Page 154 of Scorched Earth (Dark Shores #4)

Servius gave a slow shake of his head. “Someone with knowledge of our explosives coordinated an attack in the East and the West at the same bloody time. Had the audacity to attack Celendor itself—Padria’s in spitting distance of Celendrial and it was attacked.”

We’re going to war, Legatus. And I think it’s time you had a taste of what it’s like to lose.

“You pissed off the wrong girl, Marcus,” Agrippa said. “And while I might not live long enough to relish the pleasure of watching you come to terms with losing, it has been a delight watching you realize that Teriana has just kicked your ass.”

Distantly, Marcus heard Servius tell Agrippa to shut his mouth. Heard Felix cursing, but none of the words resonated. They were cut off. Cut off from supplies, cut off from water, and trapped on poisoned ground.

He’d gotten the Thirty-Seventh killed. His brothers, the men he was sworn to protect, were all dead men walking.

You do not lose , the cursed voice in his head whispered. Unite wholly with Rufina. Together, you can take back control of Gamdesh. You can control all of Reath.

“Shut up!” he snarled, barely noticing as Felix, Servius, and Agrippa started in alarm. “Listening to you has killed them all. Get out of my head!”

It felt as though a beast was clawing up the insides of his skull. Like a battle was being fought, and the pain was excruciating. But whatever monster lurked behind the voice had put the lives of his men on the blade of a knife, and the Thirty-Seventh had always been the hill that he would die on.

“Get out.” It was a battle of wills. “Get out of my head!”

You will suffer, the voice answered. You will beg for respite from the pain. You need me.

“I don’t!” He could hear the faint wheeze in his voice. Knew that winning this would have a price. But it was one he was willing to pay. “I’m done with you!”

The monster within him hissed in anger, then retreated deep, deep within his core. Walled in and barricaded away, where it could do no harm.

But Marcus couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t get air into his lungs, because this was the cost of victory. This was the gods-damned cost.

He fell to his knees, hearing the noise of the legion outside the tent walls. Not the family he’d been born to but the one he’d made himself, and he’d condemned them.

The world was spinning, an attack constricting his chest with a violence he hadn’t experienced in so long. How unfair it would be to die now, leaving his men to fight this battle without him.

“Shit!” Felix snarled. “It’s one of his attacks.”

We cannot fall back.

“What’s wrong with him?” Agrippa demanded.

We cannot fall back.

“He can’t breathe!”

We cannot fall back.

“I know what this is,” Agrippa said. “I’ve seen it before. Felix, get Racker and tell him to bring the bee medicine!”

Marcus was on his hands and knees in the dirt, darkness pooling in his vision.

We cannot fall back.

Hands were rolling him onto his back, and then he heard the surgeon’s voice. Heard him shouting instructions, faces blurring, fading.

Now everyone would know. Yet another secret he’d fought so long and hard to keep, now out in the world.

Then smoke was wafting into his face.

“Breathe, you idiot!” Racker shouted. “Breathe it in!”

He couldn’t.

Agrippa slapped him. Once. Twice. Three times, the pain giving Marcus a heartbeat of clarity in which he managed a small intake of breath.

Then another.

And another.

He coughed on the smoke, the taste strange, but the tightness in his throat and chest was easing enough that he could get air into his lungs.

“How long?” Racker demanded. “How long has this been happening?”

He still didn’t have the capacity to speak, so Felix did it for him. “All his life. This one was bad, though.”

“And why,” Racker demanded, “was this never brought to my attention?”

“Because he wanted to keep it a secret,” Felix said. “It’s a weakness. You know how it goes.”

“So you pair of idiots have been helping him hide it? It’s a bloody miracle he’s still alive!”

“There’s no cure,” Marcus finally managed to get the words out. “Every physician in Celendor was consulted when I was a child. There is no cure.”

“But there is a treatment!” Racker screamed the words. “You cursed fool of a man; did you think you were so special that you were the only one? You have dozens and dozens of men in your ranks who suffer this, and I treat them all the time with a medicine I create. All I need to make it is bees!”

“Bees,” Agrippa repeated, nodding sagely. “This used to happen to one of my men. I carried a package of that stuff about with me, just in case.”

“Bees?”

“Yes!” Racker looked ready to hit him. “You’re too stupid to live, Marcus. I should have let you die so that you might learn a lesson about trusting the men who follow you.” Then he stormed out.

“You all right?” Felix asked, kneeling in front of him.

