Shona rolled her eyes and moved away from her latest conquest.

“And I’m telling Mum!” Quinn promised.

“Telling her what?” Laila wanted to know.

“That you’re being a very disreputable princess.”

“Oh, please! That’s not exactly going to surprise our mother.”

“You can do better, Laila,” Gemma told her.

“Oy! Where’s the loyalty, friend?” Shona wanted to know.

“I don’t understand!” Quinn finally admitted, gesturing between the two war monks. “I thought you lot were virgins.”

It was a long pause, born out of surprise. But when the laughter exploded out of them, it lasted for ages and felt so very good. Gemma didn’t realize how much she’d needed that laugh. More than she needed to soak her sore muscles in a hot spring.

“What, in all the universes, made you think we were virgins?” she finally managed to ask.

“You’re religious monks, yes?”

“We’re war monks, centaur. After a bloody, violent, destructive battle, the last thing you want is a moment of prayer. You want ale, you want food, and you want a lusty—”

“Yes!” he cut in. “I get it.”

“Do you?”

“I do now,” he muttered, walking away. Calling back to his sister, “I’m still telling Mum!”

“Virgin,” Gemma laughed, following him. “What made you think I was a—”

“Shut up!”

* * *

Katla walked into the pub with her brother and several of her fellow war monks. She’d been going out of her way to avoid the queen the last few days. After their unfortunate conversation, she’d decided not to meet with Keeley again until Gemma’s return.

Of course, Gemma was back but now there were new . . . issues. Issues that were best dealt with by the sisters. Until then, Katla would just keep herself and her brother out of the queen’s way until they were needed.

At least that was the plan until she walked into the pub and saw some of the worst enemies of her brotherhood listening to the one person they shouldn’t be listening to. The queen’s cousin. Keran Smythe. A woman of great skill in battle and in hand-to-hand combat, but a right mess in life.

Grabbing her brother by the arm, Katla dragged Kir across the pub, followed by the other monks, until they all stood next to the table that held the group Gemma had brought back to meet with Keeley.

What was disturbing Katla was what she heard when she came to a stop.

“Then, of course, came the goat incident,” Keran announced.

“Keran!” Katla said, her voice much sharper than she’d meant it to be. She cleared her throat, tried again. “Why don’t we go with you back to the castle?”

“Why? They’re all probably just arguing there. I can’t drink enough ale to sit through that much arguing. Unless it turns physical.” She chuckled. “Then it turns funny.”

She looked off, stopped talking, and . . . nothing. For a good minute.

“Are . . . are you all right?” a war priest finally asked.

She seemed to come back into the moment, her gaze moving back to those at the table. “Huh?”

By Morthwyl’s cock! This woman!

“Are you all right?” the priest asked again.

“Oh, yeah. Been like this for years. I was in a fight guild. You get hit in the head enough and . . .”

They all waited a bit for her to continue until Katla finally leaned in and slapped her hands in front of Keran’s face.

“. . . you forget what you were saying,” Keran went on without realizing she’d stopped.

Then it got worse.

Keran looked at Katla and greeted her with a “Hey!” as if seeing her for the first time. “Did you just get here?”

“No. I’ve been standing here for five minutes.”

“Oh. Well, I need to tell you something before I forget. I know I’ll forget, because I don’t care.”

“That sounds great,” Katla quickly said, taking Keran by the arm and attempting to lift her from her chair. “Let’s go to the bar and get you a nice, cool ale.”

“I’d love an ale.”

“Of course you would.”

“But first,” she said, sitting back in her chair, “I need to remember what I’m supposed to tell you. Just give me a minute.” She stared up at Katla. And stared. And stared. Finally, she snapped her fingers. “Now I remember.”

“Thank the gods.”

“I need to tell you that you should keep Brother Ragna away from Keeley because I think that war monk is inches away from losing her tit to the queen’s sword.”

The brothers near Katla cringed at that description and looked away; Kir just groaned.

“Why do you hate me?” Katla asked the woman.

“If I hated you, I would have torn your arm off by now because you’re still touching me. I’m not a fan of being touched, except by close friends. Anyway, your Ragna—”

“She’s not my Ragna.”

