Gilded Serpent, page 60
“And just how do you plan—”
The rest of Malahi’s words were drowned out as the door exploded inward. Terror surged through Lydia’s veins as Rufina stepped into the opening. Malahi screamed, scrambling to the far side of room, where she cowered, rocking and sobbing.
“So it is you, little healer.” Rufina smiled at her like a cat who had caught the canary. To her left, Agrippa leaned against the broken door frame, his eyes glittering with amusement. And beyond, Killian was chained and on his knees between a pair of corrupted, one of his eyes swelling and his lip split. And he was staring at her like he’d never seen her before.
“You traitor,” she hissed at Agrippa. “You gave your word.”
Rufina chuckled. “You’ll find, Kitaryia, that Agrippa’s word isn’t worth the rag he wipes his ass with. The only thing one can trust in is his own self-interest.”
Lydia’s blood turned to ice at the name, because no one, least of all Agrippa, should know her identity. “How…”
“Those in Derin call them mimics,” Agrippa answered. “But what I never told you was that I call them reflections. Not only because they see who you are, but also because they see who you once were.” He gave her a lazy shrug. “Sorry, Princess, but she wasn’t going to give me what I wanted unless I sweetened the offering. And for Her Majesty, you are the sweetest prize on all of Reath. She really does not like your family.”
“You’re a bastard!” Lydia clenched her fists, but Agrippa only laughed and said, “Guilty.”
“Enjoy your gold and your freedom, pet,” Rufina said, stroking his cheek. “Although don’t expect either to last forever.” Then in a blur of motion, she grabbed Lydia by the hair, dragging her across the floor toward the door. “Put Calorian in the dungeon, and for the love of the Seventh, do ensure he’s secure.”
Killian moved.
He twisted behind the corrupted soldiers holding his chains and wrapped them around the man’s neck. A loud crack filled the air as he twisted the links, breaking the corrupted’s spine. The man dropped and Killian lunged toward Rufina, but the other corrupted soldier yanked on the chains, snapping him onto his back.
Lydia screamed, struggling, but Rufina only pushed her to the floor as Killian fought against his chains.
Cold steel pressed against her cheek, and Rufina said, “Healers can endure a remarkable amount of abuse, Lord Calorian. More, even, than you.”
Killian froze.
“Good boy,” Rufina purred. “Remember who holds your reins or Kitaryia will feel the whip.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Lydia pleaded. “Don’t let her use me against you.”
His breath was ragged. “You weren’t supposed to be here. You were supposed to be safe.”
Lydia’s heart felt cleaved in two. “I couldn’t leave you.”
And she didn’t regret that choice. The only thing she regretted was placing her trust in someone born of the Empire.
Twisting in Rufina’s grip, she hissed at Agrippa. “I’m going to rip your gods-damned heart out for this.”
“It’s nice to have aspirations.” He crouched next to her. “It was a good plan, Princess. But plans only stay good until the battle begins, and then everything changes. You adapt, or you die, and I’ve always been a survivor.” He patted her cheek. “Good doing business with you.”
“Don’t touch her!”
Killian lunged upward, but Agrippa only grinned and said, “This is for Alder’s Ford,” before swinging his fist.
Killian dropped like a stone, and Lydia sobbed, trying to get out of Rufina’s grip to reach him.
“Take him to the dungeon,” Rufina ordered. “Ensure he is well secured. The Princess and I need to have a little chat.”
“Sounds lovely,” Agrippa said. “Hate to miss it, but it takes time to count out five thousand gold coins, and I want to be gone from Helatha. Too many people want me dead.” Then he gestured to the doorway. “After you.”
107
TERIANA
She stood frozen on the far side of the wall, listening to the screams coming from the Domitius villa.
He told you to go.
“Since when do I listen?” she growled, then reached up to climb back over.
Only for a hand to close on her wrist.
“What are you doing out here?” a young voice demanded.
