Page 53

The howl of the wind nearly drowns out the screams and bellows of battle. My warhorse gallops hard as we ride toward the enemy.

I trust the creature enough to not bother holding the reins. Instead, I aim my nocked arrow at a rival warrior. It feels like flying, like when Memnon and I left Rome together and I first tasted freedom.

Over the years, I’ve gotten good at riding. And fighting. I no longer need magic to keep me mounted, help draw back the string of my bow, or even aim my arrow. Near-constant practice has helped me perfect the art.

I pull back my bowstring and shoot. The projectile hits the warrior, knocking him off his steed as I ride on.

If the years have strengthened my fighting skills, they’ve also weakened my morals.

I did try to do right in the beginning. My entire first year of marriage, I was committed to protecting and aiding Sarmatian warriors. But those battles all ended the same way: with me killing our enemies, with blades or spells, until it no longer made sense to even attempt to stay my hand.

Quickly, I pass the cluster of mounted riders. I withdraw another arrow from my gorytos and twist my body on my steed. Sighting the retreating form of another enemy fighter, I release the projectile.

It whizzes across the distance and thwonks into the enemy’s back, toppling the man off his horse.

Memnon whoops from where he’s already circling back around to the front lines of the fighting.

Excellent shot, Roxi.

My gaze moves to his just as he pulls back his own bow and releases an arrow. It cuts through the air and lodges itself in a warrior’s throat.

Well done, yourself.

Neither of us can say more than that. Not while the enemy, an Alani tribe pressing in from the east, swarms around us. I shoot again and again, most of my arrows finding their mark.

Once I’ve emptied my gorytos, I swing myself off my horse, letting it gallop away. Magic leaks from my palms as I step forward.

Across the field, I see Katiari ducking under her opponent’s blade before bringing her own sword up. Ferox charges in from the grasslands around us, pouncing on the enemy fighter before she can finish him off, the panther ripping out the man’s throat.

The wards I’ve placed on myself and Memnon, Ferox, and Katiari are likely weakening, which means Memnon and I need to either end the battle soon or reinforce the wards.

It doesn’t particularly matter which option we choose. Either way, we’ll win.

We always do.

I reach a hand out, my magic pooling in the air around it. Instead of forming it into a spell, I draw on the spilled blood that wets the grassy knoll we fight on. There’s so much of it splattered across the battlefield. I can sense the earth swallowing it up.

I call on that power, coaxing it to me.

Across the battlefield, blood bubbles and hisses as it evaporates. The magic that remains twists through the ground, moving toward me.

“ Empressss… ”

Goose bumps break out along my arms, and I suppress a shudder as the voices speak to me as one.

“ Seamstress…orphan…warrior… ”

I grit my teeth as I continue to call on that blood-borne magic.

Sometimes I hear the voices out here; sometimes I don’t. I refuse to ask who they are or what they want. I don’t acknowledge them at all, though that doesn’t stop them from whispering to me.

“ Thief…friend… ”

Memnon’s eyes meet mine as the dark magic enters through the bottoms of my boots, then the soles of my feet.

“ Witch…wife…queen… ”

The power burgeons as it hits my bloodstream, making my head arch back. Distantly, I’m aware that Ferox has moved to my side, but magic is overpowering my other senses. It amasses in my veins, so thick it presses against the underside of my skin, the pressure of it mounting, mounting?—

“ Murderer. ”

All at once, my power explodes out of me, rushing at our enemies. My magic latches onto them, slipping down their throats and sinking into their veins. Seizing their lungs and stopping their hearts. I tell myself that their deaths are so sudden, they don’t feel it.

But I’m not entirely sure that’s the case.

The enemy fighters fall, their legs folding as their bodies hit the earth. A wave of terrified screams goes up from the few, mostly wounded, Alani warriors I missed. They glance around frantically, looking for the source of their comrades’ deaths.

Someone must figure it out because an arrow whizzes past me. I pour out another round of magic.

“ End my opponents ,” I whisper. The spell cuts like a knife along the throats of the remaining Alani fighters, the incisions brief, efficient, final. Blood spurts, and the few surviving fighters fall or slump over.

It is quiet for a moment, unnervingly quiet. Then the Sarmatians roar, whooping out their victory.

Memnon rides in, blood and sweat dappling his skin. He slows a little as he approaches, but only so he can lean deeply to the side of his horse, arm outstretched for me.

I barely have time to note what he’s about to do when he scoops me off the ground and sets me onto his horse.

An instant later, his mouth is on mine, branding me in a fearsome kiss.

You are a wildfire, my fierce queen , he says. I could not be prouder of the way you protect our people.

I ignore the shiver that runs through me, the last line of that voice still echoing in my head.

Murderer.

Fire crackles in our tent’s brazier, and my naked body drapes itself half on Memnon’s, half off.

I stare at those flames, trying not to think about those voices that sometimes whisper to me on the battlefield. The ones that remind me of what I’ve become.

