by Aiken G. A.
“It’s true. My father’s the mean one. Caid’s the gruff one. My mother’s just the typical royal. Laila’s the logical one. And I’m the nutter. There was a dark elf princess once who brought her entire entourage through our territory. Our mother arranged a very fancy dinner for her, but she was a dark elf, and to be blunt, she was an evil twat and rude to my mother and everyone else. Caid lasted about five minutes into the dinner before he couldn’t stand it and left. My father was forced to stay because he had to protect my mother, but you could tell the entire time he just wanted to start killing elves. He was barely restraining himself. Laila spent the whole dinner debating whether servants should be beaten and whether slavery was right or wrong. I, however, spent the entire meal laughing and smiling and basically being a delight. Then, finally, the dinner came to an end. I got up to leave and as I passed the princess I stopped briefly in front of her, lifted my tail, and dropped a load right in her lap. She screamed in horror and disgust, and my father and mother made quite a show of chastising me, but I was never punished. So if you think I will not desecrate your little Chamber of Veneration, you’re wrong.”
“Stop renaming our chambers and threatening to desecrate them with your vile shit!”
“Then tell me the truth. All of it. Now.”
* * *
Katla walked behind Shona toward her cell. She was just wondering where her twin had disappeared to when she heard a door open and someone grabbed her chainmail collar and yanked her inside. She started swinging but stopped when she realized she stood in front of three of the elders. There were nine elders who worked with the grand master on important decisions involving the monastery. The three who stood before her had been the closest confidants of Grand Master Joshua.
“Brother Katla.”
“Brother Thomassin. Brother Bartholemew. Brother Brín. Is this about threatening the master sergeant? Because he definitely deserved it.”
“Stop talking,” Brother Thomassin told her, “and read this.” He shoved a scroll into her hands.
Katla unrolled the parchment and began to read. When she had first arrived at the monastery, she couldn’t read a word. All she knew how to do was count. She knew money. Had to so no one could cheat her or her brother. It was Brother Brín who’d made it his business to teach the twins how to read and write. She’d never been so grateful. A whole new world had opened up to them with these skills. She hadn’t realized how much she’d been held back by lacking them.
But, as she read the scroll, written in the careful hand of Joshua himself, she was beginning to doubt her literacy for the first time in many years.
“Is this . . . accurate?” she finally asked when she’d read it through for the third time.
“What do you think?”
“But are all of you sure?”
“We’ve trusted him this long,” Bartholemew said in that quiet way of his. “Why would we doubt him now?”
“Much has already been done,” Thomassin said. “But there is still much left to do. Can you do it?”
“Of course. We’ll get everything started right away.”
“But remember, only those loyal to us. You know who that is, yes?”
“Absolutely. But you do know that Gemma will not like this. At. All. Besides, she’s already—”
“Leave Gemma to us. Understand?”
“You don’t want me to tell her anything?”
“No. Her painful and unreliable honesty is one random thing too many to deal with right now.”
“But give her this . . . when the time is right.” Brín handed Katla another scroll with Gemma’s name on it.
Katla waved the scroll at them. “All of you do know this is insane, right? And what if you’re all wrong—”
“A little late for that concern, isn’t it, Brother Katla?” Thomassin asked with a smile.
* * *
Gemma knew that Quinn was not quite like his siblings, but by Morthwyl’s sword, she’d had no idea he could be as difficult, as troublemaking, and as big a pain in the ass as any horse she’d ever had!
“I owe a debt,” she finally admitted.
“Well, I could already tell that.”
“Do you want to hear this or not?”
“Sorry, Princess. Go ahead.”
She debated breaking his nose—again—but decided, instead, to continue with her story.
“Keeley was always wrong.”
“About what?”
“When I first came here, it wasn’t to be a monk. I came here to be an apprentice to the blacksmiths. I wanted to be as good as Keeley. And I knew war monks had great blacksmiths.”
“But then you got here and you were recruited into the sect. They are a cult!”
Annoyed, Gemma picked up a wooden chair and slammed it down.
“Sit! And be quiet.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Quinn replied contritely as he sat.
“As I was saying . . . contrary to what my sister has always believed,” Gemma went on, “I did not come to the Order of Righteous Valor to become a monk. I came here to study under their blacksmiths. It’s known that war monks have some of the best blacksmiths next to the Old King. But I wasn’t going to risk working for the Old King. When I got here, I started off like everyone else. As a lowly apprentice for the farrier, working mainly with the horses since I had a way with them. One day I was in the stables alone with a massive war horse named”—she suddenly smiled, remembering—“Sin Killer. I was bent over, cleaning Sin’s hooves, when I sensed someone behind me and—”
“Stop.” Quinn dropped his head.
“I thought you wanted to hear the story.”
“And that’s my fault,” he admitted. “I never should have forced you to tell it. It’s a story you should only tell if you want to.” He looked her straight in the face. “I’m sorry, Gemma.” Gemma was shocked to hear Quinn say that. Shocked to see him looking her right in the eyes when he did. Not only did he seem to realize his mistake, but he apologized for it, appearing to fully understand he’d crossed a line into territory most males could never fully grasp.
