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“Really?” I can’t help the eager smile that spreads across my lips.

Memnon looks enraptured by my expression. “If making wards together means you’ll look at me this way again, then gods, yes, my queen, we can make all the wards in the world.”

I press my lips together, feeling giddy and pleased andexcited. “Perhaps you’re not so bad a teacher after all,” I say. “Just don’t let it get to your head.”

“Oh, little witch, it is far too late for that.”

CHAPTER 17

ROXILANA, 18 YEARS OLD

54 AD, Somewhere in Illyricum, Southern Europe

Travelingthrough foreign lands with five grown men and a panther is a lot less uncomfortable than I imagined it to be—partly due to magic and partly because I’m now the wife of a king. Not that my elevated status affords me much. Sarmatians are far more egalitarian than Romans, which means that every member of our party is equally responsible for providing for the group’s needs.

We all cook; we all set up camp and break it down. We all hunt—even me, though to no one’s surprise, I’m atrocious at it. Especially when it comes to handling a bow and arrow.

What I lack in basic survival skills, I make up for in magic, especially now that Memnon is giving me spell-casting lessons. And unlike my hunting skills, I’mgoodat this. My wards and enchantments are strong and long-lasting, and my magical signature looks like threads on a loom, the weave complicated and ornate. Beyond that, my magic allows me a growing number of luxuries: cleaning my body and my clothes when water isscarce, illuminating the darkness when the sun goes down, and…soundproofing the tent when Memnon and I are alone.

By the end of the first week, I’ve learned the names of Memnon’s men and a bit of their personalities. There is Itaxes, who has rich brown hair that falls nearly to his waist, a big booming laugh, and eyes that crinkle often at their corners. Sattion speaks infrequently, but when he does, everyone listens. Rakas is the burliest of Memnon’s men, with a gap between his front teeth and a penchant for telling bawdy stories over the campfire.

And then there’s Zosines, Memnon’s cousin and childhood best friend, the man Memnon has, through an elaborate Sarmatian ritual, made his blood brother—who also wears rings on every finger and metal adornments in his deep brown hair, and whose sharp eyes linger, more often than not, on me.

The days quickly fall into a lulling sort of pattern. We wake, we ride, we pause for a meal at midday, we ride some more, we make camp, we hunt and practice magic, and we eat and chat over an open fire. Then we go to bed, and Memnon and I explore what it means to be young and in love.

And I’ll never make it to Sarmatia—I won’t, not when I’m certain I’ll die of happiness first. Not a single version of marriage I ever heard of made it seem like this—like whimsy and hope and happiness and, most of all,love. Love like fire that burns and consumes.

And maybe young girls who are sold off like grain to lecherous old men or careless young men or philandering rich men don’t feel like this. I certainly felt trapped and powerless when Livia forced me into marriage.

Once I’ve gotten a feel for riding, the men pick up a fifth horse for me to travel on, to relieve some of the burden poor Memnon’s steed shouldered, carrying two adults on his back.

The group of us sticks to winding streams, avoiding the main roads whenever we can. I don’t understand why, but I don’t question it. Nor do I mind. I’m coming to enjoy the scent of wet earth after a rain and wild grass under the heat of the midday sun. Even the smells of wild oregano and sage perfume the air. To think I got used to the casual squalor of Rome when I could have been enjoying this.

But today is one of the rare times where we’ve made our way back onto a paved road, one that is bordered by overgrown flowering bushes of mustard and spiny broom, hypericum and wild carrot. Memnon reaches over and plucks a flower from one such bush. He then lets his horse fall back until the two of us are abreast.

I raise my eyebrows at him. “Making a flower chain, are we?” I ask.

“I have become a little obsessed with the thought of you adorned in flowers. I did so like the crown of them you wore when we married.”

My heart leaps at the memory.

Memnon’s eyes twinkle as he rolls the wildflower stalk between his fingers. After a moment, he blows it from his hand, a little of his magic exiting his lips. The flower floats across the space between us and the thin stalk of it slips behind my ear, nestling into hair.

“Beautiful soul mate,” he murmurs.

Soul mate?I echo the term, warmth blooming low in my belly. He called me something similar the day he found me.

According to what my father knows of gods and magic, we are a bonded pair, our essences entwined through our power.We have been since birth, and we will be until death.

I don’t know when I started smiling, but my cheeks hurt from the intensity of it. It’s everything I already knew aboutour situation, yet hearing Memnon state it like this makes it beautiful, poetic. As though our love was scribed in the stars.

I guess you’re stuck with me forever, I say.

Forever, Memnon echoes, though it sounds more like a vow than anything else as he stares at me.

The longer he looks, the more my cheeks heat. I still can’t seem to hold his gaze without getting flustered.

Memnon’s gaze dips to my cheeks, and his own expression turns playful. Unfortunately for me, he now knows I get flustered too.