“Let me go.” She tried to haul herself loose, but the young legionnaire’s grip was strong. “There’s something happening at the Domitius home.”
“I know.” The moon peeked out from behind a cloud, revealing the face of Austornic. And behind him half a dozen more young legionnaires. “The commandant is on his way there now. You need to stay here where you can be protected.”
“I don’t need protection! Especially not the protection of children!”
Unfazed, he shook his head. “You need to return to Valerius’s villa, and I’d prefer you did it of your own volition.”
Marcus was in danger. She knew it in her core, but she also knew that these young soldiers were more than capable of subduing her. Better to go with them and then try to sneak back out. “Fine.”
Under their watchful eye, she returned to Lydia’s home only to find Senator Valerius pacing back and forth across the tiles. “Have you lost your mind, Teriana?” he barked at the sight of her. “With the number of people who want to see you dead, one would think you’d show more care.”
“There’s something happening at the Domitius house!” she snarled back. “I heard screams.”
“And you thought to interfere yourself rather than to enlist the service of those trained for such matters?” He threw his arms up. “Your mother is right about you, girl. Act first and think later. It’s amazing you are still breathing.”
Heat rose to her cheeks at the reprimand, the words sounding precisely like something her mother would say. “At least I try.” Her throat tightened. “All the rest of you do is sit on your laurels and allow those like Cassius to carry on as they would. The world will not be saved by the likes of you and my mother.”
“Teriana!”
Marcus’s voice cut through the air, and then hooves clattered against tile. Marcus, mounted the commandant’s horse, rode straight into the room. His face was splattered with blood, one eye swelling shut and his bottom lip split open.
“What is going on?” Senator Valerius demanded. “Have you lost your head, Legatus?”
“Not yet.” Marcus swung off the animal, tossing the reins at Austornic. “Cassius sent assassins after me. Twenty-Ninth men disguised to look like disgruntled peregrini.”
“You’re hurt.” She reached for him, but he stepped back.
“I need to leave tonight.”
“I’ll grab my things.” She started toward the stairs, but Marcus caught hold of her wrist.
“You’re staying here, Teriana.”
Her skin turned icy cold, and slowly, she met his gaze. “What?”
“You’ve done enough.” His expression was unreadable, but his fingers squeezed tighter around her arm. “Valerius can keep you safe. I’ll return to Arinoquia and find another xenthier path—one whose viability the Senate will be unable to deny. Just as they’ll be unable to deny the freedom of you and your people.”
“But you need me.”
“I don’t.” He dropped her arm. “Not for this. It’s over, Teriana.”
Pain sliced through her chest, her knees wobbling beneath her. “Marcus…”
But he’d already turned his attention to Valerius. “Can you keep her safe?”
“As safe as anyone can,” Lydia’s father answered. “This is the right choice, Legatus. She’s just a girl—you should never have used her like this.”
“Quit talking about me as though I’m not here!” she shouted, fighting to keep her composure. “It was my choice to make the bargain. My choice to take them across the Endless Seas.”
All of it had been her choice. Maybe her options hadn’t been good, but that didn’t absolve her from her decision to walk this path. “You can’t keep me here. You have no right to make that call.”
There was a commotion outside, and Marcus grimaced. Catching hold of her arm, he pulled her into a side room, slamming the door shut.
“What happened tonight?” she demanded. “What’s changed? Why are you doing this? Why—”
“Because I love you, that’s why.”
All the rest of her questions died on her lips. For so long, she’d wanted Marcus to say those words. And now he’d said them but was leaving. She stepped toward him, but he retreated, holding out a hand to stop her. His knuckles were bleeding.
“I love you,” he repeated. “More than you could ever possibly know. But allowing myself to be with you was selfish. And allowing it to continue would be—” His eyes glittered with unshed tears, and he scrubbed at them fiercely. “You need to be away from me.”
“Why?” She reached for him, but Marcus jerked away, stumbling over his own feet.
