“Are you sure you shouldn’t wait for Briec and Gwenvael to arrive?” one of her guards asked. “They shouldn’t be too long.”

Why should she do that? She could handle this. Why was everyone questioning her?

“I said—” Annwyl stopped. Calm and easy, she told herself. Calm and bloody easy.

“It’ll be fine.” Annwyl dismounted the large horse that had been specifically chosen by her mate for the beast’s calm manner in battle and ease around dragons.

Annwyl climbed the steps two at a time and walked into the large hall. The four men standing by one of the tables immediately stopped speaking and turned to face her.

She forced a closed-mouth smile. “My lords.”

“My lie—” Baron Thomas stopped, tried again. “My Quee . . . uh . . .” He glanced at the other royals. “My . . . lady?”

Annwyl shook her head. “They’re all fine,” she lied. She hated all the bowing and scraping that came with being a ruler, and they all knew it, but part of being queen, according to Dagmar, was “sucking up” the royal titles that were thrown one’s way.

Annwyl was trying hard to suck it up.

“We appreciate your taking the time, my lady. We all know there is much occupying you in the kingdom.”

“True, but I can’t neglect the lords who help protect my lands.”

Annwyl winced a bit. Did those words sound as false to their ears as they did to her own?

She reached to scratch her head but knew that would mean her hair would fall in her eyes and, as she’d been told many times by Dagmar and her dragon sister-by-mating Keita, that just made her “look like a mad cow.”

But having her hand just linger by her head like that looked strange, she was sure, so she carefully smoothed down her hair to either side of her head so that the part stayed clear and her hair appeared shiny and straight. Not messy and insane.

“Now . . . what can I help you with, Baron Pyrs?”

“Queen Annwyl,” a female voice said from behind her.

Annwyl’s hand instantly reached for her sword as she turned just her torso to get a look at who stood behind her.

“My lady, please!” Baron Pyrs begged as he ran around to stand between Annwyl and the woman behind her. “You are not in danger. I swear on my name. This is just a casual meeting.”

Annwyl’s hand shook as it rested against the hilt of one of the blades strapped to her back. It did not shake from fear, but the overwhelming desire to remove the sword from its scabbard and kill everyone in the room.

But Annwyl heard Dagmar’s voice in her head. She’d been hearing it for years now, telling her the same thing. I’m sure that, with some practice, you can stop killing people who simply annoy you. Come now, let’s give it that royal tutor try, shall we?

Then Annwyl thought about Brastias and her personal guard standing outside. She knew they were waiting for her to start a massacre they’d have to clean up or explain to the two dragons headed her way at this very moment.

She could already see Gwenvael’s smirk and hear Briec’s put-upon sigh. She could hear it all.

They all expected her to fail.

Again, Annwyl let out a breath, carefully lowered her hand, and turned to squarely face the woman behind her.

“Priestess Abertha.”

Or, as Annwyl liked to call her, “Priestess Fucking Abertha.”

She hailed from the Annaig Valley, a small but powerful valley territory tucked behind the Conchobar Mountains of the Outerplains, which reached as far inland as the Quintilian Provinces. The city of Levenez was its seat of power and its ruler was Duke Roland Salebiri.

To be honest, Annwyl had never paid much attention to the Salebiri family. For almost three decades, she’d been focused on troubles from the horse riders of the Western Mountains, who ran a still-thriving slave trade, and the senate of the Quintilian Provinces. So some little territory caught between the raiding Steppes Riders of the Outerplains and the outskirts of the Provinces had been the least of her worries.

Until Salebiri had found what would bring him true power. The worship of a god. Not several gods, but just one. Salebiri ruled from that religious power, demanding loyalty not to his land or his people but to one demanding god.

Chramnesind. The Sightless One, he was called, because he lacked eyes or something.

Annwyl didn’t know or care. She hated the gods, pretty much all of them. But more than gods, she hated humans who did horrible things while proclaiming themselves holy and righteous because of their gods.

Yet of all the holy sycophants she’d had to deal with the last few years, Annwyl loathed most of all Priestess Abertha, the sister of Duke Salebiri and the biggest hypocrite Annwyl had ever had the displeasure of meeting.

The priestess smiled that falsely warm smile. “You remember me, don’t you, Queen Annwyl?”

“Of course I remember you,” Annwyl said, forcing her own smile. “You’re beautiful.” And Priestess Abertha truly was with her lean figure, waist-length golden-blond hair, and startling green eyes.

She was also the diseased cunt who’d preached from her ever-more-powerful pulpit that Annwyl’s twins “should have been drowned at birth to appease our good and wondrous lord.”

“So what brings you to my territories?” Annwyl asked.

“Baron Pyrs thought it would be good for us to meet under better circumstances than last time.”

Now Annwyl worked very hard not to smile—as much as she might want to. It had been years. Her son had gone off to train with the Brotherhood of the Far Mountains on the other side of the Quintilian Provinces. Her daughter had gone to the Ice Lands to train with the Kyvich warrior witches. And her niece, Rhianwen, had gone off with her own blood kin to the Desert Lands to train with the Nolwenn witches.