Page 140 of Scorched Earth

Three of the men dropped to one knee, swearing the same, while four more shook their heads and stepped back. Leaving only High Lady Helene Torrington.

Lydia stared into the eyes of the young woman who was no friend of hers, and who never would be. The swing vote that would decide her future, and Lydia remembered the endless callous words that had come from Helene’s lips. Her utter indifference to the suffering of others. To have the fate of so many held in the hands of such a woman seemed the purest form of injustice.

Yet rather than stepping back, Helene stepped forward, her arms crossed.

“You still have that ring?” she asked. “The black diamond one you sold to me? The one Killian bought back?”

Lydia could feel it hanging on the silver chain that Killian had taken from Malahi what seemed a lifetime ago, a familiar presence yet one she paid little mind to. “Yes.”

“If you gave it to me as a symbol of goodwill, I might be inclined to vote in your favor.”

Next to her, Lydia felt Killian tense and curse under his breath, but the faintest breath of warmth filled the cold hollow in her chest, because this wasn’t greed. Wasn’t bribery. High Lady Torrington was giving Lydia one last chance to make this step her own choice rather than something that was forced upon her.

Rufina was coming, marching at the head of an army of the dead, leaving a blackened wasteland in her wake, and someone had to stand against her. Lydia’s eyes moved over the men and women standing before her. All of them feared what was to come, but every last one of them was also driven by the desire for power, not the desire to protect the people whose lives stood in the balance. When Hegeria had told her that she’d be walking a hard road if she accepted her mark, Lydia had never imagined that it would take her here.

But she’d made it through every trial, and she refused to break now.

Drawing the silver chain over her head, Lydia walked up the steps and handed it to Helene.

“I’ll treasure the gift.” The High Lady shoved the ring onto her finger and then dropped into a low curtsey. “House Torrington swears fealty to you, Queen Kitaryia Falorn.”

That’s not my name.

Behind her, Dareena said, “As a representative of the Six, I swear that this vote has been conducted lawfully and that all have acted of their own accord and without compulsion.”

Lydia turned on the steps, refusing to look at Malahi, who had stepped back in the crowd, Agrippa grim-faced at her elbow.

Hacken snatched hold of Lydia’s wrist and raised it into the air. “All hail Queen Kitaryia Falorn, Marked by Hegeria and chosen by the Twelve to lead Mudamora to war!”

“All hail the queen!” everyone shouted, but all Lydia heard was her own voice in her head.

That’s not my name.

49TERIANA

With a speed beyond anything Teriana had dreamed possible, Marcus had marched his army around the mangrove swamps that ringed the mouth of the Orinok, then up the road leading to the port city of Emrant.

Farms and towns and villages emptied ahead of them, the scouts reporting that the Gamdeshian civilians were evacuating north under Kaira’s directive. They took their flocks and herds with them and razed the land in their wake, making it seem to Teriana that they rode through an underworld.Scorched earth, she’d heard Servius call it, and understood it as a strategic term. Yet it also described the ground itself, which was blackened and devoid of life. Useless to the legions, but also so ruined that it was a struggle to envision how the Gamdeshians would ever go back to life as it once had been. Even the gods felt vanquished, for while she’d heard that Marcus had told the front-runners to leave the small shrines to the gods be, she’d also heard that those in the rear ranks had taken matters into their own hands. Though he surely knew what they were doing, Marcus did not take action, only steadily rode toward Emrant with Gibzen constantly at his side.

You cannot break,she chanted to herself.You must trust him.

But every day her faith faltered. Every day her fear grew that, because of her, all of Gamdesh would burn.

Scorched earth.

The words repeated over and over in her head, feeling like a description of what she left in her own wake. Chaos and ruin and unforgivable hurt, and Teriana knew that she’d never be able to go back. Knew that in walking this path to free her people, she’d ensured she’d forever be a pariah in the West. What a disappointment she must be to Madoria, for this could not be what her goddess had hoped for.

But Teriana no longer apologized. No longer spoke silent words in prayer to the Six, because she did not deserve absolution and therefore would not ask for it.

It made her feel cold.

And so very,veryalone.

As miserable as it was, Teriana wished the ride would go on forever because once they reached the end of this long march, there would be war.

Yet what were wishes but prayers? And for her, no one was listening.

50LYDIA