The servants brought them fresh fruits and wine before silently leaving. Once the door was closed, and they were left alone, Aggie hugged Gaius again.

“If you had died,” she explained, “I would have been really pissed at you.”

Gaius stretched out on a lounge chair before popping a grape into his mouth. “Me, too. I do like living. And I’m so good at it.”

Aggie dropped onto his stomach—hard—and while ignoring his yelp of pain, she reached over and grabbed her own bunch of grapes.

“So,” she asked around the fruit, “did you have a good time with the crazy queen?”

“She wasn’t that bad. At least not this time. She actually remembered me!”

“She’s only met you two thousand times.”

“Don’t exaggerate, Aggie. More like one thousand.”

“Still.” His sister sized him up. “It must have gone well. You seem . . . unnaturally relaxed. For you, I mean.”

Gaius grinned. “What can I say? I met a very nice girl.”

“You? You met a nice girl?”

“She’s lovely. Sweet. Charming. Royal born perhaps.”

Aggie’s eyes narrowed. “I’m sure Auntie Lætitia will like that.”

“Oh, when it comes to prospective mates for her favorite nephew, this girl is just what Auntie Lætitia has been hoping for. . . .”

No longer unseen, Zoya moved first, charging into the middle of the camp and swinging her axe, randomly chopping off heads and body parts.

Kachka motioned to the Khoruzhaya siblings. “Go around!” she yelled in their language, not quite sure if these men could understand her or not.

The siblings ran and Kachka pushed her cousin back to the trees. “Protect us from above.” Tatyana was prone to panic and she was not good in battle. Kachka would rather have her watching their backs than trying to attack from the front.

Some male swung at her, and Kachka blocked the sword with the metal gauntlet on her forearm before slashing at his gut with her blade.

“Marina!”

Marina came in after Kachka, ducking a pike to the belly and barely avoiding a sword to the leg. But once she’d cleared all that, she struck, ramming her blade into the first male who crossed her. Behind her, two men went down, taken out by the siblings.

Kachka dispatched another man with a sword to the throat. Another with a stab to the back. He went down and that’s when she sensed someone coming up behind her. She turned in time to see a warrior running toward her. Kachka raised her blade, but Nina Chechneva jumped from the trees, landing on the man’s shoulders. She didn’t have a sword, but a long blade dagger that she stabbed with both hands into the top of the man’s head.

Perhaps bringing Nina Chechneva hadn’t been such a big mistake after all. . . . .

“So what’s on your mind, sister?” Gaius asked as he now reached for the cheese.

“What makes you think there’s something on my—?”

“Aggie, please,” he begged. “Not with me, sister.”

“What happened to you . . . it bothers me.”

“Because I was stupid?”

“You weren’t stupid. You were eager. We both were. And those who captured you knew we would be.”

“Everyone knows we want our cousins. They’re traitors to the empire. To us.”

Aggie pursed her lips and Gaius studied her for a long moment before he asked, “What are you thinking?”

“I’m just thinking that instead of waiting for them to come to us . . . to bring our cousins to us—whether it’s that ridiculous cult or someone else working with them—we go find them ourselves. Hunt our kin down and wipe them out.”

“All right. And who do you think would take on such a task?”

Aggie shrugged. “You.”

“Me? After I almost got myself killed?”

“That only happened because they had something to lure you with. Lure us with. We were reacting, not acting. I say no more of that bullshit. If we kill our cousins first . . . the rest of the world has nothing left to bargain with.”

Gaius grabbed Aggie around the waist and sat up, plopping his sister beside him on the lounge.

“You take the best and most trusted of your soldiers,” Aggie said, leaning in close, her voice low. “Dragons only, so they can fly when needed. You get the information. You hunt our cousins down. You kill them all. Then we’ll be done with it.”

“The Senate—and especially Aunt Lætitia—will not like me going off again.” Gaius smirked at his sister. “And some will think you’re purposely sending me off to my death.”

“And that will work until you get back. At least for me and my still tenuous reputation among our own. But don’t worry.” She patted his knee. “If I wanted you dead, I’d do it myself to ensure it was done properly. You know how picky I am.”

“Very true. Sadly, though, all my most trusted warriors were just killed during my last excursion.”

“But you forget the ones you traveled here with. A Cadwaladr and some Mì-runach. If nothing else, you know those Low Borns don’t want our throne and they’ll happily kill anything you tell them to.”

“Do you think they’ll fight for me?”

Aggie flicked her hands up. “Couldn’t hurt to ask.”

With the knife buried to the hilt in the top of his head, the man stumbled and dropped, while Nina rolled away, coming immediately to her feet. She then rammed another dagger into a different male, but she didn’t kill this one instantly. Instead, she just incapacitated him.

And, while he struggled to breathe, eyes wide in fear, she pressed a bloody hand against his chest, chanted a few words, and then yanked the man’s screaming soul from his body. She made a fist, silencing the screams and taking the soul as her own.

Panting, exuberant, she faced Kachka, raising her brows. A silent question. Kachka knew Nina would only ask it once.

Kachka looked around at what they’d already done. And remembered what Annwyl wanted. For the Chramnesind cult to start feeling some fear. To know that they were fucking with the wrong queen.

The man that Nina had attacked looked . . . wrong. Mouth twisted open, eyes bulging wildly from their sockets. Muscles strained and locked in pain so the whole body was contorted in death.

Sure. They could chop all these men to bits, but that could happen in any war. This . . . this display would send a message that would not soon be forgotten.

Kachka waited no longer. She nodded once and Nina, smiling wide, turned and found a few more victims. Her body trembled in ecstasy with each soul she ripped away from the screaming men.

While Nina did that, everyone else pursued their own forms of mayhem. Zoya twisted men until they broke for her. Marina cut men down quickly, without fuss or pleasure. It was just a job. The siblings killed like they were on the Outerplains hunting boar. Tatyana watched from a distance, her bow ready, if it was needed. But she’d done her job. She’d brought them here. She’d provided good, solid information. Kachka would not now make her fight.

Kachka herself tracked down the one she was sure was the leader. He had an arrow to the back, but his armor had stopped it from going all the way to his heart. He was dragging himself off into the trees when Kachka caught up with him. She grabbed his leg and dragged him back to the middle of the carnage. She flipped him over and held him down with a foot against his chest.