Page 27 of Scorched Earth (Dark Shores #4)

Felix shifted, eyes flicking to Teriana and then back to Marcus. “Yes, sir. I’ll have your guard wait outside the tent for when you’re finished up here.” Then he spun on his heel and strode out.

Teriana’s heart was racing, her pulse loud in her ears.

Countless times during her journey back to Arinoquia, she’d practiced the speech she’d give when this moment came, but all those words seemed to have abandoned her.

Still, she couldn’t lose this chance. “Quintus, do you mind giving us a moment alone.”

“I’ll—”

“Quintus will remain.” Marcus’s eyes were fixed on the ground between them.

She blinked. “This isn’t the sort of conversation that needs an audience. I want to talk to you alone.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to be alone with you!

” He finally looked at her. His blue-grey eyes were swollen and bloodshot, one still bruised from his fight with Carmo in Celendrial, but it was the edge of panic in his voice that made her chest clench.

“It’s not appropriate,” he added, as though that made things any better.

“So, I’m to be your… escort ?” Quintus rocked on his heels. Though he’d been the one to kill Ashok, he was almost devoid of blood splatter, whereas Marcus was covered in it. “Here to keep you two star-crossed lovebirds from falling into bed together again?”

“I said that you would remain, not that you would speak.” Marcus crossed his arms over his bare chest, scowling. “Stand there and be quiet.”

Quintus rolled his eyes, and as though to be contrary, sat on one of the benches with his bloody gladius rested across his knees.

Teriana felt abruptly unsteady, legs weak beneath her. “I want you to explain yourself.”

Marcus stared at her, then said, “You want me to explain myself ? Perhaps we might start with an explanation of why you and the Fifty-First are in Arinoquia.”

“Because I met with Cassius and that was part of the deal. Which you might consider thanking me for because if we hadn’t arrived when we did, there wouldn’t be enough left of you to fill a jar!”

Silence stretched.

“You met with Cassius? What… what did he say?”

“A lot of things,” she snapped. “But so did I.”

Marcus’s jaw worked back and forth, but it was not words of gratitude that emerged. Not that she’d expected them.

“You entirely ignored my instructions for you to remain with Valerius in Celendrial and then brought a child legion to Arinoquia with you.”

“You’re not my commander.” Her temper shoved aside her nerves. “You have no right to tell me what to do. You have no authority over me.”

“You’re right, I’m not your commander,” he spat. “I’m your captor. And you’re my prisoner. Which means I have total authority over you.”

“Don’t you dare.” She closed the distance between them.

“Don’t you dare reduce what’s between us to that.

Not after what we’ve been through together.

You don’t get to tell me that you love me and then run away with no greater explanation than your belief that I’ll someday hate you. It’s not good enough.”

“To protect you, that’s why!” he shouted.

“I had Hostus’s men on my heels, knew I was going to risk turning my brain to jelly with the number of stems I had to go through.

Never mind riding without an escort through rebel territory in Bardeen, plus traveling through a dubiously mapped xenthier stem into yet more enemy territory.

You were safer in Celendrial. Safer with Valerius.

Most certainly safer with an entire ocean between the two of us. ”

All of that was probably true, but it was the last part… She rose onto her toes so that they were eye to eye. “So after endless months of keeping me as close as possible for my safety, it’s suddenly better for us to have an ocean between us? Why?”

“You know damn well why.”

“No, I don’t.” Her eyes prickled. “Explain it to me. And don’t give me the shitty reason that we are enemies when you know that from day one we’ve been allies against the common threat that is Cassius.

Something happened in Celendrial that changed everything for you, so tell me what it is.

The Seventh take my soul, but maybe whatever it is will change everything for me. ”

Marcus blanched, then looked away. The muscles in his jaw flexed as though he were warring with his thoughts, then he said, “I spoke to my sister. She was disgusted with my choice to take up with you. Called it immoral. She was right. I’m a grown man, the commander of legions, and you’re a seventeen-year-old girl who is also my prisoner. ”

A tear slipped down her cheek because it was all starting to make sense. She knew his sister had influence over him. That he cared what Cordelia thought about him. “Eighteen.”

His eyes shot to hers. “Pardon?”

“I turned eighteen while we were in Sibern,” she murmured. “I didn’t think about it because we were running from wolves.”

Marcus’s brow furrowed. “I… I didn’t know that.”

Quintus snorted in disgust. “You don’t even know your own girl’s birthday?”

Rounding on Quintus, Marcus leveled a finger at him. “I changed my mind. Wait outside.”

“All right.” Quintus got to his feet. “But if I hear any funny business, I’m coming back in.”

When they were alone, Marcus reached for her, then seemed to realize what he was doing and took a quick step back.

“I’m sorry. I know I hurt you, but it’s for the best. This will get violent and ugly, and if you remain with us, people will blame you.

Whereas if you stayed away, you’d just be another of the Empire’s—”

“Victims?” she supplied, then wiped tears from her face.

Marcus only exhaled, seeming to dislike the word as much as she did.