“Because we are enemies, Teriana. And while you might think you love me today, one day soon you are going to come to hate me.” He sucked in a ragged breath. “And I’m too much of a coward to watch it happen.”
Maybe he was right, but if he was selfish, she was equally so, because she refused to let him go. Not like this. “You don’t know that. You aren’t a god—you can’t see the future.”
“Some things are inevitable.” He went still for a heartbeat, then squared his shoulders. “Good-bye, Teriana.”
And without another word, he opened the door and strode from the room.
Teriana dropped to her knees, great heaving sobs tearing from her chest, her face slick with tears as grief poured from her.
It had been less than a day since she’d slept in his arms. Had dreamed about walking away from everything for a chance at a life with him. Since she’d told him that she’d loved him.
And now it was over.
Screaming, she slammed her fists against the floor, anguish and fury twisting through her veins, her insides feeling carved out by a sense of powerlessness.
And then the tears stopped.
She remained with her forehead pressed against the cool tiles, just breathing as she allowed reason back into her thoughts.
And steel into her heart.
It was her ship imprisoned on the far side of Reath. Her crew. Her people locked in Celendrial’s prisons.
And she’d be damned if she left their fate in the hands of a Cel legatus.
Rising to her feet, she wiped her face with her sleeve, then took a deep breath and left the room.
Senator Valerius, as well as Austornic and the rest of the Fifty-First boys waited outside, all appearing more than a little discomfited. Not that she could blame them.
“So,” she said to the young legatus. “Now that you’ve seen that it’s not all grand battles and strategy and victory, you still of a mind to cross the world?”
Austornic inhaled, his eyes distant as he considered. Thirteen years old, and already responsible for the lives of the thousands of boys in the Fifty-First. There was much about him that reminded her of Marcus: the methodical intelligence, the loyalty to his men. But whereas Marcus was tarnished by ruthlessness, this boy exuded a sort of kindness.
She wondered how long he’d keep it.
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
“You want to wait the year the Senate will likely take to decide the path is safe?” She injected as much scorn into the word as she could, casting a sideways glance at Valerius.
“Safety is relative,” Austornic replied. “If we stay, Cassius will give us to the Twenty-Ninth for the rest of our training. I think you understand why I might be of a mind to avoid that fate.”
Fresh fodder for a sadist. Teriana’s belly soured, because as was so often the case, these boys were facing a dearth of good options. “Let’s see if we can’t get you out of reach, then.”
Valerius shook his head. “Teriana—”
“I need you to get me a meeting,” she said before he could start telling her what she should or should not be doing.
“You want to meet with the Senate?”
“No.” Gods help her for asking this. “I want you to set up a meeting between me and Lucius Cassius.”
108
LYDIA
Lydia fought Rufina, kicking and screaming, down the corridors, but the corrupted queen only laughed and dragged her onward until they reached a cavernous room with a large throne at one end. But that wasn’t what captured Lydia’s gaze: it was the circular hole at the center of the space from which freezing air emanated.
Rufina hauled Lydia toward it, and she screamed, panic rising as the woman hung her over the opening, only her grip on Lydia’s hair keeping her from plummeting into the endless dark depths. An icy wind blew, making her skin burn, and as she stared down, Lydia swore she could see the Corrupter himself staring back at her.
Then Rufina hauled her upright, dropping Lydia on the floor. “Someday,” she whispered. “But for now, I’ve need of you.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
Then Rufina said, “The last time I saw Princess Kitaryia, she was little more than a babe in her mother’s arms, the pair leaping off the balcony of the Royal Palace into the ocean below. Even with my knife in her back, I knew your mother had survived the fall. The gods have always favored the Falorn family. And no bodies were ever found.”
Lydia didn’t answer, only met her cold stare with one of her own.
“I was certain one of Madoria’s had intervened and spirited the pair of you away, but Agrippa tells me that Camilla took you to the far side of the world. To the … Celendor Empire.” She said the name with relish. “Out of reach of both me and the gods. Is she alive?”
