Page 70 of Scorched Earth (Dark Shores #4)

TERIANA

Logically Teriana had known that the Cel legions moved faster than any army on all of Reath, but she’d always assumed it was because of their access to xenthier stems.

She’d been wrong.

The legions moved quickly because their commanders made them run .

It reminded Teriana of her trek with Marcus across Sibern, except this was thousands of men, all stretched in a winding snake down the lone road leading north, sunlight glinting off weapons, armor, and sweat-soaked skin.

There was no stopping, everything—and she meant everything —done in the all too short moments when the centurions allowed their men to walk.

Which meant there were things Teriana bore witness to that she sorely wished she could expunge from her brain.

The road both looked and smelled like a latrine from the men ahead of them, and she swiftly came to understand why Quintus had told her there were benefits to being in the front of the line.

“I’m not pissing off the side of a horse!” she’d snarled at him early in the journey, forcing him to veer into the jungle, where she’d crouched behind a tree to do her business, her eyes all for the endless ranks of men who were given no such grace.

“This is inhuman,” she’d added when she was once again behind Quintus on the horse, cantering up the sides of the column to regain their position. “No one should be treated like this. Not even animals are treated like this.”

Quintus had only laughed. “Welcome to the hard march, Teriana. But trust me when I say, Marcus is actually going easy on us, likely in deference to the puppies. The Thirty-Seventh has done worse, in far worse conditions. At least we get breaks to sleep.”

The longest break was four hours, each of those hours spent curled up next to Quintus’s back pretending she wasn’t fully aware of the filth around her, her lids no sooner shutting as some ass of a centurion was shouting the order to rise. The order to march. The order to move faster or else.

The else would have quickly made itself clear even if Quintus hadn’t explained.

“The ruse that all four legions are on those ships will only work for so long, then the Gamdeshians will discover we’re marching to the Orinok ford and whatever bridge Rastag has conjured.

The Gamdeshians have access to cavalry, and Kaira will send reinforcements, so unless we want to fight ten times the current number defending that crossing, we need to beat them there. ”

“How is this even going to work?” Her ass ached from bouncing on the horse’s back. “From what I’ve heard, the bridge doesn’t even reach halfway across. Rastag had to stop construction because the Gamdeshians were throwing rocks at them with their catapults.”

“Boats, I assume. I don’t recommend trying to swim in armor, plus I’ve heard that river has all sorts of creatures that bite swimming around in it.”

She’d heard the same. “But won’t the Gamdeshians use the catapults to hit the boats?”

“It’s harder than you’d think to hit a moving target.

” Quintus rolled his shoulders, grumbling about how his back hurt, then he added, “Might be why the Forty-First is the vanguard and not the Thirty-Seventh. Though in truth, it’s out of character for Marcus not to put us front and center of the attack.

He trusts us more than the others. At any rate, he and Felix will have an idea of the cost we will incur taking the northern banks, and they obviously reckon it less than us trying to land by sea on a heavily defended coastline. ”

Not cost in gold. Cost in lives.

“Then what is the Thirty-First doing?” It didn’t make sense that Marcus hadn’t brought the older, stronger legion for this task. “Are they just sailing about, sunning themselves on the decks of the Katamarcan ships?”

“You’re asking the wrong person,” Quintus answered. “Though I suspect the right person isn’t going to be forthcoming.”

That conversation had been on the second day of the march, and the days since had proven Quintus’s words to be more than accurate, for Marcus hadn’t so much as glanced her way.

Most certainly hadn’t spoken to her. All he’d done was ride down the muddy road looking straight ahead, showing little sign that the high stakes weighed upon him at all.

Trust him, she reminded herself over and over, touching the tiny ship bouncing against her cheek. This is what he does. This is what he’s famous for.

Yet for all her admonitions, it still hurt that Marcus refused to bring her into the fold. That they weren’t together, and never would be again.

Nic trotted his horse along the ranks of men, his bodyguard keeping tight ranks around him. “Nic!” she called out. “Come here.”

His mouth twisted, and Teriana could see the boy was thinking of ignoring her.

“My how things have changed since the prodigy decided to give him the time of day,” Quintus said with a chuckle, but then fell silent as Nic reined his horse next to theirs.

“Don’t ask me anything you know I can’t tell you.”

