Page 172 of Scorched Earth (Dark Shores #4)

MARCUS

It was incredibly quiet, much as it had been since they’d abandoned southern Mudamora and journeyed through one of the many xenthier paths Rufina had mapped to a location just south of Mudaire.

Silent partially because nothing lived in the barren land surrounding the city, but mostly because the weight of losing the Fifty-First still hung heavy over every one of the legions.

Most especially the Thirty-Seventh.

“Have the centurions remind the men not to drink anything,” Marcus said to Felix as they approached the city. “Not to eat anything. It seems the Mudamorians were successful in their attack on the blight, but we have no way to be certain that parts of it don’t linger.”

“Yes, sir.”

Great trenches that had once been filled with blight now sat empty, as though a dark god had carved up the land with a knife, and Marcus wondered how long it would take for life to come back.

Whether the power granted by the Six would reclaim this land, or whether it would remain dead for years to come.

An endless reminder of the toll that evil took wherever it reigned.

Mudaire reared ahead of them on the barren plain. It was a formidable fortress city that Marcus suspected had once been a difficult nut to crack, though now it was abandoned, the portcullis open, the gates swinging gently on the breeze.

“Set up a temporary camp.” Marcus tucked the Thirty-Seventh’s ledger under his arm, then said, “Felix, choose twenty good men. Quintus, with me.”

On foot, they entered the dead city of Mudaire, the violence that had besieged it written in the burned buildings.

In the rotted corpses littering the streets.

In the blackened blood that splattered far too many walls.

Marcus wondered if this city would ever be reclaimed by the living or if too much horror had marched through its streets and buildings, turning Mudaire into a tomb.

“Lydia said it’s beneath the palace,” he murmured, gesturing toward the large structure that perched atop the cliffs overlooking the sea.

The city was not large, and it did not take them long to reach the palace, their footsteps loud as they walked up the grand staircase to the main entrance.

One of the doors had been torn off its hinges and discarded in the fountain.

The interior was sacked and ruined, but echoes of what it had once been still remained.

Every time Marcus blinked, he saw men in finery and women in gowns dancing to music he could not hear, their mouths open in silent laughter.

Ghosts, or perhaps memories that clung to the walls of this ancient palace, whispering their stories to any living person who passed through.

Marcus stepped over bones and dried blood as they ventured into the lower level. His men roved ahead to find the entrance to the tunnels, forced to move more bones and debris to clear the way.

“We should scout it first before you go down,” Felix said.

“I’m not concerned.” Marcus took a torch from Quintus and descended the ladder into the darkness.

The tunnels were close and oppressive, smelling of rot and mildew, and very faintly, of the sea.

The latter made him press his free hand to the breastplate of his armor, under which hung Teriana’s hair ornament on a string, the metal warm against his chest. He had no information about where Teriana might be or how she fared, but he hoped that she was on her way back to Lydia.

That she’d find her friend victorious, and…

and if there was any mercy in the world, she’d not think of him at all.

“Here’s the branch,” a voice called from ahead.

This tunnel was narrow, and he vaguely heard Felix muttering about what a nightmare it was going to be to move so many men through such a tight space, but Marcus’s eyes were all for the marks of battle.

Bloodstains and places where blade tips had scratched the rock, and he swore he could hear the screams. The clash of weapons.

Feel the fear that had leached into the stone.

Then the xenthier reared ahead of them.

The space around it was small, but the stem itself was larger than most, jutting vertically out of the rock nearly up to his chest.

“So it’s here,” Felix murmured. “But does it go where Lydia says it goes, or is this just a clever attempt to have her revenge?”

“Lydia doesn’t want revenge.” Marcus dropped to one knee in front of the stem. “But more importantly, she doesn’t need it.”

“Still, her information is old. How many years ago did she travel through this? Fifteen?”

“Sixteen.”

“I struggle to believe that a terminus exists this close to Celendrial and it’s never been discovered. It’s not on any of our maps.”

“Only one way to find out. Have the men wait for us at the branch.” Once Felix had given the order, Marcus straightened and looked at Quintus. “One last job?”

“Last?”

“Yes, though you don’t have to do it.” Pulling the ledger out from under his arm, Marcus flipped to Quintus’s number, then wrote next to it, deceased.

