Page 152 of Scorched Earth (Dark Shores #4)

MARCUS

Marcus rested his elbows on the table, on which sat his helmet, a glass of wine, and nothing else.

You’re close.

Lydia was here, and was once again the Queen of Mudamora, judging from the crown she wore. She was in the company of her general, Killian Calorian, as well as several others whom his men hadn’t been able to identify due to their hoods and helmets.

They’ll surrender.

He twitched at the certainty of the voice because surrender was never likely when a force had its back against a wall. Or its back against another army, as was the case here.

Make your acceptance contingent on them handing over their queen. Then you’ll have her. The woman who ruined everything for you because she didn’t stay dead.

“It wasn’t her fault, it was mine,” he muttered, and was rewarded with a sharp stab of pain in his head, his defiance faltering in the face of the agony.

Kill her.

The fists were pounding against his walls, and Marcus put his head in his hands, exhausted by the war inside his mind that would not end.

The two halves of himself seemed not to care that their battle was destroying him.

Breaking apart his mind bit by bit. Part of him welcomed the moment he’d finally collapse under the strain.

“You all right, sir?” Gibzen asked.

“Headache.” He hated to admit it, but since they’d come through the xenthier and stepped onto Mudamorian soil, the pain had been intense. “Go ask Racker for something that won’t numb my ability to think.”

“You’ll be better once we’re back in Revat,” the primus replied. “It’s this place. I don’t feel right here either—makes my skin crawl. Like I’m being watched by unfriendly eyes. I should stay with you.”

Irritation filled Marcus’s voice as he snapped, “Go talk to Racker. Now.”

Gibzen looked ready to argue, but then shrugged and departed, leaving Marcus to rub at his temples.

Felix ducked into the tent. “They’re sending a rider under a white flag.”

“Good,” Marcus muttered, wiping at his nose and then staring at the crimson smeared across his fingers. “Let’s get this over with so we can head back to Revat. I don’t want to be here. There’s too much…” Too much of something , but his mind couldn’t put a finger on what.

“The stink is giving everyone a headache. With any luck, being delivered their rear guard will have cracked their resolve,” Felix said. “They have to know they can’t win this.”

Marcus was certain that they did know, but that didn’t mean they’d surrender without a fight.

“Oh, shit!”

The astonishment in Felix’s voice caused Marcus to lift his head, shock radiating through him as his second said, “The rider—it’s Agrippa!”

“What?” Marcus stood up so abruptly that he hit the table, only quick reflexes keeping the wineglass from tipping sideways. “You can’t be serious. He’s in Bardeen.”

“Unless he has a twin on this side of the Endless Seas who knows all the names of our men, it’s Agrippa.”

Kicking back his stool, Marcus strode to the front of the tent and out into the sunlight, his breath disappearing as his eyes locked onto his once primus slowly walking his horse through the gap in the ranks, a white flag on a stick resting nonchalantly against one shoulder.

“It’s good to see you boys,” Agrippa called out. “It’s been an age, hasn’t it? You all grew up! Finally put some muscles into the lines, I see!”

The Thirty-Seventh’s neat ranks were now all jagged as the men stared at Agrippa in astonishment. Though he was clearly fighting on the side of those who’d ambushed their brothers, not a one of them had anger in their expressions.

“Took a fall into the river at Hydrilla after we took the fortress!” Agrippa shouted, avoiding Marcus’s gaze as he drew closer. “Wasn’t the most pleasant journey across the world, but I learned a very important lesson about not pissing off the wrong woman!”

“Didn’t those washer women claim he’d run off to join the rebels with his girl?” Felix muttered.

Though that had been years ago, in the shadow of Hydrilla, the memory of that conversation remained vivid in Marcus’s mind. “Yes.”

“Didn’t Gibzen also confirm their story based on tracks?”

“Yes.” A suspicion he hadn’t put much thought to in far too long began to grow in Marcus’s chest. “Gibzen brought the women to speak to me as well. He provided all the proof that Agrippa deserted.”

“I’m going to go out on a limb,” Felix’s voice shook with anger, “and say that Gibzen lied.”

Anger began to simmer in Marcus’s chest, but where the emotion usually bolstered the walls in his mind, this time it made them tremble. Because Gibzen had done more than just lie.

Marcus and Agrippa had never been friends, but they’d been brothers. Part of the same family forged in Lescendor and cemented on the battlefield, and an attack on one brother was an attack on all.

Even when the attack came from within.

“Send someone to fetch Quintus,” he ordered. “And someone else to find Gibzen.”