Memnon strokes a hand down my back. “What do you want most?” he asks in the darkness.

Peace. Love. Family.

Beyond that? I’d like to learn more languages, and I’d like to teach someone besides Memnon how to read the growing list of Sarmatian words I’ve transcribed.

But even all those desires are secondary, because what I want most, I already have in my arms.

“What do I want most?” I say teasingly, threading my fingers through Memnon’s. I smile, then maneuver myself on top of him. “You. Again.” I lean down and kiss him, grinding my hips suggestively.

He groans into my mouth, his hand sliding away from mine so he can grip my hips. Memnon manages to tear his lips away. “Besides sex.”

I nuzzle him. “Too many things.”

“When it comes to you, there is no such thing,” he proclaims. He rolls us so my back is on the bed and he’s the one leaning over me.

His hand moves between my breasts, sliding down over my belly before finally, meaningfully , resting on my lower stomach.

I try to not let my mind wander there , to that place his touch implies. Some things are beyond even Memnon’s vast power. And mine. So I stopped wishing for them a long time ago.

“I think I want to give you a palace,” he declares, gazing down at me with such softness in his expression. His eyes shine bright, so bright.

I tuck a strand of his long, wavy hair behind his ear.

“We already have a palace,” I gently remind him.

“One you must sneak off to,” he says. “But what about one we would stay in for at least part of the year?”

I rear back as best I can in this position and stare at him, searching his face.

“Steppe life can be hard,” he says. “And so much of it is grueling, dirty work, even for a queen.”

Living in tents and wagons, no matter how lavishly they’re constructed, can be uncomfortable, particularly during the bitter winter months.

Memnon leans forward as if to kiss me and whispers against my lips, “I’d like to see you ruling from a palace like a proper empress.”

My mouth brushes against his as I whisper back, “I don’t need another palace.”

“I didn’t ask you if you needed one.”

His fingers press a little more firmly against my lower belly, and I can’t help but glance down. It’s been years since my miscarriage. I haven’t gotten pregnant since, despite the copious amounts of sex we have.

My gaze rises back to his. “You’re serious?”

“I am.” His free hand rises to stroke my cheek. “Do you remember when I first admitted my feelings for you?”

Back when I lived in Rome, and he lived here.

I nod.

“You asked me how I felt about you. Do you remember what I said?”

It takes a moment to recall his exact words. “You said you felt like you could conquer the world, just to lay it at my feet.”

He smiles at the memory. “I did,” he confirms. After a long pause, he adds, “That wasn’t an idle promise.”

“I hadn’t realized that was a promise at all,” I say wryly, tapping his nose with my finger. I assumed it was something ardent teenagers said to one another. All symbolism and pomp.

Memnon tsks , then shifts his face so his lips can brush a kiss against that finger. “You should know me better by now.”

I trace his facial scar. “So you really want to give me a palace?” I’m not sure that’s what I want most, but perhaps it’s what he wants most, and I certainly cannot deny him anything.

Memnon gazes at me, his eyes still so very bright. I can feel his own yearning across our bond. “Yes.”

“Okay,” I say softly, nodding. Sarmatians don’t settle down in palaces; it goes against their entire way of life. But if Memnon wants to make this happen, we will make it happen .

“Do you have one in mind?” I ask.

“I do,” he says.

I raise my eyebrows. “Oh, really? Which one?”

“The one at Panticapaeum.”

I stiffen in his arms, my amusement bleeding away. Panticapaeum is a port city, one that controls the imports and exports that move through the Black Sea and the ocean beyond. Panticapaeum also happens to be the capital city of the Bosporan Kingdom, which Rome controls.

“There’s already a ruler in that one,” I say, frowning.

“I’m aware.”

I shake my head, not having gotten my point across. “There’s a ruler there who answers to Rome .” Rome, which loves warfare every bit as much as Sarmatians do. Rome, an empire of unparalleled power and reach.

Up until now, Sarmatia has coexisted with the Bosporan Kingdom on the same land. It works because we don’t try to usurp them, and they don’t try to drive us away.

But if we overthrow their leader now…

“Unless King Cotys answers to the gods themselves, I do not care,” Memnon says.

A chill passes through me. “Have you eaten bad bread?” I ask, genuinely concerned. “We don’t want to go up against Rome.” To take one of the empire’s strongholds, a palace that controls a port, and with it, access to this entire region of the world—no, no, Rome will never allow it.

“Do we not?” he asks. “Because I think our people need a good challenge. We have expanded our own lands, vanquished every enemy who has set upon us?—”

“Yes, but this is Rome we’re speaking of.”

Memnon clasps my face in his hands. “Let them come, Empress. Let Rome’s wrath fall upon our spears and swords. We are untouchable.”

Dread flows through my veins, hitching my breath.

He kisses me then, and for good or ill, the matter is settled.

We’re acquiring a palace.