But this wasn’t a one-woman business. Keeley Smythe had workers. Men and a few boys, who worked the forge. The boys were all in training, but the older men were blacksmiths in their own right. Perhaps they’d found working for themselves too expensive and working for the Old King too dangerous. More than one blacksmith had ended up on the wrong side of the Old King’s rages. Or the rages of his sons.
After she assisted the two horses, Keeley returned to Caid and the others. “Let’s get you some food and water. Samuel, there’s a place out back for you to clean up. Wash your neck,” she said, pushing him toward a back door. “I’ll put some healing ointment on it after.”
Once Samuel was through the door, an older woman emerged from another room. Yawning and scratching her head, she wore nothing but a plain shirt and, stepping from the doorway, she took a nice, long stretch, arms over her head, her body going up on her toes. Tragically, she wore no undergarments and the stretch allowed the shirt to rise until they were all given a lovely view of her crotch.
“Good gods, woman!” one of the blacksmiths complained. “Put some bloody clothes on!”
Caid had never heard a man tell a woman to put on clothes before, so he sensed she did this sort of thing often.
Smirking, Keeley pointed at the woman. “This is my cousin. Keran. She lives here.”
“It’s only temporary.”
“It’s been temporary for five seasons.”
Keran finally had her eyes open and she looked over their group with cold eyes. That’s when Caid noticed all the scars. Some on her face. Many on her neck. Quite a few on her legs and arms and more than seemed reasonable on what he could see of her torso when she took another quick stretch—much to the annoyance of the workers. But underneath all those scars were muscles. Hard, trained muscles.
What cleared everything up for him was the tattoo she bore on the side of her neck. Like her cousin, she wore the tattoo of a guild. Unlike her cousin, though, it was not a worker’s guild, but a fighter’s. Which meant that in her younger days, she’d get in a pit and fight others. Sometimes with weapons. Sometimes with bare hands. And always to the death.
He’d honestly never met a fighter with a little bit of gray at the temples. They never managed to live that long.
“Perhaps you would be kind enough,” Keeley teased her cousin, giggling as she spoke, “to put some clothes on before my workers are overwhelmed with your beautiful self.”
Keran patted Keeley on the shoulder. “I know how hard it is for them.” She turned, but then stopped; blew out a very large breath. “There is something I forgot, Cousin. In my room . . .”
“Ewwww. I don’t want to know about that.”
For a moment, the fighter appeared confused, but shook her head. “No, lady idiot. You have a visitor. She got here just a few minutes before you did.”
Frowning, Keeley stepped around her cousin, but after peering into the room her seemingly always smiling face suddenly had a thunderstorm of an expression. One even Caid would never want to confront.
“What are you doing here?” Keeley demanded, stepping back.
A woman walked out of the backroom. Prim and proper and covered from neck to feet in thick white robes that made her look a tad . . . chunky. White gloves on her hands. A small white cap sat on the back of her head, barely covering her shorn, dark blond hair. She was a nun. Caid didn’t know which sect she belonged to, though. She wore no markings on her clothes.
She lifted her hands up, palms open. “Before you say anything,” the nun began, “let me just explain . . .”
Laila yawned and the nun saw her for the first time . . . then the rest of them. Her gaze moved over their unit as she slowly lowered her hands. Caid blinked in surprise. Those were not the eyes of a godly nun. Not the way she’d just sized them up.
“Who are your friends?” the nun asked, attempting a smile.
Keeley sneered. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Startled, the nun looked back at Keeley. “What?”
“You come here, asking questions about my friends, and you think I owe you an explanation?”
“It was an innocent question.”
“There’s nothing innocent about you . . . sister.”
“All these years,” the nun said softly, shaking her head, “and you are still an annoying cow!”
Caid blinked in surprise at the way that sentence went from soft to yelling.
Keran pushed her way between the two and shoved them apart. “Cut it out.” Both women opened their mouths to argue, but Keran quickly added, “I’ll get fully naked right here! Tits and bush for the world to see!”
They closed their mouths, turned away from each other.
“Good,” Keran said. “Now I’m going to put on some clothes. You two play nice until I get back or I’ll start the punching. Understand?”
