Page 122 of Scorched Earth (Dark Shores #4)

TERIANA

Magnius delivered the news of Aspasiana’s death just as they exited the greater ocean path that had brought the Quincense back across the world.

Her whole crew had been near silent since, the grief they all felt at the death of her mother compounded by the death of the Kairense ’s guardian.

For not in living memory had one of the demigods been lost. They were as constant as Madoria herself, bound to the Maarin people, and Aspasiana’s death felt like part of their world had been destroyed.

What will happen now? Teriana asked Magnius, who had been equally silent as he grieved his sibling.

Questions she’d never had cause to ask kept rising in her mind, not the least of which was how the guardian’s death impacted Vane’s authority as triumvir.

The guardians swam with the triumvirs—that was how it had always been, and Magnius had taken up his post behind the Quincense when her great great grandfather was captain.

Will… will another guardian come into being?

No, Magnius answered. What were three are now two.

Do you need to leave ? she asked, desperately afraid of losing him when grief over her mother’s death weighed down her heart.

You are triumvir now, Teriana. I go where you go.

I miss her. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

As do I, young one. But Tesya is with Madoria now, where the seas are ever tranquil. Grieve not for her, who is at peace, but for the living who must still fight the evils of this world.

Evils that were winning.

Fog clung heavily to the sea as the Quincense slowly moved between the towers flanking the harbor entrance. Teriana’s stomach clenched at the sight of the crimson and gold banners flying on their ramparts, all that Magnius had told her proving true.

Revat had fallen to the Celendor Empire.

Had fallen to Marcus.

This is where Aspasiana fell, Magnius said into her thoughts. She rests beneath us.

Teriana wondered if Vane and the crew of the Kairense were safe. Wondered why they’d been in Revat. Wondered how the Cel had killed a demigod.

But if Magnius knew any of the answers, he did not voice them.

“We can still turn around,” her aunt said from the helm. “There’s no good to be done here, Teriana. We should sail to Serlania to join Lydia and Killian.”

“I gave my word,” Teriana replied. “Run up a white flag. In their eyes, we’re no threat, so they’ll either talk or send us on our way.”

Marcus would either talk to her or send her away.

“Oh gods,” Polin whispered, as a breath of wind stirred the heavy mists. “The towers of the Six are gone. ”

Teriana’s breath caught as her eyes went skyward.

Considered the greatest wonders of the world, the seven towers of Revat had once reached so high it was said they touched the clouds, but through the clearing fog, she saw only one remained.

The black stone of the Seventh’s tower sucked in the light of the sun rather than reflected it, the semblance of a visage carved into the top seeming to shift and move, watching her.

“Revat hasn’t fallen to the Cel, it has fallen to the Corrupter,” someone said, but it was her aunt’s words that chilled Teriana’s soul.

“They are allies, sure and true, even if these boys won’t admit that the Seventh exists.”

The Quincense drifted closer, the typically packed harbor now only holding the Cel fleet and a handful of Katamarcan merchant vessels, and it wasn’t long until a legionnaire waved them into a space along one of the piers.

Others moved to drop bumpers and catch lines, tying the ship off before a centurion approached, his breastplate bearing a 37.

She immediately recognized him, for though she’d spent little time in the company of the legionnaire whose dark hair and angular eyes marked him as born in Faul province, Qian was well liked.

He was also one of the few centurions who didn’t feel compelled to scream every order he gave.

“Qian,” she called down. “Good to see you alive.”

“I have to say, Teriana,” he replied, “I didn’t think I’d ever see your face again. What madness brought you here?”

“I need to speak to him.” She rested her elbows on the ship’s rail. “That possible?”

Qian pulled off his helmet, wiped the sweat from his brow, then put it back on before he said, “You can try. Command is in the palace. I’ll arrange an escort.”

“Stay on the ship,” Teriana ordered her crew. “If I’m not back in two hours, go to Serlania without me.”

Her aunt grabbed her arm. “No. If you think he’s going to hurt you, you’re not getting off this ship.”

“He won’t hurt me.” Teriana twisted her arm free. “It wasn’t a request, Auntie. It was an order.”

Not waiting for a gangplank, Teriana stepped onto the rail and leapt down onto the dock. “Lead the way.”

The damage to the city brought tears to Teriana’s eyes, for the towers dedicated to the Six were not the only things that had been destroyed.

