Gilded Serpent, page 59
“You give me what I want, Rufina, and I’ll give you the reins to the Dark Horse,” Agrippa said. “I’ll give you the girl he’s in love with.”
Rufina laughed. “He’s not going to destroy his kingdom for some girl.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Agrippa answered with a smirk. “Because the girl who possesses his heart is none other than Kitaryia Falorn.”
105
MARCUS
Marcus had been on his way to find her. To tell her that she needed to remain in Celendrial and to make arrangements with Valerius to hide her away with her mother. To keep her safe.
“Lydia was my best friend.”
The pain in Teriana’s voice was like a knife to his heart, and he wanted to fall to his knees. To beg her forgiveness, though he didn’t deserve it. To hand her a knife and tell her to kill him herself, if that was what she wanted.
She deserved the truth.
“Marcus?”
And if it were only him who would suffer for it, he would confess everything. Would walk to the gallows and allow them to string him up for murder, because he deserved it.
But his family would also pay the price for what he’d done. Valerius would use the information against Cassius, and the consul would take the loss of his power out on Marcus’s family.
He felt her tense. Knew he’d been silent too long, but neither truth nor lie would come to his lips, so he said, “I knew her. When I was a small child. I used to play with her in her father’s library. She was…” He trailed off, faded memory washing over him of a dark-haired girl who sat patiently with him while he gasped and wheezed. Who’d held his hand and told him that he’d be all right. “She was kind.”
“Yes.” Tears rolled down Teriana’s cheeks. “Did he hurt her?”
“He was using her to gain Valerius’s support in the elections.”
“I know that much.” There was an edge to Teriana’s voice, as though she knew he was stalling. “I’m asking if Cassius had her killed, Marcus. If you know anything, you owe me the truth of it.”
He owed her everything, the truth most of all. Except giving it to her wouldn’t bring Lydia back from the dead, but it would condemn the living. And while some of them didn’t deserve his protection, his younger sisters did. The unborn child in Cordelia’s belly did.
“I don’t know.” The lie slipped off his lips. “Cassius only told me the things I needed to know—he doesn’t trust me.”
“So you weren’t involved?”
He could hear the hope in her voice, the silent plea. “I didn’t order her assassination, if that’s what you are asking.”
I did it myself.
“If you’d known something, it might have been enough to strip him from power. Maybe have him executed.” A tear ran down her dark cheeks, glistening in the moonlight. “But as always, he wins.”
Without thinking, Marcus closed the distance between them, pulling her against his chest. Her shoulders shook as she cried, but still she wrapped her arms around his neck.
End it. Tell her she needs to stay in Celendrial. That you’ll deal with finding the path and then free the Quincense.
Except what he really wanted to tell her was that he loved her.
“Teriana—”
Shouts from his family’s home filtered through the gardens, and he turned, unease rising in his chest. And then a woman screamed.
“Get back to Valerius’s villa,” he said. “Tell Austornic and his men that something’s wrong. To be ready.”
“What’s going on?” she demanded, but Marcus only caught hold of her waist, lifting her up the wall. “Go!”
Another scream cut the night, desperate and terrified.
Trusting Teriana to take care of herself, he sprinted back through the gardens, knife in hand. Only once he was close did he slow, crouching low as he made his way toward the rear of the home.
Inside, his mother was on her knees, a man he knew to be one of the Twenty-Ninth holding her by the hair, a knife to her throat. His brother and father, as well as Tiberius, were bound at the wrists, and another man was holding Cordelia down on the floor, his sister violently struggling. They wore civilian clothing, nothing about them, not even their blades, suggesting this was a legion kill.
“Where is he?” one of them growled, and Marcus recognized his voice. Carmo, the Twenty-Ninth’s primus and Hostus’s favored man for dirty work. He was Atlian by birth and nearly as big as Servius. “Give him up, and we’ll let you go unharmed.”
His mother lifted her chin, expression defiant. “I don’t know where he went.”
