Page 51

I hear him swallow, his fingers pressing into my skin. “After I left you, I rode out with my men.” He sounds young and unsure of himself. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard that vulnerable waver in his voice.

Memnon draws in a breath. “I knew I was never going to go into battle with them,” he quietly admits. “Once we spotted the band of Bastarnae, I forced my warriors to return to camp. Then…”

He swallows, growing quiet again. Across our bond, I can sense his unease. “I let my magic take control. It would’ve happened anyway, I was so angry, but…I wanted my power to take over.”

The admission does nothing to ease the toxic emotions churning within him, and now I feel my own rising nerves as I continue stroking his hair. What could possibly make a warlord who intimately knows violence this uncomfortable?

“When I got to the army, I killed everyone but their leader. Him, I forced to watch as his fighters died…horribly.” His throat works, and it seems like it takes effort for him to force out the next words: “His son was among them.”

Bile rises at the thought. Having just lost a child, my horror is particularly sharp.

“Then, when it was all over, I killed him too,” Memnon says. “But by then, his death was a mercy.”

His expression is anguished as he lifts his head and looks at me. “Our people were ready to celebrate, but you weren’t there. I thought that perhaps you had heard of what I’d done and left…”

My eyes well. I shake my head, my fingers tightening in his hair.

“Those deaths won’t bring our child back,” I say softly, tears slipping down my cheeks.

“It’s just death upon death.” A ceaseless cycle of it.

“But you will not lose me because of it,” I vow, and I hate myself only a little for that admission.

Memnon pulls me back into him and buries his face in the crook of my neck. And there he begins to cry—for our lost child, for me, for what power and circumstance have forced him to become.

We stay like that, locked in each other’s embrace, for a long time. And I feel grateful that at least if the world is falling apart around us, I still have him in all his painful, messy glory.

Always , he whispers across our bond.

Eventually, Memnon lowers his arms. His eyes are red, but any tears he cried are long gone. His gaze now flits over the room.

He clears his throat. “Now, my queen, I believe it’s your turn to share your story: why, and how , did you come here?” he asks, forcing levity into the words.

Ah, yes, that.

I reach down and pet Ferox. “Um, well, it started when I got mad at a burial mound…”

I tell him the whole sordid story. About climbing the kurgan, then stepping onto the ley line, getting lost, then making some bargain that landed me here.

Memnon’s eyes are sad after he hears it all, and I can feel him ruminating on my pain.

Finally, he says, “Brave, foolish wife. Traversing a ley line without any idea how to navigate it.” He leans down to give my nose a kiss. “I didn’t know ley lines could be swayed with words.”

“You think it was the ley line itself that helped me?” I ask. “I thought it was a god.”

“Well, there is only one way to find out.”

The two of us stand inside the ley line, and I try not to get disoriented by the play of color and light along the tunnel walls.

So if this doesn’t work, you’ll get us off this thing, right? I ask.

Wait, you want me to do what ?

I glance sharply over at Memnon, but his eyes are already crinkled playfully at their corners, and he’s barely suppressing a smile.

I’m kidding , he says. Of course I can— if it’s needed.

I take a deep breath, then take his hand in mine, sinking my other hand into Ferox’s scruff.

Last time I was in these tunnels, I pleaded with what I thought were the gods, but perhaps Memnon’s right and it’s simpler than that.

“Ley line,” I call out, feeling foolish for addressing a magical tunnel by name, “please take us back to the Sarmatian camp in the steppe lands.”

Nothing happens. But then, nothing happened last time, not right away.

I take a few steps forward, dragging Memnon and Ferox along with me.

Still, nothing.

“Huh,” I say, stumped. “Maybe it really was a god that answered my call.”

I can feel Memnon’s conflicted emotions at the possibility.

“Was there anything else you did besides ask for help?” he says.

I think back to the moment, my memory hazy from grief.

My gaze darts to Memnon’s when I remember.

“I said it could take whatever it wanted from me. It took my tears.”

I sense Memnon’s alarm. “It took your tears ?” he says skeptically.

But now I have a hunch—one I want to test out. I release Memnon’s hand and reach for his sheathed dagger.

“What are you doing, little witch?” he asks, a thread of unease entering his voice.

Rather than answering, I grab a small section of my hair and saw it off. Then I return Memnon’s blade to its sheath and regrasp his hand.

“Ley line,” I say, my voice strong and clear, “I offer you a lock of my shorn hair in return for safe passage to our Sarmatian camp in the steppe lands.”

I stare at the curled lock of auburn hair pressed between my fingers. One exhalation passes, then another.

Suddenly, my hair catches fire, the flames of it iridescent. The fibers curl and burn, and then they’re gone.

I exchange a look with Memnon, who raises his eyebrows.

Now, I think we start walking , I say.

Slowly, Ferox, Memnon, and I move forward. One step, then two, three, four, five?—

Our sixth step never lands. Instead, we fall into darkness, our bodies hitting the ground hard.

I groan, rolling over, the long grass beneath me crunching under my weight.

I blink a few times, staring up at familiar constellations in the star-strewn sky.

Memnon barks out a disbelieving laugh. “Roxi, that worked .”

I sit up, noticing the torchlight in the distance where our settlement is.

Gods’ wrath, it really did. We made it back.