Page 23

Traveling through foreign lands with five grown men and a panther is a lot less uncomfortable than I imagined it to be—partly due to magic and partly because I’m now the wife of a king.

Not that my elevated status affords me much.

Sarmatians are far more egalitarian than Romans, which means that every member of our party is equally responsible for providing for the group’s needs.

We all cook; we all set up camp and break it down. We all hunt—even me, though to no one’s surprise, I’m atrocious at it. Especially when it comes to handling a bow and arrow.

What I lack in basic survival skills, I make up for in magic, especially now that Memnon is giving me spell-casting lessons.

And unlike my hunting skills, I’m good at this.

My wards and enchantments are strong and long-lasting, and my magical signature looks like threads on a loom, the weave complicated and ornate.

Beyond that, my magic allows me a growing number of luxuries: cleaning my body and my clothes when water is scarce, illuminating the darkness when the sun goes down, and…

soundproofing the tent when Memnon and I are alone.

By the end of the first week, I’ve learned the names of Memnon’s men and a bit of their personalities.

There is Itaxes, who has rich brown hair that falls nearly to his waist, a big booming laugh, and eyes that crinkle often at their corners.

Sattion speaks infrequently, but when he does, everyone listens.

Rakas is the burliest of Memnon’s men, with a gap between his front teeth and a penchant for telling bawdy stories over the campfire.

And then there’s Zosines, Memnon’s cousin and childhood best friend, the man Memnon has, through an elaborate Sarmatian ritual, made his blood brother—who also wears rings on every finger and metal adornments in his deep brown hair, and whose sharp eyes linger, more often than not, on me.

The days quickly fall into a lulling sort of pattern. We wake, we ride, we pause for a meal at midday, we ride some more, we make camp, we hunt and practice magic, and we eat and chat over an open fire. Then we go to bed, and Memnon and I explore what it means to be young and in love.

And I’ll never make it to Sarmatia—I won’t, not when I’m certain I’ll die of happiness first. Not a single version of marriage I ever heard of made it seem like this—like whimsy and hope and happiness and, most of all, love . Love like fire that burns and consumes.

And maybe young girls who are sold off like grain to lecherous old men or careless young men or philandering rich men don’t feel like this. I certainly felt trapped and powerless when Livia forced me into marriage.

Once I’ve gotten a feel for riding, the men pick up a fifth horse for me to travel on, to relieve some of the burden poor Memnon’s steed shouldered, carrying two adults on his back.

The group of us sticks to winding streams, avoiding the main roads whenever we can.

I don’t understand why, but I don’t question it.

Nor do I mind. I’m coming to enjoy the scent of wet earth after a rain and wild grass under the heat of the midday sun.

Even the smells of wild oregano and sage perfume the air.

To think I got used to the casual squalor of Rome when I could have been enjoying this.

But today is one of the rare times where we’ve made our way back onto a paved road, one that is bordered by overgrown flowering bushes of mustard and spiny broom, hypericum and wild carrot.

Memnon reaches over and plucks a flower from one such bush.

He then lets his horse fall back until the two of us are abreast.

I raise my eyebrows at him. “Making a flower chain, are we?” I ask.

“I have become a little obsessed with the thought of you adorned in flowers. I did so like the crown of them you wore when we married.”

My heart leaps at the memory.

Memnon’s eyes twinkle as he rolls the wildflower stalk between his fingers. After a moment, he blows it from his hand, a little of his magic exiting his lips. The flower floats across the space between us and the thin stalk of it slips behind my ear, nestling into hair.

“Beautiful soul mate,” he murmurs.

Soul mate? I echo the term, warmth blooming low in my belly. He called me something similar the day he found me.

According to what my father knows of gods and magic, we are a bonded pair, our essences entwined through our power. We have been since birth, and we will be until death.

I don’t know when I started smiling, but my cheeks hurt from the intensity of it. It’s everything I already knew about our situation, yet hearing Memnon state it like this makes it beautiful, poetic. As though our love was scribed in the stars.

I guess you’re stuck with me forever , I say.

Forever , Memnon echoes, though it sounds more like a vow than anything else as he stares at me.

The longer he looks, the more my cheeks heat. I still can’t seem to hold his gaze without getting flustered.

Memnon’s gaze dips to my cheeks, and his own expression turns playful. Unfortunately for me, he now knows I get flustered too.

“Ehy!” Zosines calls from ahead of us, cutting through the moment. “Trouble up ahead.”