She gave Nic a long look. “Hello, Austornic. How is the march treating you?”

The sigh he gave her was world-weary. “Well enough. Is there something you need?”

Teriana wanted to press him for information. To dig Marcus’s plan out of him. But instead she asked, “Are you worried?”

“Why would I be?”

Quintus gave a soft snort of amusement and Teriana punched him in the side, then cursed as her fingers clanked against steel. “It’s your first real battle, and I assume you have no idea what the plan is.”

The muscles in Nic’s jaw flexed, but his tone was bland as he said, “I know what I need to know.” He dug his heels into his horse and continued up the line of men.

“He doesn’t know shit,” Quintus cackled. “But I see that Marcus is already starting to rub off on him. Poker face and nonanswers. I wonder how much longer until we find the puppy disappearing for solo jaunts where he stares broodingly off into the distance.”

Teriana watched Nic straighten his cloak and square his posture as he rode up next to Marcus’s golden mare. “I don’t want Nic to get hurt trying to impress him. He’s just a boy.”

“Don’t worry,” Quintus said. “Marcus will keep them out of the thick of it.”

“How could that possibly go wrong given that we all know what we need to know. ” Teriana couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

Her friend laughed, but there was no humor in it.

“Welcome to the life of an Empire legionnaire, Teriana. Go where you’re told to go.

Do what you’re told to do. Try not to die while doing it.

It doesn’t matter how terrifying the enemy is, because the senate looking down from their hill is far, far worse. ”

Sighing, Teriana rested her forehead against Quintus’s back.

The uncertainty exhausted her. Made her want to lie down and curl in on herself, allowing sleep to take her away from all the troubles of this world.

As if sensing her thoughts, Quintus took hold of her interlocked hands where they rested against his armored stomach.

“Have a nap,” he said. “I won’t let you fall, and when you wake, we should be there. Then the interesting part will begin.”

“Interesting isn’t the word I’d use.” Yet the swaying motion of the horse lulled her, and she slipped into a shallow sleep.

Lydia sat on a bench next to her, the Valerius gardens a riot of green and color, dappled light drifting through the trees that shaded them. “How long will you be here?” Lydia asked.

The question felt more important than it should have been, but Teriana didn’t know why. So she only said, “I don’t know.”

“It feels as though your visits grow shorter and shorter.” Lydia sipped at her lemonade, green eyes unfocused behind her spectacles, as though she were seeing something that Teriana did not.

“My mother’s decision.” She pressed fingers to her temples, the reason for her mother’s behavior lurking just beyond reach. “Or maybe your father’s. I… I can’t remember.”

Footsteps thudded down a path in the distance, an angry voice filling her ears.

Curious, Teriana rose and went to the wall that divided the property from the neighbors. As she rested her elbows on the ancient stone, the world abruptly fell dark, and Marcus stood before her.

“I knew her,” he said. “When I was a small child. I used to play with her in her father’s library. She was kind.”

“Teriana?”

It brightened to daylight again, Lydia leaning against the wall. “That’s Gaius Domitius,” she said, and Teriana’s eyes tracked to the young man storming through the shaded gardens.

Marcus.

Except no… It wasn’t. This young man had longer hair and the soft arms of one who did no labor, the petulant expression on his face not an expression Marcus ever wore.

“We were playmates as children,” Lydia said. “He’d read books to me in my father’s library, as I didn’t yet know how. Then he went away for a time, and when he came back, he’d grown cruel.”

Teriana frowned. “You’re mistaken. It was Marcus you knew, not Gaius. He told me.”

“He lied,” Lydia replied, her voice strange. Teriana turned to look at her, only to jerk back, because Lydia’s eyes were inky dark and rimmed with flame, her skin marred with black veins that pulsed with the beat of her heart. “The dead are never mistaken.”

Teriana jerked awake and would have fallen off the side of the horse if not for Quintus’s grip on her hands.

“Oh good, you’re awake,” he said. “We’re here.”

Teriana blinked against the brilliant brightness of the midday sun. Quintus had reined in the horse at the top of a ridge, and her jaw dropped at what lay before her.

She’d known the Orinok was vast, but from the sea, it merely looked like a hundred dark mouths emerging from the vast mangrove swamps. Whereas from this vantage…