Page 85 of Scorched Earth

“Why didn’t you stay in Celendrial?” Marcus whispered. “Why couldn’t you let me do this for you?”

Her lips parted to say that it had been because she didn’t trust him to do it, except had that really been the reason? “I don’t know why. I just… I couldn’t.”

His head tilted. “Did you really believe I’d abandon your people?”

So much was on the line, and it all felt like it hung on what was between them. Countless lives and the liberty of nations sitting on a knife blade formed of sentiment. “The only reason you had to risk so much for them was me, and—” Her voice cracked. “And your plan toaskKaira to give you Emrant was destined to fail. They’d never give up territory based on a threat, and it wasn’t just me who knew it. Everyone is speculating that you haven’t recovered from the xenthier. That you’ve lost your nerve. That you just want to sit in Arinoquia forever.”

If her words surprised him, Marcus didn’t show it, for he only reached around her to pick up his bottle of wine and drained it. “I didn’taskKaira to cede me territory. I asked her to work with me to trick the Senate into believing that they had their paths, securing the liberty of your people, after which I’d withdraw. For obvious reasons, that wasn’t a plan I shared with anyone.”

All the blood drained from her face. “But… but when they learned what you’d done, they’d have you arrested. Executed for treason.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Picking up a folded piece of paper, he handed it to her. “Kaira declined.”

Unfolding it, Teriana scanned the single line.

You, and the Empire, can kiss my ass.

Kaira

Teriana’s lips parted, speechless despite the thousands of thoughts she wished to voice.

“So now it will come down to force.” He set the bottle down with a loud click. “Invasion. Siege. More death than you can imagine, because there is no other way to achieve our ends within such a short timeframe.”

A timeframe she’d agreed to. If only she’d stayed out of it, if only she’dlistened,then maybe he’d have had longer.

Seeming to sense her thoughts, Marcus said, “Six months is important to Cassius, which is why he chose it. Even if you’d stayed with Valerius, he’d have found a way to impose the timeline on me. That’s not your fault. But your choice to return to Arinoquia was the biggest mistake of your life.”

The room was beginning to spin, yet Teriana sucked in a breath, then held it.

“If you had stayed in Celendrial, none of this would be on your conscience,” he said. “But now you are here, and this is only the beginning. The Empire’s war machine will pour into the West, and it will be like a tide of rot spreading across the world, corrupting and consuming everything to feed the insatiable greed of the men who sit upon a hill in a city most will never see. I would have carried that blame. I would have been the villain whose name was cursed, but you insist on being complicit. Why?”

He half shouted the word, and Teriana twitched, feeling suddenly so very cold, her lips numb. “I…”

“Because of me?”

He caught hold of her hips, jerking her onto his lap, her knees slipping to either side of him. Teriana bit down on a gasp as his arm pulled her against him, his other hand tangling in her braids. “You don’t need silks and cosmetics to seduce me.” His breath brushed her ear. “Because I’m already in love with you. So in love with you that sometimes I can’t breathe when you step into the room. Yet it’s the thought of you leaving that makes my heart stutter in my chest, because I don’t know how to live without you.”

A thousand words filled her head, yet Teriana spoke not a one as his hand abandoned her hair to catch hold of her chin, lifting her face so that their eyes locked.

“Except Iamthe Empire.” His eyes were like fire and frost, burning and chilling her in equal measure. “My love is a blight on your soul, changing and spoiling and ruining you. I am the worst thing that has ever happened to you, Teriana, and you should stay as far from me as you can get.”

Time seemed to stand still, and her mind spun down and down, trying to imagine what had happened in those brief moments they’d been apart in Celendrial that had somehow changed everything. How the man who’d held her in his arms and smiled at her stories had been consumed so easily by this cold creature she barely recognized. Whathad been said to him? What had been done to him? What threats had been voiced to make him believe the words he was saying to her?

She must have spoken the questions aloud, because he gave the slightest shake of his head. “Nothing was done to me. I was only reminded of who I am.”

“And who is that?”

Silence.

His lips parted, and Teriana’s pulse roared with anticipation and terror because this felt like a confession. Like the moment when he’d finally give her the reason why everything had fallen apart.

But all he said was, “Your enemy.”

The weight of those two words had been chained to her for so long, and yet Teriana found herself wondering if they were true. Cassius was the enemy. The Empire was the enemy. And not just hers, but Marcus’s. He had as much cause and more to hate them, to resist them, and the only reason he wasn’t was because ofher.That they were losing to their enemy did not make them less allied, and if she’d learned anything in life, it was that losing a battle was not losing the war. Marcus said that nothing had happened to him, yet somehow the ever-victorious commander had conceded defeat.

Except she refused to let him go without a fight.

Curling an arm around his neck, she stroked the side of his face, feeling the prickle of a day’s worth of stubble. Trailed a finger down the scar that marred his cheek. “You say you are my enemy, but how can that be when we both want the same thing?”