“Teriana, this is my life. My hands…” He trailed off, staring down at his crimson-stained palms. “The blood on them is beyond what you can ever comprehend. I’m already hated.

Already reviled by nations of people. Already the villain.

I could have mapped enough stems to see your people freed and been the one everyone blamed when the Empire poured across the seas, but now you’ve gotten yourself tangled up in it again.

And for what? What do you bring to this campaign that is worth the destruction of your reputation? ”

“I know where the stems are.” She stared at the 37 inked in black on his muscled chest. “Or at least, I have some strong guesses. Now that you have more men, you can secure them.” She swallowed hard.

“My promise to deliver that information to you secured the freedom of one hundred of my imprisoned people, including all the children. Cassius allowed them to take one of our ships and set sail. I did that, not you.”

Silence.

Marcus cleared his throat. “What was the catch?”

“A deadline.” Teriana swallowed the lump in her throat. “We have six months to find viable stems, after which time, Cassius will hang one hundred of my people for each month that passes.”

Marcus went very still, and his reaction made Teriana feel like an idiot. Like she’d made the biggest of mistakes. But her people’s children were free. That was worth it, wasn’t it?

“Six months?”

“Yes.”

Marcus scrubbed a hand over his hair, heedless of the blood. “Where are these stems?”

“The nearest is in Emrant.” She knew Marcus had memorized the maps of the Southern Continent. Yet still she said, “On the coast near the border between Gamdesh and Arinoquia.”

“I know where it is.” Stepping backward, he sat down heavily on a bench, resting his elbows on his blood-smeared knees. “It’s a major port city. The Gamdeshians won’t give it up without a fight.”

Her hands turned clammy. “We can negotiate. They might give us access to it rather than go to war. You have fifteen thousand legionnaires—that’s a lot of men.”

“A third of whom are children I’m expected to finish training, not fodder for Gamdeshian catapults.

As to the Gamdeshians giving it up without a fight, that’s madness, Teriana.

If it’s a good path, I’ll be able to use it as a supply line straight back to the Empire.

Food. Weapons. Gold. Legions. Every resource I could possibly want, and the only way to cut the line would be at the genesis.

I’ve heard a fair bit about Princess Kaira of Gamdesh.

Once she learns I’m after that stem, she’ll march her armies in defense of that city.

To take it within six months means it will be a bloodbath, and we won’t even know if it’s worth it until it’s over. ”

It had to be worth it. It had to be.

“You said stems . Plural. Where are the others?”

Her tongue felt dry and thick as she told him the locations, his slow exhale telling her what she already knew.

That they were even more difficult targets.

The compulsion to apologize nearly overwhelmed her.

Instead, she said, “They were keeping my people in Celendrial’s prison.

Children, babies, locked in cages, all under guard by the Twenty-Ninth.

Agreeing to the deadline was the only way to get the hundred most vulnerable free. ”

Silence.

Slowly, Marcus lifted his head. “You made the only choice you could. Cassius holds all the cards.” He rose to his feet, moving to stand before her. “I’ll get it done. But I need you to promise you’ll stay out of it. And away from me.”

A knife to the gut would have hurt less.

“If you wish, you may join the Quincense for the duration of the campaign. If you prefer to remain in this camp, you can share a tent with Quintus, as he seems content to resume his duties as your bodyguard. I will not involve you, and you will refrain from attempting to involve yourself in any capacity.”

Her lips parted, but echoes of her conversation with Felix filled her head.

Did you chase him across the world to try to get him back?

“If this was your intention,” she said, hating the way her voice shook, “then why did you bother telling me that you loved me? Because if it was a lie intended to soften the blow, it did the exact opposite.”

Outside the tent, the noise of thousands of men undertaking busywork filled the air, but Teriana barely heard them, her focus on the sound of his breathing.

On the rapid rise and fall of his chest. On the sharp intake of breath he took as he started to speak and then bit down on the words.

Though it was only seconds, it felt like a lifetime had passed before he said, “It wasn’t a lie. ”

He took a half step toward her, and for a heartbeat, it was as though they no longer stood in the mess tent but were back on the riverboat in Celendrial, when they belonged to no one but each other.

“Why give me everything and then take it away in the next breath?” She brushed away the tear that rolled down her cheek. “It would have been better if you’d said you were over me. Bored of me. Hated me. Wanted someone else. Anything but what you chose to say.”

Marcus’s brow furrowed, but then he shook his head, expression hardening.

Already he was walling himself back up, emotion vanishing from his face, from his eyes, until all that remained was the prodigal legatus.

“Because to be loved by someone like me isn’t a gift, Teriana, it’s a curse.”

She flinched, looking away even as she fought the urge to scream that Cordelia Domitius was responsible for this. Her cruel words were making him talk and act like this. The list of people Teriana hated was short, but Cordelia had earned a place right next to gods-damned Lucius Cassius.

“Will you be joining your crew or remaining in camp?”

“Remaining,” she answered between her teeth, her fingernails cutting into her palms as she warred between anger and grief. And because she had no intention of giving him the last word in this, Teriana added, “I’ll tell Quintus to find us a tent,” then walked out.