Page 276 of Scorched Earth

Lydia bit the inside of her cheeks. “I intend to try.”

“There’s a stem that leads to Deadground,” Agrippa said. “But Rufina’s camped her army right on top of it.”

The wrath didn’t diminish, but Lydia could see the wheels turning in Marcus’s eyes. A decision being made.

Then he pivoted, side stepping Dareena and going to the table that held the maps of the surrounding lands. “Where?”

Killian moved to the opposite side of the table, and a shiver ran over Lydia’s skin because two such forces should never be so close together. Killian touched the map. “Here. It’s surrounded by a lake of blight, as well as thousands of Mudamorian blighters who will make short work of any effort to bridge the lake.” He hesitated, then added, “If we destroy their bodies, it won’t matter if we pull the blight out of them. They’ll be lost.”

Silence filled the tent.

Lydia’s heart sank because perhaps there was no solution that wouldn’t have a horrible price. Then Marcus said, “This is what we’re going to do.”

Listening, Lydia saw why this man had come so close to conquering the world, for his strategies were a beautiful mixture of complexity and simplicity, predictable in retrospect but utterly shocking in the moment.

“Can you do it?” Marcus asked in Cel. Agrippa cast his eyes upward and then translated.

“Can you?” Killian retorted.

They glared at each other, neither bending an inch, so Lydia lifted her chin and said, “We’ll be ready.”

“I need to get back.” Marcus put the helmet that had been tucked under his arm onto his head, obscuring much of his face. “I’ll arrange to meet with her tonight.”

He turned to go, but Lydia found herself reaching for his arm, stopping him. “Is there anything you want me to tell Teriana?”

For a long time, Marcus didn’t answer, and then he finally said, “Everything that needs to be said needs to come from my lips, not through a messenger. I may never have the opportunity—your gods know I do not deserve it—but I’d rather it all go unsaid than for her to hear it from anyone but me.”

Then he was gone.

For the longest time, no one spoke, then Killian said, “Are you all right?”

Lydiawasall right. In a way she hadn’t expected, and most certainly hadn’t anticipated, but beyond the hope the legions brought, there had been catharsis in facing down the fear on which all her other fears had grown. “Yes.”

103MARCUS

The torches crackled in the mist, not a breath of wind stirring the night air. Even so, Marcus could smell the blight, every breath he took tasting like foulness and rot. Handing off his horse, he walked a few paces and then paused, his eyes catching on a narrow ribbon of black in the ground that was so inky dark it seemed to consume the torchlight. Bending low, he examined the blight, watching it shift and swirl as though it watched him back. A reminder of the stakes. What he’d lost. And what would remain lost if Lydia and her companions didn’t deliver.

The Fifty-First are dead. Austornic is dead.

Grief and guilt threatened to drown him, but Marcus instead used the emotions to fuel his focus. Lydia said they could be saved, but it was only possible if he succeeded tonight.

Stepping over the blight, Marcus carried on alone to the tent that had been set up for him, aware, as he sat, that he was very much on enemy ground. Even so, there was some degree of peace in the moment, for he couldn’t recall the last time he’d sat entirely alone with nothing but his own thoughts for company. Even when the legion gave him space, he was still surrounded, still watched, and though to be without them now should put terror in his veins, Marcus found himself breathing easily as he waited in the silence.

His mind drifted, as it always did, to Teriana. The hair ornament he’d taken from Gibzen was on a string around his neck, the tiny ship pressed against his chest. Little more information had been received since the moment he’d learned his supply lines had been cut off, but the fragments of information were enough for him to piecetogether what Teriana had done. The history books would speak of the technicalities, of how she’d coordinated the theft of explosives from multiple locations across Reath, then used the Maarin network to organize an attack on xenthier stems, severing supply lines. Of how the Maarin, a nomadic nation with no military, had defeated Celendor, who held the greatest armies in the world. But Marcus saw it differently. Where he’d gone through life making enemies, Teriana had been making friends, and the single greatest thing she’d done was make allies out of those he’d trod upon, creating a unified force unlike any Reath had seen. The technicalities paled in comparison to that achievement, though he wished with all his heart that he’d be able to hear about them from her own lips.

A sharp pain formed in his chest, and he rested an elbow on the empty table, breathing deeply until it faded. Not that it ever went away. The loss of what had been between him and Teriana was an aching wound that would never heal. He’d always associated pain with weakness, but this pain made him stronger. Made him remember himself. Made him remember what truly mattered.

A noise like a canvas tarp being snapped filled the air, followed by a faint thud. Marcus tensed, scanning the darkness beyond the tent for the source of the sound, and a deimos stepped into view.

Remaining seated, he watched the monstrous winged creature walk closer, then stop, the woman seated on its back sliding to the ground. For all the deimos was dangerous, every instinct in his body screamed thatshewas the real threat; danger seethed around her like a dark cloud.

As Rufina approached, Marcus rose to his feet and inclined his head. “Your Majesty. Thank you for agreeing to this meeting.”

“Legatus.” She took the seat opposite him, watching him with midnight eyes ringed with fire. “I confess I’ve longed to meet you for some time. Your exploits across the Endless Seas are rivaled only by your accomplishments in the south. I dare say, you live up to every bit of your reputation.”

Marcus wished with all his heart that wasn’t the case, but for now he needed to be the man who’d earned his repute. “You have the advantage, Majesty, for you are something of a mystery to me. Queen of Derin. Marked by the Seventh. Mistress of the blight. Bane of Mudamora. Sworn enemy of our common problem, Killian Calorian.”

Rufina’s jaw tightened slightly at Calorian’s name, which Marcus could appreciate, because he felt much the same way aboutMudamora’s general, but all she said was, “Hardly a mystery, then. What else is there to know?”