by G. A. Aiken
“Oh.” She shrugged. “Fine. Then what’s the problem?”
“There is concern about what your sister will do once she’s in power.”
“Because she’s a woman?” There had never been a woman who’d led these lands as queen. Only kings born into certain bloodlines or men willing to take the crown.
“No. Because she might be missing a soul.”
Gemma frowned. “Literally . . . or figuratively?”
“Either or both. It’s unclear at this point. But the brotherhood is not willing to take the risk.”
Sitting up straight in her chair, Gemma asked, “Exactly what does that mean?”
He rested his arms on his desk. “Plans are already in motion.”
“Plans? What plans?”
“To kill your sister.”
“You’re going to kill my sister?”
“It’s not my preferred choice, but I don’t make these kinds of decisions alone. And you know that.”
“The elders. They’ve decided to kill a child.”
“She’s of age, Gemma. And it’s what we do.”
“You don’t know my family. They won’t let this happen.”
“That’s why you need to leave. Now. Go home. Save your family.”
“But Thomassin? Bartholemew? Brín? They all agreed to this as well?”
“It was decided it would be easier to send you home on your own to get to your sister than to try to stop the rest of the elders here. They would just go around us. At least this way, with your help, your sister will have a chance of being saved.”
“But the elders were just trying to—”
“Advance your rank?”
“Yes.” She lifted her hands but quickly dropped them. Sighed. “But Sprenger stopped them.”
Joshua laughed. “He’s such an idiot. If he knew why they were advancing your rank, he would have let it go through. The plan was for you to be sent out on a mission with your fancy new rank. And while you were gone—”
“A separate unit would go kill my sister.”
“Unfortunate but accurate. But I’m not going to let that happen. Any of it. Go save your sister. Put her in hiding. When it all blows over, she can either be queen or go back to her normal boring life with both of you hating each other.”
“But if I do this . . . won’t I be betraying the brotherhood?”
“You’ll be leaving on my orders. They’ll know that . . . eventually.”
“Oh, that makes me feel so much better.”
Joshua chuckled. “What have I always told you, spoiled child?”
“We have to play this smart,” she said in a high-pitched voice that always made him laugh.
“Now go. Your squire is waiting with your horses by the hidden tunnel in the stables. You can get out that way.”
“Samuel can’t come. That isn’t fair to him.”
“Gemma, he hates it here. He’d rather risk his life with you than stay here in safety.”
“I’m going back to the family farm, Joshua,” she said, standing. “I doubt there will be much danger as long as my dad’s pigs don’t get out of the sty again and chase the children.”
CHAPTER 1
Two years later...
Gemma Smythe raised her shield against the sword battering against it, again and again. When the blows weakened, she swung the shield wide. The soldier attacking her was thrown off, and Gemma moved in, slamming her sword into his side. She yanked it out, and thrust again, this time into his bowels. She tore him open and let his insides spill out before kicking him in the chest to send him spinning away.
Another attacking soldier slipped in his friend’s entrails and went down. Gemma finished him off quickly, removing his head. Then she used that head to distract the soldier behind him by kicking it into his face. She turned away once her own men swarmed the soldier and took him down.
Gemma wiped blood from her eyes and evaluated the battle going on around her.
Annoyed when she didn’t see what she wanted, Gemma bellowed, “Find the duke and his wife! If they’re here, get them!”
The soldiers she led ran off to do her bidding but the Amichai, now loyal to Keeley, suddenly surrounded her, their war kilts, weapons, and themselves covered in the blood and gore of the enemy.
She studied the group surrounding her before calmly asking the one standing right next to her, “What the fuck are you doing?”
That smile. That smile she loathed with such venom flashed. “Protecting you, my princess.”
“Call me that one more time . . .” she warned through gritted teeth, causing his smile to grow. She forced herself to calm down. “You should be protecting Keeley. Not me.”
“But she sent us to you, my lady. She’s quite concerned with your safety and we are here to serve and protect. We wouldn’t want her sister struck down at such a young age, now would we?”
Gemma faced the one being she could barely tolerate. “Why?” she asked him. “Why do you go out of your way to irritate me?”
“I’m following orders. Isn’t that what you told me to do? Follow orders? To the letter, I believe, was your command.”
He was playing that game, was he? A game she’d played herself a few times when a monk from another monastery tried to take over her own. But those monks always thought they knew better, that their orders were more important than those of her grand master. It had been Gemma’s pleasure to take them down simply by following their orders . . . maliciously.
The Amichai was being unfair, though. She wasn’t some grabby monk in search of power. She was simply attempting to protect her eldest sister, Keeley. The gods-damn queen. At least one of the queens.
For a land that had never had a queen leading it, there were now two. Queen Beatrix, who led beside her husband, King Marius, and Queen Keeley, who led beside no one.
It seemed as if Gary the seer had been right about Beatrix. She was a soulless bitch who would do anything to be queen, even if that meant wiping out her entire family to make it happen. Luckily for the family and for the people, Keeley wasn’t about to let that happen.
