“No,” he said. “No. We’re not using him.”

“He’s perfect.”

“The fact that he survived the first round is enough. We’re not torturing that poor animal again.”

“Don’t be a big baby.”

“Stop going out of your way to be the opposite of Keeley. Because we both know your sister would never do this.”

“Fine,” she said, no longer smiling, but smirking. Smirking at his expense. “You know what that leaves us.”

“Yes!” he snapped. “I’m aware.”

* * *

Ragna decided to search the queen out. She’d heard the new royal had started off as a blacksmith, so she headed first to the forge. There she found a big-shouldered woman who matched the description of Queen Keeley. Long dark hair. Giant shoulders. Large muscles. And a way with steel. When Ragna entered the forge, the woman held up a sword that had the monk pausing for a moment. She’d never seen such a beautiful weapon. It was true. She preferred her weapons plain and deadly. She didn’t need fancy markings on the blade or jewels on the hilt. She was a monk, after all.

But still . . . that sword was a thing of beauty.

“Queen Keeley?” Ragna asked.

The woman laughed. “Sorry, Sister. You’re looking for my daughter. Anyone seen me girl?” she called out to the other blacksmiths and apprentices working with her.

When the answers were all “No,” the woman tossed that beautiful weapon into a barrel filled with other beautiful swords. “I’m sure she’s around somewhere, though, Sister.”

“You’re the queen mother?” Ragna had to ask.

“Guess I am,” she said with another laugh, turning back to her forge and all that heat.

Ragna was a few feet away from the forge when she heard a bellowed “Oy!”

She froze, her shoulders locking, left eye twitching. Had the queen mother just “oyed” her?

Looking over her shoulder, she said, “Yes, Your Highness?”

“Try that unfinished building over on the east lawn, yeah? She might be over there. That’s where the pack stays.”

“The pack?”

“Of her wolves. That’s where they’ve started keeping their pups the last few days. Since the dwarves don’t seem to mind ’em.”

“Dwarves?”

“Yeah. You’ll probably find her there.”

Ragna forced a polite, saintly smile. “Thank you.”

“Sure,” the royal said with a hammer wave before disappearing back into her forge.

* * *

“This is humiliating,” Quinn complained, arms folded across his massive chainmail-covered chest.

“I know,” Gemma soothed. “I know.”

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” he accused. “You’re enjoying my humiliation!”

“Of course not! But I don’t see any other option.”

As if to push that point home, the elk leaned up against Quinn as he fearlessly grazed on the grass at the centaur’s feet.

“You’re both in on this together . . . aren’t you?”

“That’s silly.” Gemma grabbed Quinn’s hand and gazed deeply into his eyes. “Now you just need to trust me.”

“Except you know I don’t trust you.”

“That’s what makes this so wonderful.”

* * *

Ragna headed east until she found a half-finished building. There was a lot of hammering coming from inside, so she entered.

Although she could hear continued work, Ragna saw only two people inside the main room. One was another big-shouldered woman with massive muscles exposed by a sleeveless shirt and a long dark braid that reached down her back. She was facing away from Ragna and was deep in conversation with a monk. A pacifist monk based on his bright yellow robes.

Robes so bright, Ragna felt as if she was gazing directly into one of the suns. She felt an urge to shield her eyes.

She didn’t want to interrupt the hushed conversation going on between the pair, so she patiently waited.

Examining the building she was in, she wondered if it was being built or destroyed. She wasn’t sure. There were stone pieces of rubble littering the floor as if someone had already come in and knocked parts of the walls down. Hammering continued in distant parts of the building but Ragna saw no evidence of builders or stonemasons wandering around. Perhaps they were avoiding the queen.

Which begged the question . . . could the queen not find a better place to have her conversation with the monk?

Finally, Ragna spotted the first sign of the “pack” that the queen mother had mentioned. Two wolf pups scrambled through the rubble before climbing into the queen’s lap. She’d thought the queen mother had meant dogs, but Ragna had known some royals who made wild animals their “pets.” Wolves or jungle cats or sometimes the occasional bear. Although that was always risky.

But these wild wolf pups didn’t interrupt the queen’s flowing conversation with the peace monk, even when one of them climbed up her bare arm onto her shoulder.

