Gemma looked down at Kriegszorn. Her hide was mostly gone, leaving bone and flesh . . . and rage.

So much rage.

Now Gemma moved away and her horse slowly got to her feet. A moment later she was gone.

They all looked around but no one seemed to see Kriegszorn until Hurik pointed behind the soldiers.

Although it would be more accurate to say she pointed behind . . . and up.

Kriegszorn’s roar shook the ground they stood on. The flame that came from her nostrils set the nearby trees and bushes on fire. And she’d grown so tall. Bigger than any centaur. Too big to ride. She went up on her hind legs and Hurik grabbed Gemma’s burned arm, ignoring her scream of blinding pain, and yanked her toward her own horse, Scandal. They ran and mounted him, setting off at a gallop, with Ima and her horse close behind.

Gemma looked over her shoulder to see Kriegszorn’s front legs come down hard, landing on some of the soldiers that didn’t move out of her way fast enough and instantly crushing them under her hooves. She picked others up in her giant maw and gulped them down in one or two bites.

The last thing Gemma felt without even looking back was fire sweeping through the forest behind them.

“Did you do that?” Gemma had to ask Ima as they rode on.

And the look the witch gave her. It almost made Gemma ashamed.

“Are you joking?” the witch demanded in a voice so high, birds took off from the trees and nearby wolves howled although it was the middle of the day.

* * *

For hours Keeley attempted to get past Cyrus’s army to reach the man himself. She needed him dead. Not simply because he was such a bastard—although he was—but because without him, his fanatics would have no true leader. She needed to stop him here and now, but she couldn’t get close to him.

Even worse, Ragna, the centaurs, and anyone else with even a sliver of magick about them were unable to cross some invisible barrier that protected him. All because of those damn totems.

She needed to destroy them so the others could wipe out Cyrus’s protective soldiers and she could take on Cyrus directly. But the power emanating from the totems made them impossible to approach, even for Keeley, who found herself dizzy and confused when she got too close. Even Ainsley’s well-aimed arrows couldn’t touch the stupid things. Her aim was true but each time she shot an arrow, it skittered off to the side, frustrating poor Ainsley, who still hadn’t forgiven Keeley for letting her fall from that trebuchet.

Screaming that she was an abomination, one of Cyrus’s soldiers ran toward Keeley. She swung her hammer and knocked him several feet forward. Even with his chest caved in, he was still moving, and Keeley didn’t want to leave him there suffering. She walked up to him and swung her hammer overhead. But he managed to roll over and her hammer hit the ground instead of his head.

That’s when she saw a tree several feet away shake, the snow on its branches and limbs fall to the ground.

Keeley immediately forgot about the soldier at her feet and she jogged over to the edge of the hill near where she was currently fighting. She looked out over everything. Cyrus’s military camp. The totems. Where the battles were taking place. Everything.

Then she studied the mountainside that Cyrus had at his back and looked down at her hammer.

“What?” Caid asked, coming up beside her. While his sister continued to protect their flank from the onslaught of Cyrus’s men, he’d insisted on remaining near her side.

“I need you to pull back our troops.”

“What? Why?” She whistled for the gray mare that she still rode into battle. She kept thinking the horse would leave her, but so far, she hadn’t. Although she had found herself another wild herd to run with near the castle and had given birth to another foal. But when Keeley put on her chainmail and weapons, there the gray mare was, waiting for her by the stables, snapping at poor Samuel or any of the stable hands when they got too close to her with Keeley’s saddle.

The gray mare galloped to her side and Keeley mounted her.

“Just do it, Caid. Pull them back. Now!”

* * *

“What’s happening?” Laila asked when Caid started to pull back their troops. She’d just gotten their portion of the battle under control but that could easily change.

“I have no idea, but be ready to move.”

* * *

Her party had settled behind some big boulders when Gemma and the others rode up. Quinn had her in a hug before she could say a word. And to his surprise, she didn’t complain. She simply hugged him back. Hard.

When they pulled away from each other, she winced as his arm brushed hers, and he caught her sword arm and carefully pulled up the sleeve of her hauberk. He expected to see a wound from an edge weapon but it was a bad burn. That’s when it occurred to him that Gemma had ridden up on the back of Scandal with the Abbess.