At the moment, their world was split into east and west. Keeley was queen of the western lands, including the Hill Lands. King Marius, ruler of the east.
Many believed that Beatrix was merely a royal womb for Marius to plant his seed in, but Gemma and Keeley knew better. Their sister hadn’t done all this not to have the true power of the crown. She would simply have to find a way to manipulate her husband as she manipulated everyone else in her life.
Gemma didn’t doubt for a second her younger sister had already found a way to make that happen. But she couldn’t worry about Beatrix right now. Not in the middle of a battle with an idiot grinning at her.
“No,” Gemma finally stated, pointing across the battlefield to the only queen she cared about at the moment. The one who refused to listen to reason and stay on royal lands as Gemma had strongly suggested. The one who was busy wielding her ridiculous hammer as soldier after soldier attacked her, all of them hoping to be the one to take the queen down and win the rewards promised to them by the remaining sons of the Old King. “Do you not see that the queen is in peril?”
“She has my brother and my sister fighting at her side. What more could she need? Besides, her orders were quite clear, Princess. She wanted me to protect you. You poor, weak thing.”
If her fingers weren’t holding her sword, she’d curl them into a fist and throttle him. Instead, though, she used her annoyance to cut her way through the ongoing battle, making a path straight to her sister, Queen Keeley of the Hill Lands.
“Oy!” she barked at her royal majesty. “Did you send him to me?”
Keeley Smythe, Gemma’s eldest sister and, at one time, the ruler of all eleven of their parents’ offspring, was busy battering at the enemy commander with her favorite hammer.
“Keeley!”
Keeley’s big shoulders jerked in surprise and she yanked up her weapon, sending an arc of fresh blood Gemma
’s way. But she was quick and moved to the side so that it hit the Amichai right in the face. His glare was worth everything.
“What?” Keeley demanded, stepping away from her opponent’s caved-in chest. “What you yelling at me for?”
Gemma waved her sword at Quinn of the Scarred Earth Clan, enjoying the way his head jerked back when the blade got a little too close to that pretty but blood-soaked face.
“I said, did you send him to me?”
“You were all alone.”
“And you thought he could help?”
“I’m helpful,” the Amichai argued.
The sisters looked at him, then looked back at each other.
“What’s really going on?” Gemma asked Keeley.
“What are you talking about?”
“You send this idiot to me—”
“That’s a little mean,” he muttered.
“You didn’t even tell me about today’s battle—”
“Well—”
“And where’s my battalion?”
“Now you ask?”
“What does that mean?”
“You seem tense,” her sister said. She took a step back, looked Gemma over. “Your shoulders are tense. Your neck tight. You’re doing that thing again with your posture. Want me to fix that for you?”
Gemma would never understand her sister.
“I’m not a horse!” she snapped.
Keeley frowned. “Uh . . . I know. Wait . . . are you? Is that what you’re saying?”
The Amichai snorted, quickly turning away so Keeley wouldn’t see him laugh. Gemma could only gawk at her.
“What?”
“It’s possible. I was too young to remember your birth. Maybe Mum just snuck you in.”
“I’m saying you can’t just fix me because I’m not one of your bloody horses!”
“Oh! That’s what you mean.”
“What did you think I meant?”
“I really didn’t know. Things with you have been . . . difficult. Since . . . well . . .” She gestured at Gemma and Gemma looked down at the chainmail and bits of armor that her mother had made for her many months ago.
She lifted her gaze to her sister’s. “Since . . . when?” she asked.
“Uh . . .” Keeley looked at Quinn but he quickly turned away again.
“I’m not part of this conversation,” he explained to them. “Instead, I’m looking meaningfully off”—he motioned with his entire left arm, gesturing out, his four fingers pointing, the thumb tucked in against his hand—“that way.”
“Since when?” Gemma pushed, now ignoring the battle going on around them.
“Since . . .” Again, Keeley gestured at Gemma’s entire body. “This.”
She wanted her sister to say it. Out loud. For everyone to hear it. “This? What’s this?”
“You know.”
“No. I’m unclear.”
“Uh . . .”
Keeley suddenly reached behind her and when she swung her arm back, she held their cousin Keran. She was more than a decade older than the two of them and a bit of a black sheep because she wasn’t a blacksmith like the rest of their mother’s side of the family, but had belonged to a fighting guild. She wore the scars of those years quite proudly—since she was still alive. She’d even managed to retire while still able to stand and walk on her own. That was mostly unheard of when it came to the fighting guilds.
“Ale time?” Keran asked when she stood in front of her cousins.
“No,” Gemma snapped, disgusted. “We’re not done yet.”
“Oh. Then what do you want? I was in the middle of killing.”
“Keeley needs you to say what she’s too afraid to say.”
“Keeley’s never afraid to say anything. Just this morning she asked her mum if she’s pregnant again or if her ass is just getting wide. I don’t know anyone else brave enough to ask your mother if her ass is just getting wide.”
Gemma leaned around Keran to view her sister. “Tell me that woman is not pregnant again.”
“I think her ass is just getting wide.”
Relieved, Gemma leaned back and said to Keran, “Well, she’s afraid to tell me something.”