A Roman centuria lingers to the side of the road, likely to rest and eat a meal, the roughly hundred or so men milling about near a large oak tree.

Considering how expansive and militant Rome is, I shouldn’t be surprised to see the empire’s soldiers during our travels, but their presence here is still an unpleasant shock.

The soldiers’ eyes rove over us as we pass them. Memnon and his men aren’t wearing their armor, but their long, oiled hair and beards, their tattoos, their bows and arrows, even the shapes and detailing of their clothes and their distinctive horse gear all speak to their culture.

“Fucking barbarians,” one Roman soldier says, spitting to the side. “What are you doing this far west?”

Stay close , Memnon tells me, ignoring the Romans entirely.

“This one is pretty,” one of the men says, nodding to Memnon. His eyes drop to the gold hilt of my soul mate’s dagger. “And he’s a fancy bastard. Tell me, what godless tribe are you cunts from?”

I’m not sure who in our group, besides me and Memnon, knows Latin, but no one responds to the question, though I feel the thrum of Memnon’s ire across our bond.

“Does it matter?” another soldier calls. “They all look the same…except for that sweet thing,” he says, nodding as his eyes land on me. His attention snags on my tunic and my exposed leg. “She might not look Roman, but she dresses like one, and look at those sandals. She’s a bride!”

“Most immodest bride I’ve ever seen,” says one of the other soldiers.

Memnon’s horse slows, his body tensing. I can see a bit of his magic curling from beneath his palms.

It’s fine , I say down our bond.

It’s not , Memnon insists.

“Are we killing Romans today?” Zosines growls in Sarmatian. “I wouldn’t mind making jewelry of their armor—and their teeth.”

Memnon doesn’t respond. He’s taut as a bowstring, even as more eyes land on me. I feel those eyes on my bare calves, where the long skirt of my wedding tunic has hiked up, and I sense them noticing how I’m straddling my mare, rather than riding sidesaddle.

“Wonder if she rides a man as well as she rides that horse.”

Another pats his thigh. “I’ll give her a free ride.”

“Aye, fancy bastard!” one of the Romans shouts to Memnon. “How much to stick my cock in your whore?”

Faster than my eyes follow, Memnon grabs the bow slung over his shoulder and fits an arrow into it. I only have a moment to register that he’s brandishing a weapon at all before he shoots the projectile.

The arrow lodges itself into the eye socket of the Roman soldier who insulted me. A line of blood slips down the man’s cheek and he teeters for a moment, then crumples to the ground.

Around me there’s shouting and movement, and Memnon’s deep blue magic swarms the area, but my gaze is still fixed on that fallen Roman soldier.

Memnon killed him for insulting me.

I finally manage to tear my gaze away when Memnon angles his steed to the head of our group, another arrow already fitted into his bow.

“You flirt with your fucking death when you speak ill of my wife .” Memnon’s voice has deepened with his anger. Wood creaks as he pulls the bowstring taut. “Now, who’s next? ”

Sattion, Zosines, Itaxes, and Rakas have all grabbed their weapons as well. The air is thick with the promise of violence.

“Hold your places!” a hard, masculine voice shouts. “Hold your godsdamned places and stay those hands.” A centurion steps forward, his pockmarked face stern. He takes in Memnon, then the rest of us.

“Lower your weapons,” the centurion commands our group.

“Our king does not take orders from anyone ,” Zosines bites out in thickly accented Latin, his bow still drawn and ready.

“King?” the centurion says, reassessing our group before his eyes settle on Memnon. “If you’re a king, where’s your army? Your retinue? Your crown ?”

“He doesn’t answer foreigners’ questions either,” Zosines adds.

The Roman commander glances over his shoulder at the dead man and the rest of his tense, shifting soldiers before returning to look at us. His gaze pauses on me for a moment.

“This is the woman you killed my soldier over?” His eyes skim me up and down with dispassionate calculation.

Memnon doesn’t answer, just tracks him with his bow.

“I’m sure you care about her honor,” the centurion continues, “but you, great king, are alone out here on the road threatening the might of Rome, so I will say this one more time: put down the godsdamned weapons or else my men will overpower you, and I will let my men make an honest whore of your bride.”

They are ugly, grotesque words, and I feel terror creep into my bones at the sound of them.

Ahead of me, wind stirs Memnon’s hair.

Zosines curses under his breath. “Roxilana, comrades,” he barks out, “ retreat ?—”