“Where’s Kriegszorn?”

Gemma opened her mouth to speak but Ima suddenly pulled her away and asked Balla, “Are you good at healing burns, virgin?”

“You think you’d be better at that sort of wound, whore.”

“Could someone just give me something for the pain? I feel the need to start crying.”

“We found something,” Aubin said, returning with Tadesse. “About a half a mile that way.”

As there were no fresh herbs for a poultice, it was decided that treating Gemma’s wound would have to wait.

Instead, their group snuck down to the location found by the priest and the assassin. It didn’t take long. The tunnel began at the mouth of a mountainside opening. King Marius’s soldiers were guarding the area.

But that was not why Gemma had to walk away. Why she nearly ran away.

Quinn followed, finding her behind a large, ancient tree. She was bent over at the waist, her hands on her knees, struggling to breathe. She’d already vomited, and tears spilled from her eyes. They had nothing to do with the pain from her burned arm, though. This was worse.

“How could she?” Gemma kept repeating. “How could she? How could she?”

Quinn crouched next to her, stroking her back and resting his head against hers.

“I wish I had an answer for you,” Hurik said, coming around the tree. She had her hands tucked into her white robes, which had been splattered with blood from the battle she’d just fought. “I wish I could tell you it’s because your sister is pure evil, a soulless devil who was placed with your family without your parents’ knowledge. That you weren’t related to her by blood. But you’d know that wouldn’t be the truth. You know that there are no easy answers in this world. You know that your sister is simply and sadly very human.”

“But she’s using slaves,” Gemma choked out. “She’s using slaves and they’re all children. They’re all children. They’re all children!”

Gemma stood tall, her entire body vibrating with rage. “She’s using children as slaves!”

“Whose children are those?” Wassa asked.

Agathon began to obsessively rub his forehead. “She convinced King Marius to strike several barbarian tribes. She told him they were endangering some nearby villages. She insisted those troops that are loyal to her were part of the legion the king sent out. They must have taken the children after or even during the battles. And because they’re children, she could put the costs of feeding them under expenses for war orphans. King Marius would never know.”

“Do we know where this tunnel goes?”

Gemma pushed away from everyone and pulled out her sword.

“I don’t care where it goes.”

Quinn quickly grabbed her, pulling her back against his chest.

“Before you do something very brave and very stupid, remember there are children in that tunnel. You start killing the soldiers, the first thing they are going to do . . .”

“We need to get the children out of there,” Balla said. “But how?”

“I know my mistress,” Agathon warned. “I’m sure the soldiers have been told that if anyone is about to find out anything, they are to eliminate the children first.”

“What if you call on your gods?” Hurik suggested.

“All doorways are closed,” Ima reminded them. “They don’t want Cyrus or his fanatics traveling through them to attack our people.”

More calm now, Gemma pulled away from Quinn. “She’s been working on this tunnel for two years. Do you think there’s a way out on the other end?”

“I saw something about that in the messages to the queen.”

Agathon pulled out the scrolls he’d handed off to Aubin, who’d put them in his travel bag. He began to shuffle through them quickly.

“Yes. Here. From the captain in charge about three months ago. He’s telling her that they’ve reached their destination. The tunnel is big enough for the children and one man to get through. But not yet for the armies.”

“Gods-dammit!” Gemma snarled, her hands curling into fists. “She’s doing all this to launch a bloody attack.”

“On who?”

“The crazed queen of whatever whatever. The one that lives in a land filled with dragons.” Gemma briefly closed her eyes and blew out a breath. “I can’t think about that right now. Okay, so the children can get out on the far side.”

“But we don’t know how long that trek is. The children might have to run for days.”

“Without food or water.”

“You know what?” Quinn realized. “All we need to do is get the soldiers out.”

“What do you mean?”

“We get them out, slaughter them. Then rescue the children and take them to safety in Keeley’s territory. We all know she’ll happily take care of them until we find out if the barbarians will want them back. They can be a little . . . strange about that kind of thing.”

“We don’t know how many troops are in there,” Léandre pointed out.

“So we go back home to get more troops and leave these children to be slaves for another day? Another hour? Another second?”