Gods, he was so not a human male. Which was why she was going to take this moment and tell him absolutely everything.
* * *
She locked her gaze with his and Quinn saw no forgiveness in those eyes. Not that he blamed her. He pushed when, for once, he truly should not have.
“You wanted to hear it, Amichai,” she said, making him wince, “so you will.”
She grabbed another wood chair and dropped it in front of his. She sat down across from him and rested her elbows on her knees, leaning in close.
“When I first got here, I didn’t realize that Sprenger had a reputation. But his father was powerful and had very strong connections with the Old King. Brother Joshua—he wasn’t a grand master then yet, of course—had been working hard to protect trainees from Sprenger. He was out of town at the time on a mission, but he had his closest allies keeping an eye on a new squire they all thought had piqued Sprenger’s interest. The boy had, but Sprenger knew they were watching and I was alone in the stables.”
Quinn was getting angry but reacting—ranting, throwing things—would do nothing for Gemma. It would just make him feel better. And this was her story to tell. Her nightmare. So, for once, he kept his mouth shut and listened. As hard as it was.
“They did eventually realize their mistake and came charging into the stables. Brother Thomassin, Brother Bartholemew, Brother Brín . . .” She stopped for a few moments, staring off. Took a breath. “They . . . had to . . . pry me off him.”
Quinn blinked, glanced around. A bit confused.
Gemma looked down, gestured at her clothes. “I was covered in his blood. His . . . uh . . . arm.” She pointed at the upper part of her left arm. “It was hanging by a tendon.” Using the fingers of the same hand, she brushed her face. “I nearly had his jaw off . . . I had already unattached one side and I was working on the other side when they found us.”
That�
�s when Quinn could no longer stay silent. “His . . . his jaw . . . ?”
“It’s a thing I used to do. I don’t do it as much anymore. But when a man made me mad during a fight . . . I used to rip off his bottom jaw. It doesn’t usually kill the person outright, so I’d make him, you know . . . look at it.”
“Oh.” Quinn nodded and wondered if that door Kir was standing in front of was the only way in or out of the room. “Okay.”
“Anyway,” she went on, rubbing her hands on her leggings, “they sent for Joshua and he rushed back from whatever battle he was at. They also got the best healers for Sprenger and saved his arm and jaw. Those healers did a really amazing job. Sprenger wanted me executed, of course. And if I’d killed him, I would have been. In fact, if not for Joshua, I would have been burned at the stake whether Sprenger had died or not. But Joshua wouldn’t let that happen. You see, Joshua was a trainee when Sprenger was a young knight, and Sprenger liked to break the new boys in. Joshua was one of those boys. Many of the young trainees at that time were. It was just something that was never discussed, and nothing was ever done about it. Until Joshua came to the monastery. He didn’t stay silent. He actually went to the grand master and complained. Formally. But still nothing was done. It was suggested by the elders that Joshua just . . . let it go. He couldn’t. Not only for himself but because he knew it was happening to others. He simply couldn’t let that continue to happen.” She pushed her hair off her face and looked up at the ceiling. “He made protecting this monastery from Sprenger his ultimate goal.”
“And you?”
“Joshua saved my life, and I went back to being a blacksmith apprentice. But I couldn’t ignore the call of battle. The call of the war god. Should I make weapons of war or become one? Joshua took me under his wing, matched me with the best battle-cohorts any novitiate could ask for, and trained me to honor the gods of war every time I went onto the fields of battle. As soon as I put on my novitiate tunic, I knew this was where I was meant to be.”
“And this . . . Sprenger?”
“He’s the new grand master. He defeated Joshua in Challenge.”
“And all these pious monks are okay with that?”
“Most of them are okay with it because a lot of them don’t know what he used to do. A lot of the older ones have died in battle. Some have been hit in the head so many times, they barely remember their names. But I remember. And what I know is that now Sprenger is back in power, eventually he’ll start again. Because men like that don’t change. They never change. Because unless people like us continue to hold them to account, they never have to change.”
“And you plan to stay here and hold him to account?”
“All I know, Quinn, is that there’s no way I can let a rapist lead my monastery.”
“Do you have any idea how many rapists rule towns? Cities? Countries?”
“I handle what I can handle, Amichai. And Sprenger is my debt to pay.”
“They’ll never let you near him.”
Gemma nodded and stood, putting the chair back. “Maybe. I’m sure he’s always surrounded by his allies. And he’s smart enough to know he’s still not in a safe position here. At least not while I’m alive. Because I’ll never let him or anyone else forget what he did.”
Quinn also stood and put his chair back against the wall. Probably not where it belonged but close enough.
“So what are you going to do? Run around telling everyone he’s a rapist? I hate to say it, but they won’t believe you. They’ll think you’re just being petty. A bunch of them already think you’re a traitor. The others will think you’re just upset about Joshua.”
Gemma moved his chair back exactly where it had been before replying, “I know. I know all of that.”
“Then what’s your plan?”
“To do what I should have done that night when I was cleaning out Sin Killer’s hooves,” she told him before heading back to the door where Kir still stood guard. “Destroy that motherfucker.”
