Page 268 of Scorched Earth

“You can’t win this, Agrippa. Do not make me kill everyone in that army for the sake of one girl. Give her to me, and we’ll turn around and return to Revat. You have my word.”

No sooner had he spoken did Servius entered the tent, his brown skin strangely blanched. “I need to talk to you, sir. We’ve had a report from Revat.”

“Can’t it wait?” Marcus gestured at Agrippa, irritated that Servius would interrupt this conversation.

“No.” Servius’s eyes locked on Agrippa, then he shook his head. “In truth, I don’t think this is going to be news to him.”

An equally rattled Felix entered the tent, and a sad smile formed on Agrippa’s face. Marcus stomach dropped. “Well, spit it out then.”

“Our supply lines have been cut.”

Marcus’s hands turned to ice. “Which ones?”

“All of them.”

His whole body went rigid. “That’s not possible. There are ones hidden in—”

“We’ve been cut off from Celendor. Cut off from the East entirely.”

But he’d done what Cassius had wanted. He was here, had secured the gold, was about to secure everything else. “Cassius cut—”

“I don’t think it was Cassius,” Servius said. “The xenthier terminus stem in Emrant blew up, which, as far as I know, is only possible if you set off explosives at the genesis. Like when the Nineteenth accidentally did it and got themselves buried in a landslide caused by the earthquake they set off. At any rate, the Emrant stem blew a mile in the air and set off an earthquake that turned half the city to rubble. Zimo managed to send a message off to Revat, but then Imresh came under attack. With the damages to the fortress from the earthquake, he couldn’t defend it. Gamdeshians, united with the Maarin, forced Zimo into retreat through the xenthier. As soon as the Gamdeshians and their allies had control of Imresh, they set charges on the genesis and blew it up as well. They then pursued the messenger through the stem between Emrant and Revat. Our forces in Revat have fallen under siege, and they plan to abandon the city and move to join us. Might already be here.”

“They can’t!” Marcus snapped into focus. “We need that water supply, or else—”

The ground suddenly shook, the tremor causing everyone in the tent to stagger. No one spoke for a long moment, the only sounds the shouts and curses of alarm from outside the tent as the men worked to calm the horses.

“I’m going to go out on a limb and say that we no longer have the use of that xenthier,” Servius said in a shaky voice. “Which also means we no longer have a clean water source.”

Agrippa slowly pushed his bottle of wine in front of Marcus. “Might take a bit to receive the reports, all things considered, but I suspect that the stem between Bardeen and Arinoquia is no more. The men you left in Aracam will either be dead or fled through to Sibern, which amounts to the same thing.”

Marcus’s ears were ringing, the world around him too bright.

Servius gave a slow shake of his head. “Someone with knowledgeof our explosives coordinated an attack in the East and the West at the same bloody time. Had the audacity to attack Celendor itself—Padria’s in spitting distance of Celendrial and it was attacked.”

We’re going to war, Legatus. And I think it’s time you had a taste of what it’s like to lose.

“You pissed off the wrong girl, Marcus,” Agrippa said. “And while I might not live long enough to relish the pleasure of watching you come to terms with losing, it has been a delight watching you realize that Teriana has just kicked your ass.”

Distantly, Marcus heard Servius tell Agrippa to shut his mouth. Heard Felix cursing, but none of the words resonated. They were cut off. Cut off from supplies, cut off from water, and trapped on poisoned ground.

He’d gotten the Thirty-Seventh killed. His brothers, the men he was sworn to protect, were all dead men walking.

You do not lose, the cursed voice in his head whispered.Unite wholly with Rufina. Together, you can take back control of Gamdesh. You can control all of Reath.

“Shut up!” he snarled, barely noticing as Felix, Servius, and Agrippa started in alarm. “Listening to you has killed them all. Get out of my head!”

It felt as though a beast was clawing up the insides of his skull. Like a battle was being fought, and the pain was excruciating. But whatever monster lurked behind the voice had put the lives of his men on the blade of a knife, and the Thirty-Seventh had always been the hill that he would die on.

“Get out.” It was a battle of wills. “Get out of my head!”

You will suffer,the voice answered.You will beg for respite from the pain. You need me.

“I don’t!” He could hear the faint wheeze in his voice. Knew that winning this would have a price. But it was one he was willing to pay. “I’m done with you!”

The monster within him hissed in anger, then retreated deep, deep within his core. Walled in and barricaded away, where it could do no harm.

But Marcus couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t get air into his lungs, because this was the cost of victory. This was the gods-damned cost.