Page 79 of Scorched Earth (Dark Shores #4)

TERIANA

With a speed beyond anything Teriana had dreamed possible, Marcus had marched his army around the mangrove swamps that ringed the mouth of the Orinok, then up the road leading to the port city of Emrant.

Farms and towns and villages emptied ahead of them, the scouts reporting that the Gamdeshian civilians were evacuating north under Kaira’s directive.

They took their flocks and herds with them and razed the land in their wake, making it seem to Teriana that they rode through an underworld.

Scorched earth , she’d heard Servius call it, and understood it as a strategic term.

Yet it also described the ground itself, which was blackened and devoid of life.

Useless to the legions, but also so ruined that it was a struggle to envision how the Gamdeshians would ever go back to life as it once had been.

Even the gods felt vanquished, for while she’d heard that Marcus had told the front-runners to leave the small shrines to the gods be, she’d also heard that those in the rear ranks had taken matters into their own hands.

Though he surely knew what they were doing, Marcus did not take action, only steadily rode toward Emrant with Gibzen constantly at his side.

You cannot break, she chanted to herself. You must trust him.

But every day her faith faltered. Every day her fear grew that, because of her, all of Gamdesh would burn.

Scorched earth.

The words repeated over and over in her head, feeling like a description of what she left in her own wake.

Chaos and ruin and unforgivable hurt, and Teriana knew that she’d never be able to go back.

Knew that in walking this path to free her people, she’d ensured she’d forever be a pariah in the West. What a disappointment she must be to Madoria, for this could not be what her goddess had hoped for.

But Teriana no longer apologized. No longer spoke silent words in prayer to the Six, because she did not deserve absolution and therefore would not ask for it.

It made her feel cold.

And so very, very alone.

As miserable as it was, Teriana wished the ride would go on forever because once they reached the end of this long march, there would be war.

Yet what were wishes but prayers? And for her, no one was listening.