Page 38 of Scorched Earth

“This was the army you told me about?” Malahi asked. “The one you’d been with since you were a boy? That you were separated from when you fell through a xenthier? The one whose mark you have on your chest?”

Lydia couldn’t help but wonder what else the pair had discussed during their flight across Derin, for it seemed Agrippa had held little back.

“Yeah.” Agrippa sighed, then added, “The Thirty-Seventh Legion of the Celendor Empire.”

“This was where you fled to, Lydia?” Malahi asked. “Or, I suppose more accurately, where Queen Camilla fled to with you as a baby?”

Malahi was filling the silence to give Agrippa a moment, Lydia could tell that much. “Yes. She was injured by Rufina during her escape through a xenthier stem, and she died on the streets of Celendrial. I was taken in by a senator, which is like a very powerful lord, and he raised me as his own daughter.”

“I assume the Thirty-Seventh came through the Bardeen path?” Agrippa’s voice remained toneless. “Path-hunters mapped it?”

“I was gone before they departed,” Lydia answered. “But I’ve a friend in a Maarin crew who told me that the Maarin were blackmailed into taking the Thirty-Seventh and Forty-First legions into the doldrums where the greater ocean paths are hidden.” It was her turn to swallow hard. “If they’ve since learned about the path you took, I could not say.”

Silence.

“How didyoucome to return to Mudamora, Lydia?” Malahi asked. “Was it accidental or purposeful?”

“I suppose that’s a matter of perspective.” It felt strange to discuss her history in such a forthright manner, as it had always felt like something that needed to be secret. Which perhaps was true, but… “I was not considered marriageable to anyone of good breeding given that I was not Cel by blood, so when a senator named Lucius Cassius offered to wed me, my father accepted, despite my protests. Cassius used my father’s influence to win the consulship. That’s… I suppose it’s the same power as a king, though it’s elected by citizens and is limited to two terms in office…” She trailed off, suspecting that no one was tremendously interested in the political structure of Celendor. “After he’d won, I no longer held value to him, so he arranged for the Thirty-Seventh’s legatus—commander, that is—to murder me.”

“Marcus is dead?” The first hint of emotion since this conversation had begun filled Agrippa’s voice. Shock and…grief?

“No. He’s alive.” A sneaking suspicion that what she was about to say next would be a blow caused Lydia to hesitate before she said, “He tried to kill me, and no doubt thinks I’m dead since—”

“Bull fucking shit!” Agrippa shouted, on his feet in a flash, not even seeming to hear Baird’s cautioning words that shouting was not advisable. “Marcus wouldn’t do that. You’re lying.”

Killian was on his feet as well, and Lydia noted his shadowed arm had his sword half drawn.

“I wish I were,” she responded. “I was put down the drain in Cassius’s new baths, which led to an underground river that dead-ended in a xenthier stem. My choices were to risk an unknown path or die down there.”

“Marcus would not drown some girl because the consul didn’t feel like marrying her,” Agrippa snapped. “You’re mistaken.”

“I’m not. I was introduced to him personally at the elections. My height, golden brown hair, blue-grey eyes, scar across his cheek.”

At the last, Agrippa stiffened.

“If it helps, he took no joy in it,” she said. “I believe Cassius was blackmailing him in some way, although in truth, since the conquest of Chersome, the Thirty-Seventh’s reputation has been… dark. The Senate holds several Maarin ships and their crew as prisoners, and the Thirty-Seventh have my best friend in theircare, forcing her to aid them.”

“Triumvir Tesya’s daughter,” Killian said.

“Teriana?” Malahi gasped. “Oh, gods. This…” Her voice hardened. “All this has been going on, and you bothknewand said nothing? Why has Celendor crossed the Endless Seas? What is their goal?”

“Conquest,” Agrippa answered. “Chersome was the last nation in the East not under the Senate’s thumb, and with it defeated, they have set their eyes across the seas. The Empire is as bad as the blight for turning things into its own.”

“Arinoquia, perhaps, but they can’t think to stand against Gamdesh,” Malahi said. “The Sultan has a standing army of twenty thousand soldiers, led by Princess Kaira herself. They’ll crush them.”

Agrippa began to laugh, quietly at first and then louder until Baird cursed and punched him in the side to shut him up.

“What precisely is it that you find so humorous about this?” Malahi demanded.

“My numbers are old, but you probably have fresh information, Lydia. One hundred forty thousand in active service?”

“One hundred fifty thousand.” She drew her legs up, resting her chin on her knees. “And Cassius was of a mind to expand the ranks training in Lescendor.”

“Right.” Agrippa exhaled a shaky breath. “One hundred fifty thousand trained soldiers. For clarity, I don’t mean the pathetic excuses for soldiers that fill the ranks of moststandingarmies, but men who have been living and breathing the art of war. All under command of one of the most gifted commanders to ever live. If Marcus was the legatus I once knew, there might be hope, but if what Lydia says is true and he’s lost himself, then may the gods have mercy on every soul on the Southern Continent.”

No one spoke. No one even seemed to breathe, the only sound the whistle of wind through the trees and a deimos screaming its frustration in the distant skies.

“I’ll ask since we’re all wondering,” Killian eventually said. “What is your intent, Agrippa? Are you planning to return to your brothers in arms?”