Page 4 of Scorched Earth

What had been done?

“The rule of three.” Austornic’s voice rose above the other two. “Never more than three jumps in a row.”

“What are you talking about!” Her words came out in a shout.

All three exchanged looks, but it was Austornic who answered. “Traveling through xenthier takes a physical toll. I’m sure you are familiar with the sensation of dizziness and disorientation, yes?” When she nodded, he continued, “There is endless speculation in the collegium as to the mechanics of xenthier, theories about the impact on the body from extreme acceleration and deceleration that I won’t bore you with, because you only care about the consequences.”

“Thank you for sparing me.”

“Each time you travel is like taking a minor knock on the head. Something easily recovered from. But if one travels through paths in quick succession, each knock on the head compounds on the next. Like being hit over and over, with obvious results. The rule is no more than three jumps in the space of a week to avoid lasting harm. What Marcus is doing is akin to a battering ram to the skull.”

“Does he know that?” She pressed her fingers to her own skull, feeling phantom pain within it. “Never mind. Of course he knows.”

“It’s possible he came up with a path with fewer jumps that allowed him to reach Hydrilla before the Twenty-Ninth,” Wex said. “There are hundreds and hundreds of paths across the Empire, and puzzles always were his strength. It’s equally possible that he determined it couldn’t be done and has gone to ground somewhere in the Empire.”

Except Marcus didn’t believe in the wordcouldn’twhen it pertained to him, which meant he’d have done it, risks and all. “But you said others survived many consecutive jumps?”

But before any of them could answer, a servant appeared at the door with a tray bearing a folded note. Valerius crossed the room, snatching up the scrap of paper, his already grim expression darkening further as he lifted his eyes to meet Teriana’s. “Cassius has agreed to meet with you.”

3MARCUS

“What’s wrong with him? Why is he getting worse?”

Titus’s voice cut through the haze, but Marcus kept his eyes squeezed shut. The fog thickening his thoughts refused to clear, made worse by a throbbing ache in his skull that made Marcus want to curl in on himself. Made him want to hide from light and sound, because they made the pain so much worse.

He had only vague memories of what had occurred since he’d woken in Titus’s camp without his armor, the letter Wex had given him, or any of the other proof that he’d been in Celendrial. He’d faded in and out of consciousness, but the same dream repeated, of Titus leaning over him and whispering,I might not be able to stop the Thirty-Seventh from having their revenge on you. They’re angry, Marcus. And they’re not the same legion as when you left.Every time he regained consciousness, his first thought was,What has happened to them?

He hadn’t been moved from the floor of Titus’s tent, and he vaguely heard the sounds of legionnaires breaking camp, the air smelling of wet ash as they doused cook fires. Marcus’s name was mentioned often, but not half as often as another word.

Deserter.

“It has to be a head injury, sir. From when he was beaten.”

“You said his skull wasn’t cracked!”

“It’s not, but he’s got a black eye, so we know he was hit. Head injuries can be unpredictable like that.”

“No,” Marcus tried to say, but it only came out as unintelligible noise.

“Fix him!” Titus snarled. “You’re a fucking surgeon—do something!”

“There’s nothing to be done, Titus! Not even Racker could fix what’s wrong with him. He’s a dead man, sure and true.”

A dead man.

The weight of that pierced through the haze, the burden of failure making Marcus want to scream.

“Shit!” Titus raged. “Shit shit shit! If he dies, the Thirty-Seventh will blame us!”

“Why? They’d have killed him anyway.”

“Because it’s different!” Titus’s voice was like knives in Marcus’s brain. “They need to be the ones to kill him. It has to be them. Don’t you see?”

Merciful silence.

“How you choose to manage the complexities of this situation is up to you,” the surgeon eventually replied. “But he’s not going to survive the journey to Aracam. By your leave, I’ve other patients to see to who I can actually treat.”

“Go!”