“How sweet,” Carmo crooned. “A mother protecting her son to the bitter end.” When she blanched, he laughed. “Yes, love. We know. And you should know that there isn’t anyone alive the Twenty-Ninth hates like your little prick of a son. He embarrassed us to achieve his own ends, and we’ve long awaited this opportunity to see him dead.”
Just tell him, Marcus silently willed her even though he knew that Carmo had no intention of leaving any of them alive.
But instead, his mother spit at Carmo’s feet. “If you know who he is, then you know I’ll die before giving him up. So get on with it.”
Silence.
“From my experience, mothers can be difficult to break,” Carmo finally said to his men. “There’s really only one way to do it, and that’s to make them choose between their children. Kill the pregnant one. Slowly.”
Tell him! If they came after him first, he could better ambush them in the dark.
A sob tore from his mother’s lips, then she said, “Don’t hurt her. Marcus is in the gardens.”
“Kill everyone but the pregnant one,” Carmo said. “We might have need of her yet.”
The man holding the knife to his mother’s throat started to smile, but the expression fell away as he looked down to see Marcus’s knife embedded in his chest. He staggered backward, clutching the hilt, but Marcus was already moving on his next target.
Sliding across the tiled floor, he caught hold of the man’s fallen knife, lifting it in time to deflect a downward blow from the third man. He kicked him in the kneecap, breaking his leg. The man hissed in pain, but that didn’t stop him from tackling Marcus against the tile.
They rolled, crashing into furniture, glassware shattering around them. Dimly, he heard his mother screaming. Knew that Carmo could be taking the opportunity to kill her. To kill Cordelia.
Panic flooded through him, and Marcus slammed his knee down on the man’s broken leg. He screamed, but instead of trying to pull away, the man took advantage of the position and twisted, his arm going around Marcus’s neck.
He gasped for breath, clawing at the man’s arm, kicking his broken leg. But even as he did, his eyes latched on Carmo, who had his sister on her knees, a knife to her stomach. Tiberius was trying to crawl on his bound wrists, pleading she be spared. Offering any amount of gold for her safety.
But Carmo only kicked him in the face before turning his gaze back to Marcus.
“Hostus wanted to do it himself. In his honor, I’m going to take my time. I’m going to make you watch while I kill every last one of these useless patrician sots. I’m going to—”
His mother flung herself at Carmo. Snarling, he backhanded her with his knife hand, sending her toppling into a table, but Cordelia took advantage, twisting in his grip and sinking her teeth into his wrist. Carmo cursed, slicing at her with his knife. Blood blossomed along her rib cage.
White-hot fury boiled up inside Marcus, and he slammed his head back, feeling the nose of the man holding him shatter. Snatching up a fallen knife, he shoved it between the man’s ribs and then flung himself at Carmo.
His shoulder took the primus in the stomach and sent him falling backward into a potted plant. Screams filled the air, but he ignored them, catching Carmo’s wrist to keep him from stabbing him in the throat.
They rolled, knocking into tables, a marble statue falling and missing Marcus’s face by a hairsbreadth. Catching hold of it, he slammed it against Carmo’s arm, hearing the crack. But the primus only grinned with bloodied teeth and knocked it out of Marcus’s grip. “While you stand behind lines, the rest of us have been fighting, boy. Pain is an old friend.”
He rested his broken arm against Marcus’s throat and leaned. “Go to sleep, Legatus. And when you wake, the fun will begin.”
His vision darkened, stars bursting across his eyes as he fought against the bigger man. Too many people depended on him for him to die. Too many lives were at stake. But Carmo was so much stronger.
Then pottery exploded, raining shards and dust down into Marcus’s face. And his sister’s voice, howling, “Kill him!”
Coughing, he kneed Carmo in the balls. The primus screamed and reared backward, and Marcus rolled out from under him. Grabbing the statue, he twisted and slammed it into Carmo’s face, hearing bones shatter.