Felix muttered the order to one of the men, and Agrippa chose that moment to lock eyes with Marcus, drawing his horse to a stop. “Sir.”

“You didn’t desert.”

“Not then, no.” Agrippa dismounted, handing his reins to Felix. “I spent years trying to find my way back east without any luck. Imagine my shock to learn that you and the boys were on this side of the world.”

“But you’re not here to rejoin the Thirty-Seventh’s ranks, are you?”

Agrippa hesitated, and Marcus saw his throat move as he swallowed hard before saying, “No, sir. I am not.”

All around him, the Thirty-Seventh seemed to hold its collective breath as they waited for Marcus to react. To give the order that needed to come, given that Agrippa was now, by his own admission, a deserter. For once, the voice was silent, seeming uncertain of what to make of this moment.

And the part of Marcus that was trapped behind the walls in his mind took advantage, screaming, He is not your enemy!

Closing the distance between them, Marcus wrapped his arms around the man who’d been both his rival and his savior, clapping him on the back. “It’s good to see you, Agrippa. You’ve been missed more than you know.”

Agrippa stood frozen for a moment, then relaxed and thumped Marcus on his armored back. “Thank you, sir.”

Letting go of him, Marcus gestured to the tent. “Should we get to business, then?”

Agrippa cast one backward glance at the ridgeline, then nodded. “Yeah. Though I think both of us know what the other will say.”

Right up until the point Agrippa had appeared, Marcus had believed there was a chance that the Mudamorians would surrender and hand over their queen. But Calorian’s choice to send Agrippa was not the strategy of a general who believed himself defeated. “For old time’s sake, then.”

Entering the shade of the command tent, Marcus returned to where he’d been sitting, then watched as Agrippa circled the tent, inspecting the contents.

“It’s like going back in time,” Agrippa muttered. “Everything is the same as it always was.”

Not everything.

As he watched Agrippa root around in the cabinets, Marcus examined the changes that time had wrought upon his once primus.

Agrippa was taller and broader. His skin, which had always been darker courtesy of his Bardenese heritage, was darker still from the sun, new scars pale by comparison.

His eyes were harder, posture more wary; that might be attributed to the circumstances, but Marcus’s gut told him otherwise.

“I learned something recently,” Agrippa said. “We’re family.”

“That’s not a revelation. Once Thirty-Seventh, always Thirty-Seventh.”

The corner of Agrippa’s mouth turned up. “True, but that’s not what I meant. My elder brother is Tiberius Egnatius. Lydia tells me he’s a senator now.” His smile turned sly. “And married to your sister.”

Surprise shook Marcus’s already shaken composure. “Pardon?”

“Her name is Cordelia Domitius, isn’t it? I always knew you must have come right from the top of the Hill.”

A sudden twinge of pain struck Marcus in his chest at the mention of Cordelia, and he couldn’t help but wonder what she’d say if she knew where he sat now.

If she knew all the things he had done. Though protocol demanded otherwise, he found himself saying, “I’ve met him.

Knowing you’re his blood explains his politics. ”

“It’s the Bardenese in him. Rebel blood. How does your sister feel about that, good Cel woman that she is?”

“It was my impression that when Cordelia says ‘Jump,’ Tiberius asks, ‘How high?’”

“It seems that the penchant for giving orders is a Domitius trait.” Agrippa extracted an expensive bottle of Atlian wine from one of the cabinets and held it up. “Amarin still with you?”

Marcus tensed at the mention of his servant’s name.

Gibzen had somehow seamlessly stepped into the role, taking on all of Amarin’s tasks.

Always in Marcus’s presence, driving everyone else away.

What had felt like loyalty now felt like something else, but all Marcus said was, “He’s around somewhere. ”

Agrippa opened the bottle without asking, and drank straight from the neck. “Tastes like the Empire.”

Marcus rested his elbows on the table. “If it’s that bitter, it must be off.”

Agrippa laughed, then took another mouthful. “Good to see you haven’t been so corrupted that you’ve lost your sense of humor.”

Corrupted.

The choice of word was another blow to the walls in his mind, but Marcus only shrugged. “We’re already moving on to insults, then?”

“Seems fitting, given that you’ve allied with Rufina. You do know that she’s corrupted, don’t you? Or does your Cel self refuse to acknowledge that there are powers in this world that can’t be explained by the collegium?”

“I’m aware of what the corrupted can do, as well as those possessed of the other god marks.”

Agrippa took another mouthful, his face darkening with anger. “Then why are you working with them? Because they promised you my wife’s gold mines, which are currently drowning in black pools of poison.”