He saw a very calm Beatrix simply . . . waiting. She was not in chains and she was not sobbing in despair. She was just . . . standing there.
Then, at one point, she pulled one of her hands out of her fur mu
ff and scratched her face. Samuel gasped in shock. The blood on her hand. Her hand was soaked in blood and she didn’t seem bothered by it at all.
Confused, disturbed, and attempting to rationalize what he was seeing, he started to turn away but Keeley’s horse bumped him with her muzzle. Samuel looked back and saw a carriage with four horses coming through some trees. The carriage stopped in front of Beatrix and the driver dismounted. He opened the carriage door and dropped a small set of stairs. Holding her hand, the driver assisted her into the carriage. The stairs were returned, the door closed, and the driver went back to his seat. With a lash, he sent the horses turning around so they could head back the way they’d come. When the carriage was facing away from him, Samuel saw the crest on the back of the vehicle.
“What the fuck,” he muttered to the gray mare behind him, “did I just see?”
CHAPTER 12
Once Keeley was in a proper bed in the witches’ healing chamber, Gemma was sure that her sister was dead. So much blood had been lost and she didn’t seem to respond to anything. But the witches kept working, making Gemma and Keran leave Keeley and wait in the passageway outside.
Eventually, a panting, sweating Samuel returned, with Keeley’s gray mare behind him, refusing to be led away when several of the witches tried.
When the witches were reassured by the centaurs that the horse would not be allowed into the healing chamber itself, Gemma led her squire down the passageway.
“All right, tell me. Did you find Beatrix?”
“Yes. She was alone.”
“Are you sure?” Keran pushed and that’s when Gemma realized her cousin had followed.
“She was definitely alone.”
“Where is she now?” Gemma asked.
“She left the fortress through a tunnel.”
“A cave tunnel?”
“Yes. She seemed to know exactly where she was going. It led her straight into the valley where a carriage met her soon after she arrived.”
Gemma and Keran exchanged glances.
“A carriage? Are you sure?”
Few people in the Hill Lands had carriages. Except, of course, for the—
“It was a royal carriage,” Samuel replied. “And the crest on the back was the crest of Prince Marius.”
“Prince Marius . . . ?” That didn’t make sense to Gemma. Why would her extremely smart sister ever get in a carriage with one of the Old King’s sons? They would just kill her, wouldn’t they? As the Devourer had already tried to do.
“That makes no sense,” Keran said, shaking her head.
Samuel had been Gemma’s squire for nearly two years and she’d learned to read his silences because he was often scared to death to tell her things.
“What else?” she finally asked him. “What aren’t you telling me?”
He let out a shaky breath and focused on the ground.
“Samuel, spit it out!” she snapped.
“She had blood on her hands.”
Gemma blinked. “She was wounded?”
“No. I . . . I don’t think so. And she was very calm. And patient.”
“Patient? You mean she was waiting for that carriage?”
“I think so.”
“Wait,” Keran cut in, “what are two saying?”
Gemma knew what she was saying but she didn’t have time to inform Keran because the healing witches began barking orders at one another, some ran out of the chamber, and others ran in.
Pushing past Samuel, Gemma tried to enter the chamber to see what was wrong. What might be happening with her sister. But several witches pushed her out.
“We do not need your kind of help, War Monk,” one of them said. “You can wait outside.”
Not willing to risk her sister’s chances of survival, Gemma respected the witches’ demand and returned to the passageway. And that’s where all of them waited.
* * *
The carriage pulled to a stop where Marius waited with several of his men. He glanced up at the suns again to gauge the time and wished his mother would hurry up. Most people he wouldn’t waste his precious time waiting for, but when it came to his mother . . .
She had proven herself to him in ways others had not. And not merely by being his mother. Marius didn’t believe in automatically giving respect to someone just because she had expelled him from her body as a million other women had done through time.
No, his respect came from the brilliant guidance his mother had given him over the years. With that, she had earned his loyalty. But still . . . he had more important things to do right now than meet some woman his mother would like to see him marry.
The driver opened the carriage door and lowered the steps. Maila stepped down and immediately moved to him, kissing him on both cheeks.
“Come along, my dear,” she said. “Don’t keep my son waiting.”
The small woman, bundled up in a fur cape, stepped down from the carriage. She pulled the hood of her cape back to reveal her face, and the men beside him gave polite coughs or began to shuffle their feet. All of them looked down or away.
