“Sorry.”
She threaded a needle and began the painful process of sewing up the open wound on Ainsley’s face.
“Did Brother Gemma tell you all that?” she asked after a few minutes of silence.
“My sisters don’t tell me anything.”
“I see.”
“But I can make up my own mind.”
“And you’ve decided we’re bad.”
“I haven’t decided anything. But keeping people away from their families—”
She stopped sewing to stare at Ainsley. “What are you talking about?”
“For ten years we never saw Gemma. You kept her away from her family.”
“Ahh.”
“Are you going to tell me it was her choice not to come see her family?”
“I wasn’t going to tell you that. Because I have no idea.” She began sewing again. “I can tell you I haven’t seen my family since I walked out the door of our home. But they were glad to see me go.”
“Why was that?”
“I frightened them. Because the love of my god was so strong.”
“I don’t understand.”
She stopped sewing; leaned back again. “My earliest memory is not of my mother’s voice. Or my father’s. But of Morthwyl’s. It’s like he always spoke to me. Before I even knew about the gods. Any of them. And, like him, where I went . . . death followed.”
Ainsley’s horror at that statement must have shown on her face because the monk chuckled.
“It’s not what you’re thinking. I didn’t kill puppies or strangle kittens. There’s no challenge in that. Only weakness.”
“So you killed your family instead?”
“Of course not. But I did hunt and kill my first adult bear by the time I was seven. I went with my uncle. I used a spear. I wasn’t strong enough to drag it back through the snow. When I was nine, we were in the middle of a war. The enemy attacked my family’s castle. All the children were hidden in the dungeons for safety. But Morthwyl called to me. I snuck out, went up to where all the fighting was. Grabbed a small fighting dagger off a body. I approached an enemy warrior. I knew I didn’t have the skills to defeat him if I took him straight on. So as I walked toward him, I calculated. He was bigger, faster, much stronger. As I moved closer, he was hacking off a man’s head with his broadsword. Still . . . I kept moving toward him. I knew there was only one thing to do.”
“Run away?”
“No. That wasn’t an option. Not for me. Not for my god. I approached and he saw me. With my long pigtails and my little-girl dress and the dagger I held before me. And he mocked me. Laughing with his friends about the little girl coming to attack him. And as he did, he looked away from me. That’s when I slammed the blade into the top of his foot. And when he leaned over, screaming in pain, I rammed the blade into his open mouth. Killing him. And as the light went out in his eyes,” she went on, “I smiled at him. Because I knew that I had made my first true offering to my god and that he would be pleased by it. Now do you understand?”
“Why your family never wanted to see you again . . . ? Yes.”
“Why I never needed to see them. Because everything I need is here. Maybe that’s how Brother Gemma felt.”
“I really hope not. Because that’s terrifying.”
The monk tied a knot and cut off the end of the thread with a sharp knife. “Done. Don’t toy with it. It’ll itch. Don’t scratch it. Blood will ooze, but don’t panic. I’ll check on it later, so don’t worry if it oozes green.”
“Green?”
“I said don’t worry. If it oozes green, I’ll fix it.”
“Right. Well, thank you.”
She put all her equipment back into her saddlebag but dropped a linen sack in Ainsley’s lap. “Dried beef, bread. It should last a couple of days.” Next she tossed in a canteen. “Fresh water. Stay in your tree during the day. You can travel at night but stay close by.” She pointed in the direction where Ainsley had heard the sounds earlier. “Do not go anywhere over there. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Does that mean, ‘yes, I’m going anyway.’ Or, ‘yes, I understand and I will do as you say’?”
Ainsley laughed. “You really do know my sister.” The monk continued to stare at her, waiting for a proper answer. “I heard weird noises coming from that direction that I did find interesting. But after speaking with you . . . I’m not going anywhere near there.”
“Good. Put the fire out in about an hour. If you don’t, someone in the ramparts will notice. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Should I tell your sister where you are?”
“Don’t bother. Her travel companions know where I am.”
Without another word, the monk returned to her horse, mounted the beast, and rode off.
Ainsley didn’t wait for another hour. She doused the fire and headed back to her tree in the dark. She climbed back to her spot, briefly stopping to yank out the arrow that was protruding from the trunk where her head had been before she moved. There was still blood on it.