“No,” Lydia whispered, hate rising from the embers of her anger like curls of smoke. “She bled to death on the street.”
A soft chuckle exited Rufina’s lips. “If she’d stayed, a healer could have saved her. But neither gods nor their marks have power in Celendor, or so Agrippa tells me.”
Logically, Lydia had known that. But it still hurt that her mother had died to protect her. “He’s quite the source of information.”
“Isn’t he just,” Rufina murmured. “He opened my master’s eyes to a world of opportunity, for my master looks back at those who gaze into the darkness, whether they know his name or not.”
Cassius. Lydia’s blood chilled, but she kept the reaction from her face. “Like you did?”
“Even so.” Rufina sat on the ground in front of her, resting her chin on her knees, watching Lydia. “You want to know why, don’t you?”
“I already know why, Cyntha.” Lydia spit her name. “Because you were jealous and spiteful that my father chose my mother over you. And rather than getting over it like a rational person, you gave yourself to the Corrupter in order to have your vengeance.”
Rufina smiled. “You make me sound so petty.”
“Because you are.”
“No, I was just a woman who grew tired of being powerless. Tired of being used.” Tilting her head, Rufina added, “Hegeria marked me to save your father’s life, did you know that?” Then she laughed. “Of course you don’t. He quelled that story, disliking the thought of anyone’s fame eclipsing his own. But no one knowing it doesn’t make it less true.”
There was a part of Lydia that hated Rufina speaking about her father in such a way, but another part of her was loath to silence her, because this was her story as much as Rufina’s, and she rather thought the corrupted queen might be the only one who’d ever give her the whole truth.
“I was the warrior healer who guarded his back and pieced him together whenever he got in too deep, which was often. I was also in his bed for ten years, which is the only thing anyone remembers about Cyntha, if they remember anything at all.” She sighed. “And I loved him more than life itself, which was my true downfall.”
How much evil has been done in the name of love? Lydia wondered as she stared at Rufina’s flaming eyes. How many people have been hurt?
“For most of my life I was his in every possible way, and then one day, he decided it was time to take a wife. To give Mudamora a queen.” The flames around her irises softened into a faint red glow. “But it wasn’t to be me. He needed someone fit to produce heirs, and Hegeria’s mark is … parasitic. And all my pleas that I’d refrain from healing anyone until a child was born fell on deaf ears because he didn’t want to give up my capacity to heal him.”
Lydia could hear the remembered pain in Rufina’s voice, the hurt. Could all but feel the powerlessness she must have felt in that moment. And there was a part of her, deep down, that understood the woman’s choice more than she ever cared to admit.
“The mark I accepted to save his life was the same mark that made me unfit to be his queen. Because it’s a mark that takes and takes and takes but gives nothing in return. Yet there is no power on Reath that would allow me to get rid of it, so instead, I resolved to change it. To make it serve me and protect me and make me strong, and it has delivered in abundance.”
Strong enough to protect herself. Strong enough to never be hurt by another. Lydia closed her eyes, entranced and terrified by the allure of the woman’s words.
A knock sounded on the door, and a moment later, one of the corrupted entered, the life around her blazing with unnatural fierceness. “My queen,” she said, bowing. “We’ve urgent need of your presence.”
“I’m occupied.”
The woman’s gaze flicked to Lydia, then she stepped closer to Rufina, murmuring something she couldn’t make out in the woman’s ear. But whatever it was, it caused Rufina’s eyes to widen in fury. “That little prick dares to steal from me?” she hissed. “I’m going to rip out his heart. You stay here and don’t let this one out of your sight.”
In a blur, Rufina raced from the room, leaving Lydia alone with the corrupted. “Agrippa get greedy?” she asked, her voice hoarse.
“Something like that.” The corrupted moved to lean against the wall. “And she won’t forgive him this time. Not now that she’s got something better.”