Collapsed buildings left rubble across streets.

Rocks that had been flung by Cel catapults sat in smashed fountains and in the middle of courtyards, and the stink of ash clung to the air from all the fires that had begun as a result.

But almost worse was the damage that had been inflicted by the flooding.

Anything near the river not made of stone had been washed into the harbor, but now that the water had receded, a vile muck coated the ground and walls up to the water line, which was higher than she was tall.

In the blistering heat, everything was turning to rot, and not, judging from the smell, just grain stores and property.

Marcus had done this.

“It’s mostly dead livestock,” Qian said from where he walked at her left. “The city was evacuated, and the military was all on high ground when the dam was burst. They surrendered not long after.”

She stepped over a dead chicken rotting in the muck. “Hard to hold out in a siege when there’s nothing to eat.”

“Yeah,” he replied, not sounding particularly happy about the victory. “Though I think it had more to do with Kaira’s death than anything.”

Teriana stopped in her tracks. “Kaira’s dead?”

It seemed impossible. The princess had always seemed as indomitable as… as the god towers in Revat’s sky. Teriana looked to the black tower of the Seventh, hands cold. “How?”

“She tried to destroy the dam while we were on the field, which would have killed half of the Thirty-Seventh and Forty-First. Never seen someone fight like her—she took down a lot of good men when they tried to capture her, but she was having none of being a prisoner.” He cast a sideways glance at her. “She died well, if that matters.”

“Dead is dead.” Teriana caught sight of a man in a legionnaire’s tunic hanging from the gallows in a market square. “Hanging your own now, too?”

Qian sighed. “We had Kaira’s shifter Astara as a prisoner. He aided in her escape, but while she was able to fly away, he got caught.”

Teriana stared at the dead man swaying on the breeze, his face having turned an awful bruised hue that made recognition impossible. “Who is he?”

“Atrio.” Qian’s jaw worked from side to side. “He was one of the Thirty-Seventh’s spies, and Astara was his mark. Though apparently she left a mark on him. One worth dying for.”

Her eyes pricked with tears, but she looked away from the dead man before they could spill and caught sight of the Sultan’s palace ahead.

It was undeniably the largest palace on all of Reath, dozens and dozens of copper spires reaching to the sky, though several had fallen victim to the siege.

It grew colder with every step Teriana took toward it, and she was not the only one affected.

Gooseflesh had risen on the arms of the legionnaires, and she said, “The cold you feel? That’s the Seventh God’s influence.

By destroying the other towers, you gave him control. ”

No one answered, but she knew they were listening.

“There’s been more violence, hasn’t there?

” she asked. “Friends turning on friends. Everyone quick to anger. Quicker to lash out. Pestilence, too, I reckon, as well as animals dying. Crops failing. Things being born wrong. That’s the Corrupter.

” She lifted her chin. “You might think you serve the Empire, but you’re wrong. Right now, you serve the Seventh God.”

Their silence was telling, and Teriana left it at that as a familiar large figure appeared at the palace gates, his arms crossed.

“Teriana,” he said.

“Servius.”

“To what do we owe the honor? I’m hoping it’s not that the Senate refused to free your people, because there’s nothing we can do about that.”

“They’re freed,” she said. “They set sail from Celendrial within hours of my delivering Grypus’s letter.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I’m playing messenger for his sister. There’s something she wanted him to know that couldn’t go through official channels.”

One of Servius’s eyebrows rose. “Not what I expected you to say, but all right. I’ll see that it gets to him.”

“I need to deliver it personally.”

“Not going to happen.”

Anger rose in her chest but so did fear, because there was a part of Teriana that had been certain she could accomplish what Cordelia had asked.

That she would tell Marcus to turn around and go back to Celendor to fix its problems, and that he’d do it.

But having seen what he’d done to Revat?

Having heard Kaira’s fate? All that certainty dissolved, and Teriana’s eyes skipped to the looming black tower before she asked, “Why not?”

“He’s busy.”

Teriana huffed out an annoyed breath. “Don’t pull that shit on me, Servius. I’m sure you know everything, but in case you need a reminder, I had a good reason for leaving as I did. He doesn’t deserve you protecting his feelings.”

Servius motioned to Qian, who backed off, he and his men looking everywhere but at them.