She wasn’t hideous, but she wasn’t worthy of a king either.
Speaking from the side of his mouth, Marius said to his mother, “She’s a little plain, isn’t she?”
His mother sighed. “Marius—”
“It’s all right,” the woman said. “I don’t get insulted.”
With a straight back and a confident walk, she came to stand in front of Marius.
“So you’re . . .”
“Beatrix.”
Marius stared at the muff she had her hands stuffed in. “Is that blood on your fur?”
She glanced down, cursed. “I’ve been trying to get that out.”
“Were you injured?”
Maila took Marius’s arm. “Let’s go inside and—”
“I don’t mind answering,” Beatrix said. “I killed my sister. This is her blood.”
With a smile, she entered his tent.
Marius locked his gaze on his mother.
“Really?” he asked.
“I promise there’s a reason. A good one!”
“Uh-huh.”
* * *
Beatrix studied her fur muff. Studied the blood on it. Her sister’s blood. It was strange . . . she felt nothing. She’d thought she’d feel exhilaration. She’d taken her first human life, and she’d always read that such a thing was exciting. But no. It wasn’t nearly as exciting as she’d dreamed.
Then again, her sister had not cried out. She had not fought back. She had done nothing.
Not like those cats. The barn cats they used to have. Her father and Keeley had blamed the demon wolves from the woods for the cats’ deaths, but it had been Beatrix. Because she wanted to see what it was like to take a life. She’d been three at the time and the little cats had put up such a fight. Even the kittens.
Gemma had seen the scratches on Beatrix’s arms. Tried to blame her for the cats’ deaths, but Keeley wouldn’t hear it. She always protected her. It was a shame she’d had to kill her.
Especially because that hadn’t been the plan. It was Gemma she should have left bleeding out on the floor. The one greeting their ancestors. But gods-damn Keeley wanting to help everyone with their back problems had created this dilemma as much as anything else.
And now having the War Monk still living after seeing what she could do in battle was . . . troubling. But it was too late for regrets.
Now she was in the thick of it. And Beatrix had to admit . . . this was exhilarating.
Prince Marius walked into his tent along with his men and his mother.
“Explain to me, woman, why I shouldn’t kill you right now.”
“I don’t know why you’re upset, my king. I thought it was common among royals to kill their siblings. Besides, wouldn’t killing me now just be kind of boring when I could be your queen instead?” Beatrix asked, examining the maps stretched out over the wood table in the middle of the tent.
“I don’t
want to be rude, Lady Beatrix, but you are not pretty enough to be my queen. Or anyone else’s.”
“Marius!” Maila gasped.
“It’s all right. I’m not pretty at all,” Beatrix admitted. “I know that. And words about it don’t hurt me. Besides, I’ve compensated for my lack of beauty with something more important.”
“Intelligence?” he asked, mocking.
“Ruthlessness.” Beatrix pointed at one of Marius’s generals. “Did you know that he’s been communicating with your brother? The Devourer?”
“Lying whore!” the general yelled.
Beatrix put her finger to her lips and whispered, “Shhh.” Her gaze moved back to the prince. “But he is not your worry. He just wants to keep his options open should you fail. I, personally, admire that kind of planning.”
Marius sighed. “Mother, I don’t think this is going to work out. . . .”
Maila shook her head because she had no idea what was going on. She thought she did, all smug and ready in the carriage, but the Old King’s whore was nothing more than a means to an end. Just like killing Keeley had been.
“Your real concern,” Beatrix went on, “are those two.” She pointed at two of his other generals.
“She is mad,” one of them said, laughing.
Beatrix pulled out the parchment she had tucked into her dress and began to read, “My dearest Lord Cyrus, as we wait for your word on our next move, I can tell you with assurance that your brother’s army grows weaker by the day. There are many among them we can turn to our side without much effort—”
“Who wrote that?” Marius demanded.
Beatrix held the parchment up for the prince to see. “Do you not recognize the seal, my lord?”
“That’s a lie!” the young general yelled out. “You did this, witch!”
“I am no witch. I am no royal. I’m just a farmer’s daughter with nothing to do but find out information. And keep it . . . until I need it.” She shook the letter. “This is a year old. And it’s not the only one I have . . . from each of them.”