Page 49 of Scorched Earth

Slowly, Marcus lifted his head. “You made the only choice you could. Cassius holds all the cards.” He rose to his feet, moving to stand before her. “I’ll get it done. But I need you to promise you’ll stay out of it. And away from me.”

A knife to the gut would have hurt less.

“If you wish, you may join theQuincensefor the duration of the campaign. If you prefer to remain in this camp, you can share a tent with Quintus, as he seems content to resume his duties as your bodyguard. I will not involve you, and you will refrain from attempting to involve yourself in any capacity.”

Her lips parted, but echoes of her conversation with Felix filled her head.Did you chase him across the world to try to get him back?“If this was your intention,” she said, hating the way her voice shook, “then why did you bother telling me that you loved me? Because if it was a lie intended to soften the blow, it did the exact opposite.”

Outside the tent, the noise of thousands of men undertaking busywork filled the air, but Teriana barely heard them, her focus on the sound of his breathing. On the rapid rise and fall of his chest. On the sharp intake of breath he took as he started to speak and then bit down on the words. Though it was only seconds, it felt like a lifetime had passed before he said, “It wasn’t a lie.”

He took a half step toward her, and for a heartbeat, it was as though they no longer stood in the mess tent but were back on the riverboat in Celendrial, when they belonged to no one but each other.

“Why give me everything and then take it away in the next breath?” She brushed away the tear that rolled down her cheek. “It would have been better if you’d said you were over me. Bored of me. Hated me. Wanted someone else. Anything but what you chose to say.”

Marcus’s brow furrowed, but then he shook his head, expression hardening.

Already he was walling himself back up, emotion vanishing from his face, from his eyes, until all that remained was the prodigal legatus.

“Because to be loved by someone like me isn’t a gift, Teriana, it’s a curse.”

She flinched, looking away even as she fought the urge to scream that Cordelia Domitius was responsible for this. Her cruel words were making him talk and act like this. The list of people Teriana hated was short, but Cordelia had earned a place right next to gods-damned Lucius Cassius.

“Will you be joining your crew or remaining in camp?”

“Remaining,” she answered between her teeth, her fingernails cutting into her palms as she warred between anger and grief. And because she had no intention of giving him the last word in this, Teriana added, “I’ll tell Quintus to find us a tent,” then walked out.

19MARCUS

Breathe. Just breathe.

Marcus could feel one of his attacks looming, rising on a tidal wave of panic, exhaustion, and illness, and he sat down on a bench, sucking in mouthfuls of air.

Why hasn’t Cassius told Teriana the truth about Lydia?That had been Marcus’s first thought the moment she’d revealed meeting with the bastard, quickly followed by horror that she’d walked alone into the dragon’s den. Except further consideration made the consul’s strategy clear to him. Cassius had sunk his teeth in for the kill, but much like the bite of the dragon that adorned every banner across the Empire, it would not bring a quick death. It would be a slow and excruciating one. What Marcus had done to Lydia was leverage, and Cassius intended to use it to make Marcus dance to his tune.

His breathing was taking on a wheezing tone, and Marcus squeezed his eyes shut.Not now. Please.Because part of him knew that if his illness came for him today, he didn’t have it in him to fight it.

“Sir?”

Marcus twitched, his eyes snapping open to focus on Gibzen. The Thirty-Seventh’s primus had entered the tent, the uncertainty on his face unfamiliar in its rarity, for Gibzen was confident even when he was wrong. “Yes?”

The other man approached, then to Marcus’s horror, dropped to his knees before him. “I want to say that I’m sorry, sir.”

He stared at the top of Gibzen’s head, black hair shorn nearly down to the scalp. “For what?”

Breathe.

“I… Ispatin your face. And the rocks…” Gibzen lifted his head, and Marcus could tell that he clearly weighed the former a far greater injury than the latter. “I’ll take whatever punishment you care to give me for what I did. I was wrong to doubt you.”

Marcus did not want to deal with this now. Could not deal with this now. “It’s fine. Get up. Thirty-Seventh don’t grovel.”

Gibzen scrambled to his feet, hands behind his back at attention. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

“At ease.” Marcus tried to mask the wheeze in his voice. “Was there anything else you needed?”

“Teriana stormed out snarling at Quintus about how they needed to find a tent,” Gibzen said. “That right, or do you want me to see about getting her a room in the fortress?”

“No, that’s right.”

“Fair enough. Racker said he wants Ash—Uh, the… what’s the word? Corrupted?” Gibzen’s gaze was on Ashok’s corpse. “The body. You know how Racker likes to play around with corpses.”