Blubbering and screaming, Carmo fell on his back and tried to crawl away, but Marcus was on him. He struck him again with the statue. Then again, his fury blinding him from all sight. All sound. All reason.
He beat him with the heavy marble, blood splattering him in the face, Carmo’s skull shattering and then turning to pulp, but he couldn’t seem to stop. Then a hand caught his arm, wrenching backward. And a voice full of authority said, “Stand down.”
Jerking free, Marcus raised the weapon, ready to fight the new attacker.
Only to find Commandant Wex staring down at him.
“They’re dead,” his mentor said. “But Cassius has ordered your assassination. You need to get back to the Thirty-Seventh, and you need to leave tonight.”
106
LYDIA
“I believed Derin was only a level above the underworld,” Lydia murmured as she followed Baird through the city of Helatha. “But other than the towers, it seems little different than Mudamora.”
The streets were lined with homes and inns and businesses, the squares filled with vendors selling foods and fabrics and tools. People of what seemed like every nationality in the West went about their business, and besides a lack of men—probably mostly dead in the war—and the fallen towers of the god circle, Helatha felt normal.
“Appearances can be deceiving,” the giant answered. “Darkness flourishes here because darkness rules. Those who don’t embrace it suffer for it.”
As though to confirm his point, one of the corrupted passed in front of them, the sickeningly bright glow of life around him telling Lydia he’d recently used his mark. Had probably killed with his mark, and she highly doubted there were consequences.
“Rufina isn’t the first of them to style herself as queen,” Baird added. “But she’s the most ambitious in generations. The first to cast her eyes outside the border with a mind for conquest, though it was the knowledge she took from Agrippa that saw it come to fruition. The Celendor Empire fascinates her in its reach and dominance, and she’s using its strategies.”
Even as the Empire did the same on the Southern Continent.
“Enough chatter,” the giant muttered. “Keep your head down and look servant-like, all right?”
Lydia lowered her head, but her eyes flicked forward as they rounded a bend and Rufina’s fortress came into view. The black rock seemed to grow from the lake itself, the only way to reach its gate a narrow bridge that rose high above the water. The battlements were patrolled by armed soldiers, and she noted several catapults trained at the city.
She followed Baird onto the bridge, the only sound the flap of banners bearing the burning circle of the Seventh. The men guarding the gates allowed the giant to pass uncontested, all of them saluting as he passed.
“The general just came through with a prisoner,” one of the soldiers said. “You know anything about that?”
Which meant Killian was with Rufina now. In chains and entirely helpless. Bile rose in Lydia’s throat, and she swallowed hard, fighting to keep her terror in check.
“What?” Baird bellowed. “The little shit was supposed to wait. Bet my last coin he’s taking all the credit. And all the gods-damned reward.”
“Who’s the girl?”
“Not your business. Come on, you.” Baird pulled on Lydia’s arm and led her inside the fortress. “This way.”
They ascended a polished set of onyx stairs that split halfway up, Baird going left, his boots making heavy thuds that echoed the beat of Lydia’s heart. They needed to hurry.
Sconces illuminated the corridor, the air thick with the scent of burning oil, the chill of the building at odds with the temperature outside: cold enough that mist formed with her every breath.
Ahead, she caught sight of two soldiers standing to either side of a doorway, and her pulse leapt into a gallop. Both saluted Baird, but neither moved from the door
“Her Majesty wants the girl cleaned up,” Baird said. “Has a special sort of pain planned for her.”
“This is the first we’ve heard of it,” the soldier said. “We’re under orders that no one goes in or out without Her Majesty’s express permission. We’ll need to confirm.”
Baird shrugged. “The general’s just brought her Killian Calorian in chains, but by all means, please do go interrupt the moment. I’m sure she’ll handle that well. Our queen is known for her even temper.”
The soldiers exchanged glances, then one said, “Agrippa caught Calorian? How’d he manage that feat?”
“By being smarter than you two knuckleheads. Now let this one in so she can do her job.”