She managed to keep the arrowhead attached, so she put it in her quiver with her other arrows and rested her head against the trunk. She worked hard to ignore the fact that the back of her head rested against the hole in the trunk that the monk’s arrow had made. Considering how long that woman had been “killing for her god,” Ainsley was feeling grateful that all she had to show for their encounter was a gash on her face that might or might not start oozing something green.
CHAPTER 10
The field of pretty flowers next to the monastery was a place many of the brothers used for meditation. This day, though, they had a lovely picnic with Gemma’s battle-cohorts and those who’d traveled with her from her sister’s queendom.
Yet despite all the interesting things the two extremely diverse groups could be discussing, there was only one topic on everyone’s mind.
“Tell me, honestly,” Quinn implored Gemma’s cohorts, “how insane is she?”
Katla tore off a piece of wild boar from the bone and shrugged her shoulders. “We’ve never been able to settle on an actual number. A percentage. Is she seventy percent crazy? Eighty percent? Or should we just go with ninety-five and leave it there?”
“Why not a hundred percent?”
“As a monk, I am honor bound not to believe in absolutes. Like one hundred percent evil. We’re taught to believe there’s good in everything. So I’m sure there’s some sanity in Gemma somewhere.”
Gemma ripped a turkey leg from Farlan’s hand before he could take his first bite.
“I don’t appreciate this discussion,” she informed them after she ate so much of the leg that Farlan dismissed the idea of taking it back. “I am not insane. You’ve met both Keeley and Beatrix,” she reminded Quinn. “And my uncle Archie. He’s the one who’s insane.”
“Is he though?” Quinn asked. “I mean, compared to you. Is he really?”
Annoyed, Gemma sucked the marrow from the turkey leg, then lobbed what remained at the centaur’s head.
“Well, that was just rude!” he accused.
“I don’t know why you always have to fight everyone,” Katla complained. “You’ve been gone two years but you haven’t changed.”
Laila chuckled. “You sound like her sister.”
“You too, Laila?” Gemma asked, mortally wounded.
“It is something Keeley would say!”
“And Sprenger’s not going to kill you,” Shona announced. She wasn’t eating. Instead, she’d set up a blanket a bit away from them and spent her time sharpening her sword.
“You can’t tell me he’s not going to try. I’m positive. He’s going to want to execute me.”
“He’s definitely not going to execute you.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because he no longer makes decisions on his own. He and the elders have to agree.”
“He’ll override them. I’m sure of it. The man needs to execute me.”
Laila finally threw up her hands. “What is this obsession you have with this man executing you? It’s as if you want him to execute you.”
Gemma smiled. “I do.”
“My brother’s right. You are insane.”
“I told you,” Quinn said, leaning back to stare up at the two suns, his hands behind his big head. “I told all of you.”
“I’m not insane. I know exactly what I’m doing. Sprenger hates me, which means he’ll want to look me right in the eyes before he sets me aflame. And that’s when I’ll do it.”
“Do what?”
“Kill him.”
“Won’t you be tied up or something?” Keran asked.
“Eh. I can get past that.” And then, when everyone stared at her, “What? You think no one’s tried to execute me before?”
“She’s right,” Katla agreed. “If she was condemned to execution this time, it would be your . . . what, Gemma? Fourth?”
“Fifth.”
“Fifth? Did I miss one?”
“You did,” Shona said, looking over her sword carefully before going back to sharpening it a bit more. “You had an injury and stayed behind when we took on Lord Turnball at his mountain retreat. That was the fourth one.”
“Has anyone not wanted you dead?” Quinn asked Gemma.
She glanced off, trying to remember, until Quinn finally sighed and said, “Forget I asked.”
“And so it’s true,” a female voice said from behind her. Gemma felt that shudder go up her spine and her lip curl, and for once, she really wished her sister’s demon wolves were around because they tended to randomly attack when they were startled.
* * *
Quinn had noticed the female monk walking toward them but hadn’t thought much about it. Why should he? She hadn’t seemed much different from the others wandering around the grounds. She was tall and strong, like all the female monks at the monastery. Well, they might not all be tall, but every one of them appeared strong. She had dark skin and black hair plaited into war braids. Scars littered her face, neck, and hands, the only parts of her Quinn could see.