Every breath was still a struggle, but he was getting enough air in his lungs that he was in no danger of dying. And though his head throbbed, for the first time in far too long, Marcus felt like himself again.

Agrippa sat in the dirt next to him, elbows resting on his knees. “Who were you shouting at, Marcus? Who was inside your head?”

“No one.” He’d let the villain inside him rule, and now everyone was going to pay.

Agrippa’s hazel eyes were shadowed, considering, then he nodded. “Right. Well, just to be clear, we aren’t surrendering. We’re not giving up Lydia. We’re fighting until the bitter end. Do with that what you will.”

Agrippa started to rise, but Marcus caught hold of his wrist. A puzzle that had once consumed him but recently been forgotten rose to the forefront of his mind, and Agrippa had the pieces he needed.

“How did you end up in the river that flowed into the xenthier?” He sucked in a ragged breath of air. “It’s not like you to slip.”

“I didn’t slip. Silvara’s family was in Hydrilla. One of the other laundresses told her about my involvement in the battle, and she saw my actions as a betrayal. She pushed me into the river and I couldn’t get out of the flow.”

“Any chance the other laundress’s name was Carina?”

“Yeah. Carina would’ve seen everything.”

Marcus let go of Agrippa’s wrist, then pushed to his hands and knees. “Get me up, Felix.”

Felix and Servius hauled him to his feet, and though he still felt short of breath, Marcus walked outside with Agrippa. The ranks visibly relaxed at the sight of them both alive.

Quintus had been pacing in front of the tent. He went still at the sight of Agrippa, then in two steps, his arms were around him. “I didn’t believe them when they told me, but you’re here. You’re really here!”

“In the flesh.” There were tears in Agrippa’s eyes. “Wish we weren’t on the opposite sides of things, my friend.”

“We aren’t,” Quintus said, though what came next, Marcus didn’t hear, because rather than following them to Agrippa’s horse, he stayed in front of the tent.

“What are we going to do?” Felix asked softly. “We’re cut off from the Empire with tens of thousands of men to feed and water.”

“We could move south to Serlania,” Servius muttered. “Commandeer ships and make our way south.”

Marcus didn’t answer, his gaze traveling beyond Quintus and Agrippa to the group of riders sitting on the ridgeline.

Lydia’s long dark hair blew sideways in the wind, a crown glittering upon her head, and he was struck with a memory of her as a child, tucking that long hair behind her ears as she bent over a book.

How differently would things have gone if his father had not decided to send him to Lescendor instead of his brother?

How differently would things have gone if Valerius had not decided Lydia should be wed?

Both Marcus and Lydia would have been rendered useless to Cassius in his quest for power, and without them, would he have climbed so far? Would Reath have suffered as it had?

“Agrippa is a valuable resource,” Felix murmured. “You sure you don’t want to hold on to him?”

“Let him go. He’s not ours anymore.” Marcus drew in a breath, his chest aching. “Where is Amarin?”

Felix cast him a sideways look. “He’s been keeping my tent in order, which means he’s bored stiff. You of a mind to have him back?”

“I should never have let him go.”

Gibzen chose that exact moment to appear, a vial clutched in one hand. “You’re not letting Agrippa go, are you? He’s a deserter! He’s the enemy!”

Marcus rocked on his heels, eyeing his primus and finally seeing clearly. “After the battle for Hydrilla, you told me that Agrippa had deserted with Silvara.”

“Because that’s what the other laundress said.” Gibzen scowled. “She told you herself about them carrying on. Spending nights together. The promises he made to run away with her and such.”

“Carina.”

Gibzen huffed out a breath. “I don’t remember her name. Some old Bardenese woman.”

“But you followed the tracks.” Marcus watched Agrippa push his horse into a trot, heading toward the distant ridge where the Mudamorians watched on, not one of the Thirty-Seventh attempting to stop him. “You were certain that it was Agrippa and Silvara heading to rebel territory.”

“Well obviously I was wrong. There’s only so much a man can tell about a footprint in the snow.

Doesn’t change the fact that Agrippa should have come straight back to us once he learned we were here.

Instead, he’s filling our enemies’ heads with information on our strategies.

He’s not just a deserter, he’s a traitor! ”

“Someone was giving Hostus information during the siege of Hydrilla all those years ago,” Marcus pressed, watching Quintus approach. Seeing the rage in his eyes. “Hostus knew things that only the Thirty-Seventh would know. Secrets between brothers.”

“Men talk when they’re drunk. And this was years ago. And Hostus is dead. What does it matter?”