All of this rested upon the giant’s authority and credibility. If they didn’t trust that he was telling the truth, this entire plan was going to go straight to the underworld for all involved.
The soldiers shifted, then one shrugged. “You’ll stay with her?”
“Obviously,” Baird replied. “I saw her in Deadground. She’s a looker.”
“Was,” the soldier answered, taking a key from his belt. “But not anymore.”
Dread filled Lydia’s stomach as he unlocked the heavy door, and she took a deep breath, gripping the pile of clothing she carried. You can fix her. Whatever Rufina has done to her, you can fix it.
Even as the thought trailed through her head, Lydia knew she was lying to herself.
The door swung inward, Baird going inside first, but as Lydia followed, her eyes went immediately to the small form sitting on a bench. The light rendered the individual as nothing more than a dark shadow.
But she’d recognize the rightful Queen of Mudamora anywhere.
The door thudded shut behind her, and giving a quick glance to ensure that the soldiers hadn’t followed them in, Lydia took a deep breath and said, “Malahi?”
The figure didn’t answer. Didn’t so much as move.
Lydia met Baird’s gaze, and he mouthed, We don’t have much time.
“Malahi? It’s Lydia. We’re here to get you free of this place, but I need you to listen to me.”
The figure twitched, then a rasping voice whispered, “Why should I listen to the girl who is to blame for me being here in the first place?”
Swallowing hard, Lydia stepped forward, setting the clothing on a table before moving around the side of the bench. Even with the warning from the guards outside, it still took all her self-control not to gasp at what she saw.
Despite the frigid air, Malahi wore only a rough shift, and her sand-colored skin held an alarming blue cast from the cold. They’d cut her long blond hair into a ragged mop, but there were bald patches where it appeared to have been torn from her scalp. And her face …
It was crossed with a livid red wound that stretched from her hairline to her chin, the black stitches holding it together sloppily done. Her arms and throat were crisscrossed with claw marks and burns, and her fingers were raw where the nails had been torn from their beds. Lydia could barely stomach imagining the pain Malahi had endured. And would continue to endure every time she looked in the mirror.
Sunken amber eyes met hers. “She wanted me to steal the life from Mudamora. I refused. She did this to me—” Malahi rose in a sudden movement, her face inches from Lydia’s. “I still refused.”
Lydia flinched at the accusation, but there was little she could say in her own defense. “Killian’s here—”
“Given you’re here, that’s no surprise.”
Anger flared in her chest, but Lydia left it simmering, knowing she’d need it later. “He’s given himself up to Rufina in order to save your neck, so curb your vitriol.”
An emotion Lydia couldn’t name flickered through Malahi’s eyes, then she turned away. “Then he’s given himself up for nothing.”
“Mudamora is falling beneath the blight as we speak,” Lydia said, the way Baird was watching the door telling her she was running low on time. “It needs a tender to repair the land.”
“I tried.” Malahi’s voice was bitter. “I couldn’t do it. Mudamora is lost.”
“Then why are you bothering to resist Rufina?” Catching hold of the other girl’s shoulders, Lydia spun her around. “Why not just give her what she wants and spare yourself the pain?”
“Because I refuse to betray the gift Yara gave me!”
“Isn’t staying here and doing nothing just that?”
They glared at each other, then Malahi looked away. “There is no escape. Do you think I haven’t tried?”
“He’s going to take you back to Mudamora.” Lydia gestured to Baird. “You’re going to leave this room disguised as me.” Opening the satchel, Lydia pulled out the cheap wig Baird had procured at a brothel and pulled off her cloak. “Put these on.”
“This will never work. You’re almost a foot taller than I am, and we look nothing alike.”
“It will, because the guards out there believe Baird on their side.”
“And what about you?”
“When they discover it’s me in here and not you, they’ll bring me to Rufina. And I’m going to kill her.” She could only pray that Rufina, like the Denastrian king, wouldn’t see her as a threat until it was too late.