The pup pawed at stray hairs hanging from her braid, rubbed its face into her neck, and licked her ear before finally settling onto her shoulder. Ragna thought it had fallen asleep until it blinked open its lids and looked at Ragna with eyes of flame. Actual flame.

That’s when it struck her like a lightning bolt. This was no mere wild animal that the queen had managed to tame with treats and a soothing voice. That wasn’t what this thing was at all.

Ragna had been holding her hands clasped demurely together, but she now separated them, moving them to her sides. She lowered her head, her gaze locking on the thing that rested on the queen’s shoulder.

The pup, barely a few weeks old, watched Ragna closely and, as she moved, it slowly rose up on its paws and bared its fangs. Blood dripped from its mouth rather than drool and it gave a low warning growl. The other pup jumped from the queen’s lap to the ground and mirrored its sibling’s stance.

The peace monk leaned past the queen’s massive shoulders. “Ahhh, Sister, let’s be calm, shall we?” the monk urged Ragna.

She pointed at the unholy beasts with one finger. “You allow those things here, Brother?”

The queen’s head turned slightly, so she caught sight of Ragna from the corner of her eye.

“You understood the agreement when you came here,” the monk went on. “We are safe on the queen’s territory, and we may worship as we like, but no human sacrifices, and we must leave the wolves alone.”

“And all of you agreed to this . . . heresy?”

“It’s a small price to pay,” the monk argued, “considering the alternative.”

“It would be better to die with honor, Monk, than live with such depravity.”

“How could a sister of acceptance and love be so closed-minded?”

“That’s because,” the queen said, finally standing and facing Ragna—Blessed Morthwyl, the size of her—“she’s not a sister of acceptance and love, Brother Emmanuel. She’s not a nun at all.

“Isn’t that right”—the queen looked Ragna over from head to foot—“War Monk?”

* * *

Father Aubin lifted his fist and dragged the temple virgin off the ground, choking the unholy little pagan with the power of his god. But before he could finish her off, the other temple virgin slammed him from the side with a blast of swirling wind so powerful, it knocked him into the two divine assassins. The three men hit the ground but Aubin was able to quickly sit up, only to come face-to-face with a poisonous snake one of the assassins had called forth.

Aubin tried to move but the snake followed, fangs bared, poison dripping from the tips. Then Father Léandre’s black spear swiped its head off in one move and he pulled Aubin to his feet.

The three groups faced one another, hands raised, spells and chants and curses on their lips.

Aubin knew that he and Léandre could destroy these treacherous bastards. They just needed one good—

Blinking, Aubin looked at his enemies and asked them what he was sure they were all thinking. “Was it just me . . . or did anyone else see a hoof go by?”

* * *

The eyes of the pacifist monk grew impossibly wide at the queen’s words, and Ragna was shocked that he didn’t run. He just stood there, fussing with the gratuitous gold medallion he wore around his neck.

“Would you excuse us, Brother Emmanuel?” the queen asked when he didn’t leave.

“Your Majesty . . . I . . . uh . . .”

“It’s all right. I’ll be fine.”

“Should I get your guards? Do you have guards?”

“I have my wolves. And I have my hammer. I’ll be fine. Now go. We’ll finish our talk later.”

He bowed—which made the queen cross her eyes—then backed out of the room. Not because he was wary of the queen, Ragna guessed, but because of Ragna.

Not that she blamed him.

“These abominations?” Ragna asked when the monk was gone. “They’re yours?”

“These animals belong to no one. They come and go as they please.”

“I’m sure they kill as they please too.”

“Out of respect for me, they don’t.”

Ragna laughed. “You can’t be that stupid.”

The royal raised a dark brow. “You can’t be stupid enough to call me stupid on my own territory.”

“How about we make this simple? I have an army of unbelievably well-trained monk-knights. I put down these”—she motioned to the tiny atrocities standing by the queen’s long legs—“errors in judgment, and my knights become an indispensable part of your fight against Queen Beatrix.”

“Or,” the queen said with a wry smile, “I let these pups’ father and his friends have a very filling dinner.”

Ragna finally heard the growls behind her and slowly turned to find the adult abominations surrounding her. All of them with flames for eyes and blood for drool. All of them nightmares from the very pits of one or all of the hells.