“—made the mistake of suggesting to Keeley that her younger siblings might be better taken care of by your brotherhood than by her parents. That is a very good way to get your head bashed in. Anyway, Gemma told me when we separated outside the monastery that if it looked like Ragna was starting any shit with Keeley, I should tell you. So, I’m telling you.” She stood. “Now how about that ale?”

“I’m busy.”

“You promised me an ale.” Then Keran cracked her neck, apparently making a threat with that little move.

Katla faced her battle-cohort’s cousin. “You do know I’m an impoverished monk, don’t you?”

“Really? Because those are nice weapons you have, impoverished monk.”

Growling, Katla dug out the few coins she had in her purse and slapped them into the held-out hand of the queen’s cousin, who never seemed to be without coin of her own.

“Thanks, mate!”

Once the onetime fight champion was gone, it was the temple virgin who asked, “So the queen doesn’t get along with Brother Ragna?”

“I wouldn’t say they don’t get along.”

“It sounds like they don’t get along.”

Katla gave a helpless shrug. “We all know how Ragna is. I’m sure she didn’t mean to be—”

“Herself?” one of the priests asked.

“I was going to say difficult.”

“Ragna loves being difficult,” the temple virgin insisted.

“Let’s go talk to her,” another priest said, standing up.

“Good idea,” Katla agreed. “I can take you to Ragna right now.”

“Not Ragna, War Monk,” the temple virgin practically barked at Katla. “Take us to the queen. We want to talk to her.”

CHAPTER 19

They all met right outside the doors leading to the main hall. To say it was awkward would be downplaying it considerably. Because Ragna was already standing there when Quinn and Gemma walked up from one direction and the rest of their travel party walked up from the other. And she was acting as if she was the official greeter for the queen herself, lurking in front of the open doors, forcing each of the travelers to pass by her before they could enter.

“Oh, Ragna. I wish I could say it was good to see you again but, of course, I’d be lying,” Priestess Balla taunted.

“Balla,” Ragna replied. “How nice . . . for someone, I’m sure . . . that you survived.”

“Now, now, ladies,” Vicar Ferdinand chastised with his booming voice. “No need to peck at each other as you females always like to do. Let’s be friends instead!”

Ragna let out the first frustrated sigh Quinn had ever heard from her before she asked the vicar, “Good gods, why are you here?”

“The gods have blessed us all!” he happily replied, slapping Ragna on the back and following the temple virgins into the main hall.

“Was a truce vicar actually on the list,” Ragna asked Quinn and Gemma, “or are you simply attempting to make my life hell?”

“Well—” Gemma began, but Quinn quickly cut her off.

“He was on the list. And why don’t I make introductions?”

“We need no introductions,” Father Aubin sneered, pushing past the master general. “We all know Ragna.”

“And she knows all of us,” Tadesse of the High Plains said, following the priest.

Ragna smirked as the representatives of the other sects passed her, only speaking again when the witch Adela was close.

“How’s your grandmother, Adela?” she asked with what seemed to be an attempt at a smile.

It took the witch’s two associates to drag the coven leader away as she desperately attempted to get her hands around Ragna’s throat.

“What was that about?” Quinn asked.

“She burned Adela’s grandmother at the stake,” Gemma explained, shaking her head.

“Then why would you ask how the woman was?”

“Because it amused me to do so,” Ragna answered honestly. “And don’t give me that look, Brother Gemma. Her grandmother used to sacrifice babies.”

“Are you saying you wouldn’t have burned her if she didn’t sacrifice babies?” Quinn wanted to know.

“Of course I would have burned her, but that particular coven doesn’t sacrifice babies anymore, now do they? See? It all worked out in the end. So stop being such a bloody—”

“Blessings of the day to you, Ragna.”

It was the Abbess sweetly greeting Ragna, her hands tucked into the sleeves of her white robes, a soft smile on her lips.

Ragna’s entire body tightened as her gaze shifted to the nun.

“She was on the list?” she demanded of Gemma.

Her tone was so different, so livid, that Gemma didn’t hesitate. “No. She wasn’t. We picked her up along the way.”