CHAPTER 9
As the two suns set, Ainsley wondered if her sister had even realized she was gone. She doubted it since Gemma and Keeley seemed to constantly forget her existence.
Annoyed even thinking about the pair of them, she went back to simply watching everything that went on around her.
She’d found a nice spot in a very large tree hours ago and had been there ever since. She could look all around without being seen, which was just what she wanted. But as darkness grew, she began to hear strange noises. Sounds that she’d never heard before. Strange, since she’d heard most forest sounds. She’d grown up more in the forest than she had with her actual family. It was easier to fall asleep in trees than it was among her siblings or her amorous parents. So she thought she knew every sound. Every bird, every cat, every bear, every wolf. Even snakes and bugs. But the sound she heard moaning on the wind . . .
Ainsley leaned forward and let the sound lead her; head tilting one way, then another. Finally, she realized it came from a large mass of trees far in the distance. It almost looked like another forest surrounding a clearing but colors seemed to be rising from that clearing . . . which was just odd. Perhaps the monks were performing rituals or something in that clearing, but rituals that caused strange lights to rise from the darkness?
That sort of thing usually led to witches being burned alive.
Interested enough to leave her safe spot in the tree, Ainsley was about to get down when she heard a sound she knew quite well these days. The clanking of armored horses.
She leaned back to let the leaves hide her presence just as an army of blood-covered monks rode past on the path to the monastery.
Ainsley didn’t think much about it. It was the third or fourth group of knights she’d seen ride into the monastery so far. Most had been smaller units. A battalion. A squad. But this was the first actual army, which meant it was being led by an actual general. She briefly wondered what a monk general was like. Like the generals that reported to her sister the queen? Or different? All gods and praying and sacrificing goats? She guessed she’d find out soon enough. But for now, she should probably get some sleep.
The army disappeared inside the monastery and she realized that the strange sound coming from that clearing had stopped. So had the even stranger light. Maybe she was just tired from all that riding and had started to see things. She didn’t know. She just knew she was ready to take a break. She could think about strange sounds later.
And whether her gods-damn sister had even noticed that Ainsley was gone!
* * *
It didn’t take Gemma long to realize that Sprenger wasn’t in the mood to deal with her. As soon as she and Quinn walked out of the armory, several monks approached them to show the way to “your private cells.”
Quinn had immediately panicked. “They’re taking us to prison?”
Kir had laughed and slapped Quinn’s back, sending the Amichai tumbling right into the other monks. Luckily they were all warriors so they kept their feet and were able to get the centaur back on his.
“No, no, my new friend!” Kir had said, oblivious as always to his own strength. “Cells are just what we call our rooms. Our sleeping chambers. Why would we put you in prison?”
Kir was also oblivious to the mood of the people around him. He didn’t really see that the monastery was split right down the middle between the allies of Joshua and the allies of Sprenger. Poor, giant, crying bastard.
So the monks took Gemma and her traveling companions to the third floor, where each got a cell equipped with a good amount of food and water. Although Keran bellowing, “Where the fuck is the ale, ya fanatic bastards?” when the doors were closed made them no extra friends.
Yet after a hearty meal and the luxury of a hot bath, Gemma still couldn’t relax. She paced her room like a caged jungle cat.
When she heard armored horses ride into the courtyard below, she moved to her stained-glass window and opened it so she could see below. It took her less than a second to
recognize the general leading the army of knights.
Master General Ragna.
Each member of her army had been handpicked. Each member of her army answered to no one but Ragna. And Ragna answered to no one but the grand master himself. But everyone knew that her loyalty was to the war gods only. If Morthwyl asked her to burn down the monastery with everyone still inside it, everyone knew she would do it without asking one question.
What that meant, though, was that Ragna had no obvious loyalty to Joshua or Sprenger. She was a wild card none of them needed at the moment.
So, as soon as Gemma saw her riding into the courtyard, she said the only thing she could think of . . . “Oh, fuck.”
* * *
Looking up from the book she was reading, Katla let out a deep sigh when she saw Ragna ride her massive stallion into the courtyard, and growled out the only thing she could think of, “Shit and balls!”
* * *
Shona was staring out into the night, not really thinking about anything, as she liked to do most nights, when she saw Master General Ragna ride into the courtyard below. The general gave a few orders to those who reported directly to her, then turned her stallion around and rode out of the courtyard again.
As Shona watched Ragna go—knowing she would return—she made note of their current situation: “We are so fucked.”
* * *
Kir smiled happily in his sleep, dreaming his favorite dream about singing roses and dancing bunnies. He loved the dancing bunnies. They were just so cute!
* * *
“What do you mean I can’t have that little bitch executed?” Sprenger demanded of the grand elder monks.
Thomassin glanced at the others before noting, “I’m not exactly sure how much clearer we can be than to say, ‘You can’t kill her.’”
“She’s a traitor! A deserter!”
“She left on orders of the grand master.”
“We have his signed orders here,” Brín noted, gesturing to the documents with a lazy hand. “He logged these into the library with Mariello himself the day she left. Mariello will happily testify to that if you need him to.”