“About the snarling? The snapping? The way no one can talk to you anymore?”
“That’s quite a list, Cousin.”
“Or are we talking about the drinking?”
“The drinking?”
Considering there were nightly bets among the troops on how fast the queen’s cousin could down a pint of ale, Gemma was a little insulted that anyone was questioning her occasional drink. Especially if that questioning was coming from gods-damn Keran of all people!
“All right then!” Keeley cheered.
“Oh, wait,” Keran went on, “or is this about—”
“Thank you, Keran!” Keeley said, casually tossing their cousin back into the ongoing battle.
Their cousin wasn’t a small woman but she flew like a leaf on the wind, landed on her feet, and immediately began hacking away with her axe at the closest enemy soldier without even missing a step.
Gemma moved up to her sister, raising her chin so she could at least attempt to look Keeley in the eyes. “My drinking? What drinking?”
“You know what I need you to do, luv?” Keeley asked with her big smile and adorable charm. She pointed at the duke’s castle. “Look in there. See if the duke and duchess have left us anything.”
“You’re just trying to get rid of me.”
“Would I do that to you?”
“As a matter of fact—”
The queen didn’t even let her finish. She just spun her around and shoved, sending Gemma off in the direction of the castle.
It was humiliating.
* * *
“Why are you back here?” Quinn’s brother, Caid, asked.
“I was keeping an eye on Princess Bitchy Leggings as the queen asked me to do. But she is in a mood. I’d be better in a fighting pit, unarmed and naked.”
“I didn’t think she was coming today.”
“Apparently that plan changed and the enemy has been paying for it ever since. She’s just been lopping off heads all day. I shouldn’t mind but it seems so senseless.”
Caid shrugged. “At least she’s on our side.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt you two,” said their sister, Laila, as she used a spear to fight off their enemies. “But do you two mind assisting in keeping the queen alive? She’s all alone over there!”
Quinn and his brother looked over at Keeley Smythe, Queen of the Hill Lands.
She was swinging her hammer wide, knocking down three attacking soldiers. She then lifted her hammer up and over, massive, sweat-covered muscles rippling as she brought the weapon down, crushing the soldier into the ground. When she buried the head of her hammer into another soldier’s chest—crumpling the steel armor that had been protecting it—the brothers looked back at their sister.
“Are we worried about her?” Quinn asked his sister. “Really?”
Impaling a soldier through his helmet, Laila snapped, “All right, listen up. You two seem to forget who you actually report to since you”—she pointed at Caid with her blood-soaked steel spear—“are lucky enough to fuck the queen. And you”—she pointed at Quinn—“have been lucky enough not to be executed by the queen. So I’ll make it very clear. The only one either of you takes orders from . . . is me.”
“Because you’re Mother’s direct heir? Or Father’s favorite?”
“Both, which is why I rule you two like a god.”
“She’ll be a tyrant one day,” Quinn muttered to Caid.
“Now Caid, go to Keeley. You lot with him,” she ordered, motioning to the other Amichais fighting nearby. “And Quinn—”
“Please don’t send me after—”
“You go with Gemma.”
He dropped his head forward. “She hates me. I don’t mean that lightly. I mean she really hates me.”
“You love it when others hate you.
”
He shrugged. “True.”
“Then go. And watch your back. We’re not done here yet.” His sister looked around, her gaze narrow. “Something feels off.”
His sister was never wrong about that sort of thing. She was a centaur, and like any true herd animal, she had the strong senses that kept them safe and alive. Because she could smell danger on the wind and sense trouble through her hooves.
So Quinn stopped questioning her and simply followed the terse princess who was abusing their enemies so brutally. He was truly concerned she might one day be convicted of war crimes by her own sister.
* * *
Gemma battered her way through the ongoing battle to the open gates of the duke’s castle. They weren’t under a royal siege because he and his wife had sided with Queen Beatrix and her idiot husband, but because they’d raised an army to assist in the oncoming war between the two queendoms. That was something even Keeley wouldn’t overlook.
What Gemma hadn’t expected, though, was that Keeley would attack Duke Reinhold preemptively, rather than waiting for his power to grow. Keeley usually preferred diplomacy to war. Maybe their mother had said something to her, because Gemma had woken up this morning to find her sister and her army already moving out.
Why Keeley hadn’t alerted Gemma to her decision earlier, Gemma still didn’t know, and their earlier conversation with Keran hadn’t helped matters. The battalion that reported to Gemma was still at the homestead with the family. Gemma, however, would prefer they were here. She’d been training them for this sort of fighting. To attack fast and hard, under the cover of darkness, giving their enemies no time to put up a proper defense or offense. It was a brutal, unfair tactic, but if they were going to win against Beatrix and the son of the Old King, they’d have to stop thinking like fair-minded individuals and start thinking like men.
A hysterical soldier ran toward her screaming and Gemma turned, brought her sword up and across, splitting the man open from just below his left shoulder, through part of his chest, to the other side of his neck, sending the man’s head—and a large chunk of his upper body—flipping up and away as the rest of his body dropped before it reached her.