He signed and dated it, then did the same for Miki’s number, crossing out injured and replacing it with deceased.

“You can go right now and take him. Racker’s with him and he knows not to stop you.

” Flipping through the ledger, he found Agrippa’s number and scratched out deserted and replaced it with deceased.

“Find Agrippa. Or Teriana. She’ll no doubt be sailing to join Lydia. ”

“That’s the first time I’ve heard you say Teriana’s name since she left,” Quintus said, then he scuffed his sandal against the rock.

“I’ve wanted this for so long. Wanted to be done with this life, but now that it’s upon me, I…

” He swallowed hard. “This is the only life I’ve known. I don’t know how to be a normal man.”

“Normal men walk the same way we do,” Marcus answered. “One foot in front of the other. Besides, I marked your death in ink, so you can’t change your mind now.”

Quintus choked out a laugh. “Right.”

“It’s your choice,” Marcus said. “But there’s no one I trust more to see this last job through.”

No one he trusted more to find Teriana and watch her back through whatever came next.

“The return route is by way of the baths?”

Marcus nodded. “Cassius will have excavated it, but you’ll need to be clever to get back through it. The Dictator can’t know we’re coming.”

“Yes, sir.” Quintus drew in a deep breath, then reached out and took hold of the xenthier stem, instantly disappearing.

Enjoy your wine while you can, Cassius, Marcus thought as he started back up the tunnel. For the blade of the Empire is descending on your neck.

While he waited for Quintus to return, Marcus explored Mudaire, Felix and a handful of men trailing behind him but giving him enough space that he felt alone. As good a compromise as he was going to get, so Marcus didn’t argue.

He walked through the homes of the Great Houses of Mudamora, all sacked of anything valuable, though most of the artwork remained.

He examined the faces, struck, as he often was, how people across Reath were so different and yet similar at the same time.

He found the Calorian home, recognizable by both the familiar face in many of the portraits but also the quantity of horse statues.

House Falorn also had a property, the smallest of the twelve, but it was there he lingered the longest, examining the oil paintings of Lydia’s parents.

He wondered if she knew they were here. If she’d ever reclaim this place and the images of the mother who’d sacrificed her life to save her daughter.

“Still no sign of Quintus,” Felix murmured as Marcus exited the building. “Do you want to send someone else?”

“No.”

He started in the direction of the god towers at the center of the city, hearing Felix jog to keep up.

“Marcus, listen. I support this decision you’ve made, nearly everyone does, but that doesn’t mean we throw caution to the wind.

We’ve got the largest army to walk Reath camped outside this city, and if this path isn’t good, we’re going to have problems. We quite simply don’t have the supplies, especially the water we need to march back south.

Even with the blight gone from the land, it’s still a dead zone. We need to make a plan.”

“It’s only been a few hours, Felix. Patience. Quintus will get the job done, as he always has.”

“He might be dead.”

“Patience.”

They walked in silence for a time, then Felix said, “May I ask you something?”

Marcus knew what the question would be, and at any other moment, he’d have run as hard and fast from it as he could. Instead, he nodded.

“You’ve never explained why you tried to murder Lydia Valerius. I assumed it was part of the same blackmail Cassius used to get us to vote him in as Consul—threats to the Thirty-Seventh—but recent weeks have made me question whether it was something more.”

His armor pressed the sharp edges of the miniature ship into his chest, but the pain was a comfort. The pain meant he was himself. “Cassius knew my name.”

Felix frowned in confusion. “Your family’s name?”

“No,” Marcus answered quietly. “ My name. And in knowing that, he had the power to make me do anything he wanted.”

The words were stilted at first, like turning the key on a secret so old that the lock had rusted.

But once unleashed, they poured from his lips.

The choices his father had made because of Marcus’s illness.

The endless lies that had been required to keep the deception alive.

The threat that Cassius had held over his head all this time.

Held over him still.

When Marcus was through, Felix rubbed a hand over his short hair.

“I wish you’d told me. Wish you’d trusted me with that truth, but I understand why you didn’t.

It was easier to live the lie when everyone, including your friends, believed it.

” His best friend sighed. “So… Do you want us to call you Gaius?”