She wisely didn’t wait for an answer, but as soon as she had disappeared into her room, closing the door behind her, the nun said, “I can’t believe you still haven’t changed.”
“Why should I change? I didn’t desert my family. That would be you. And for what? To supplicate yourself before some god so you can take care of everyone but your kin?”
“It’s always so simple for you, isn’t it?”
“It is. Family is all. Something you still haven’t learned and don’t care about.”
Sisters. They were sisters. Caid knew that now. They didn’t look at all alike, but only siblings could bring out the worst in each other this way.
“Don’t tell me what I care about, Keeley,” the nun snarled.
“You have no idea what I care about! What matters to me!”
“I don’t care what matters to you! Get the fuck out of my shop!”
“I’ll leave when I’m damn well ready. I don’t answer to you! Not anymore!”
The back-room door opened and a now-dressed Keran stepped out. “How are we all doing?” she asked, grinning. “Everyone having fun?” When no one answered, she suggested, “Why don’t I get food for everyone. You lot look hungry. Fresh bread. Some cheese from Marcy’s pitch, eh? Doesn’t that sound lovely?”
“I have work to do,” Keeley barked before storming away.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Keran said, heading toward the front exit.
The nun, though, didn’t move. She was too busy watching her sister through narrowed eyes . . . until Samuel came through the door that led out to the back of the shop, freshly washed. At the sight of him, the nun’s entire body tensed and her eyes grew wide. But the boy completely panicked, spinning around and attempting to flee out the door he’d just come in. First, though, he ran into the doorframe, backed up, shook off his dizziness, and then ran out, slamming the door behind him.
The nun let out a deep, pained sigh, her eyes briefly closing before she returned to Keran’s room.
“Did you see that?” Laila asked him.
“How could I miss it?” Caid asked. “I was standing right here.”
“Think the nun fucked the boy?” she whispered, giggling.
“That boy,” Caid told her with great confidence, “has fucked no one. Except maybe himself.”
* * *
Keeley focused on working some iron pommels because she needed to hammer away and steel needed much more finesse. Thankfully all the mercenaries making their way into her shop these days needed swords for their battles. Keeley had been making a small fortune off the upcoming war between the royal brothers and, at times like this, work helped her deal with her rare bouts of rage. She lost herself in the smithing so that her mind could focus on something other than the fact that her younger sister, born only a few years after her, had the bloody nerve to stand before her in that ridiculous outfit and act all pious and gods-infused. Bitch was lucky Keeley didn’t punch her right in the nose! And the fact that she didn’t point out how chunky being a gods-damn nun had made her showed the strength of Keeley’s will. Because those white robes weren’t hiding anything! Except her feet. Why did she need to hide her bloody feet? She not only had to give up sex to be a nun but her feet as well?
What religion insisted on covering its worshippers to that extent? Why was that necessary?
Why had her sister given up everything to join those religious fanatics? That’s how Keeley thought of the sects found throughout the land. They ruled the lives of their members and Keeley did not like that at all. The gods she chose to worship didn’t make her dress in any specific way. They didn’t ask her to give up her life for them. A few nonlethal sacrifices for the start of the planting season and to bless her most important weapons, and her gods seemed more than happy.
What she didn’t have to do was give up her entire family! That her gods never asked of her.
And Gemma had been raised the same way, their mother hoping the sisters would work the forge together. A true family business. It was a nice dream but not one that Keeley ever expected her sister to realize since she’d never loved blacksmithing the way Keeley always had. Keeley believed that people, when they could, should do what they loved. She loved working with steel, just as their father loved working his farm. Why would she ask Gemma to do something—anything—she didn’t love?
Yet locking herself away in some nunnery and giving up all freedom to appease some random god . . . ? That was something Keeley would never understand. Her sister deserved better.
But, after she’d turned sixteen, Gemma had suddenly disappeared one night before the winter frost, leaving nothing but a note for their parents to find.
That was more than a decade ago, and none of them had seen her since. It was true, their parents had received a few letters here and there through the years, letting them know Gemma was safe and had left of her own free will. But no messages for Keeley or their other siblings. As if Gemma expected them to forget she’d ever been a part of the family. As if she wasn’t blood. Their blood.