Page 12 of Scorched Earth

“Not before the next election.” She set down the paper. “Care to reconsider my offer?”

Cassius sighed. “You’ve already made this deal, Teriana. If you knew the location of viable xenthier paths, you’d have already given them to Marcus. For as much as he’s thrown caution to the wind for you, I suspect you’ve done much the same for him.”

Her throat tightened, but Teriana made herself say, “There are many things I haven’t told him.”

“Really?” Cassius rolled onto an elbow, his eyes glimmering with delight. “So much dishonesty between you two lovebirds. So many secrets. Though I suppose that’s what one gets when one sleeps with the enemy.”

Teriana bit down on her desire to demand Cassius reveal what he knew about Marcus’s secrets. “Not in Arinoquia, but in other nations, there are xenthier stems that have been bricked up for generations because they posed a threat. I can name at least three where it is rumored that screams emanate from behind those brick walls at the same time each year. It’s said that they are screams from the underworld, for no one knows the language, but I reckon that it’s Cel path-hunters who have found themselves entombed.”

She paused to allow the shock to sink in.

Yet it was not horror that filled Cassius’s gaze. It wasdesire.

Sitting upright, he dug into a stack of paper on the table and pulled out a map, which Teriana recognized from their first meeting. The meeting where her nails had been ripped off her fingers to get her to talk. The map still had streaks of her blood on it. “Where? Show me.”

Picking up her glass of wine, Teriana took a mouthful, then leaned back in her chair. “Quid pro quo.”

He made a noise of disgust. “I’ll not release my prisoners based on rumors, girl.”

“Obviously.” A bead of sweat trickled down her back as she stared at those bloodstains, remembering how easily she’d been broken. Knowing that there was little to stop Cassius from putting her to the question again to get the information out of her, and this time Marcus wasn’t here to intervene. “I want you to call off the hunt for Marcus. Call off your assassins.”

Cassius threw back his head and laughed. “That’s how you’ll spend your capital, Teriana? On a Cel legatus’s life?”

“Yes.” She watched him with flat eyes, content for him to believe that the request was motivated by sentiment and not strategy. Content to allow herself to believe the same even as her heart wept, because the greatest danger to Marcus right now was himself.

“Why?” Cassius refilled their glasses. “Marcus is a bad man, Teriana.” Spreading the rest of the pages on the table out before her, he shook his head. “So much harm. So much death. All enacted under his orders, and all detailed here in his own hand in reports he sent back to the Senate during prior campaigns. Look!”

Teriana glanced at the pages, recognizing Marcus’s handwriting, then looked away. “I know what he’s done. There’s not a soul in the Empire who doesn’t know, and the West is swiftly learning his reputation.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” He eyed her for a long moment. “I think if you knew what a nasty creature he truly is, you’d beg me to put him down. Marcus is a villain of the first order, Teriana. Wherever he goes, he leaves death in his wake.”

A band of tension closed around Teriana’s chest. Cassius was most certainly manipulating her, but part of her couldn’t help but wonder if she didn’t know the full extent of what Marcus had done in his life. “If he’s such a villain, then why do you want him dead?”

“Why do you believe I want him dead?”

She huffed out a breath. “I don’t know, maybe because you sent assassins to the Domitius villa to kill him?”

“Hostus’s doing, I’m afraid. He and Marcus have bad blood from their time together in Bardeen. Conflict between commanders is quite common, unfortunately. Like roosters in a ring, they try to peck each other’s eyes out.”

Teriana bit the insides of her cheeks, despising the amusement in Cassius’s piggish gaze. “Cut the crap, Cassius. We both know that Hostus doesn’t take a shit without your permission, which means you gave him that order. Most likely because you want Marcus out of the way to allow Titus to take control of the mission.”

“Titus is inexperienced. Why would I want him in command?”

“Because he’s your son.”

Cassius smiled. “You need to learn to play at life like you do at cards, Teriana. Information, and secrets, most especially, are valuable commodities that one should hold back until they can be most effectively played, not thrown down on the table in wild abandon to elicit a reaction. Or lack thereof.”

His voice was serious, but Teriana could feel his mirth. The sudden urge to scream, to cry, to rage threatened to overwhelm her because Cassius was so damn good at making her feel powerless. “Enough. Deal or no deal.”

Silence stretched, the room growing colder by the second.

“It’s not a deal I can make,” Cassius finally replied. “Hostus’s men are in pursuit, and there is no way to reach them in time to tell themto stand down. Marcus will either beat them to Bardeen or he’ll die on their blades. It’s possible he’s already dead. Either way, I’ll not negotiate with collateral I don’t have. Name another price.”

She’d known he wouldn’t commit to it. Couldn’t commit to it, and his refusal to do so gave Teriana some confidence in her belief that he’d be honest in answering the question she really wanted answered.

“What happened to Lydia? I know she didn’t run away. I want the truth.”

The room was so cold now that Teriana was shaking, her skin a mass of gooseflesh. Cassius swirled the wine in his glass, eyes distant, considering. “You want to know Lydia’s fate,” he murmured. “She means enough to you that you’d give me this information?”