Gilded Serpent by Danielle Jensen (top 10 novels txt) 📕

the bone. Yet despite that, sweat trickled down Marcus’s back, because he knew the worst was yet to come.

The walls moved in, now barely wider than he was at the shoulder, only a sliver of sky visible far, far above. It seemed they’d reached a dead end, but ahead of him, Teriana made an abrupt right and disappeared from sight. Quickening his steps, he turned the corner and nearly collided with her.

They stood in a narrow chute created by the intersection of three slabs of rock, and there was no way out but to backtrack.

Or to climb.

Looking up, Marcus started counting the spikes set into the chute’s wall, stopping when he reached sixty, despite that being nowhere near the top. His heart drummed in his chest, a rapid thud thud that might have seemed loud if not for the wind screaming down from above.

Teriana reached for one of the spikes above her head, hanging from it as though to test the metal’s ability to hold her weight. Settling her feet back against the ground, she turned to him. “We’re going back. We’ll take the other route. We’ll hunt. Forage. If the Sibernese can do it, so can we.”

She’s right. Turn around. Go back. “The route through the Teeth takes a matter of days. For us to take the Via Hibernus would mean three more weeks to reach the legion fort, and that’s if we travel every day. That’s not possible if we need to stop to hunt and forage, which means we’ll be stuck on the plains in the dead of winter. Do you have any notion of how cold Sibern gets?”

“I’ve heard.” Her face was shadowed by her hood, hiding the color of her eyes. “I still think it’s the better choice.”

Agree with her.

“Why?” He gestured at the spikes. “The whole route is like this. Spikes and ropes and bridges. And it isn’t as though you aren’t a capable climber.”

Teriana didn’t respond. The wind shrieked through what would’ve been an interminable silence, driving bits of grit and ice into his face.

“Aye,” she finally said, pulling back her hood. “I am. But it’s not me that I’m worried about.”

“I can climb.” The words came out from between his teeth.

“You’re afraid of heights.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Quintus told me when we were cliff diving. Said everyone in the Thirty-Seventh knows it.”

He glared at her. “Quintus needs to keep his bloody mouth shut.”

“Right.” She gave an irritated shake of her head. “Or maybe you need to start being honest about your limitations. We haven’t even stepped off the ground and you already look about ready to heave your guts—empty as they are—out into the snow. Exactly how well do you think that’s going to go when you’re dangling from a hundred-foot cliff?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Bullshit!” Her hands balled into fists. “I’m not going to risk watching you panic and fall to your death when there’s another route.”

His temper snapped. “And I’m not watching you starve to death because of my limitations. Now climb!”

Two steps had her in his face, the seas of her eyes tossing and churning with an emotional storm. “I am not one of your men. You do not tell me what to do.”

“Fine. Do what you want.” And because if he listened to one more word of her argument, he knew he’d cave to his fear, Marcus started climbing.

His mittened grip on the spikes felt precarious, but even through them, he could feel the cold of the metal, so they’d have to stay. Up and up, he climbed, ignoring Teriana’s shouts from below. Her threats to go back without him. Her scathing criticisms of his character.

Focus on where you put your hands. On where you put your feet.

The wind buffeted him, knocking back his hood, and his ears grew cold within minutes, then started to burn soon after. He risked his balance to pull it forward, but the wind only took it off again, so he left it, grinding his teeth against the pain.

Get to the top.

He reached for the next spike and closed his left hand over it. But as he pulled his weight upward, reaching with one foot for the next toehold, the spike gave, angling downwards. His hand slid down the metal.

The wind shrieked even as his stomach dropped and his breath came in fast little pants, his foot searching for the next spike.

I can’t find it. Where is it?

His eyes shot down, intent on finding a toehold. Yet it was the distance between him and the ground that made Marcus freeze. That sent the panic racing through his veins.

“Look up, you jackass!”

Teriana’s shout snapped him into focus, and his toe found the elusive spike. Heaving with his right hand, he reached for a more secure grip for his left, checking its stability before using it to pull himself to the next. And the next.

Up and up and then he was reaching for the top, scrambling onto the flat rock and rolling onto his back to gasp in breath as he stared up at the sky.

Whether it was a heartbeat or an eternity later, he couldn’t have said, but suddenly Teriana was above him, her hands pinning his wrists to the rock.

“We do this on my terms, do you understand?” Tears were dripping off her face, already cold when they hit his forehead. “You follow my orders, you do what I say, is that understood?”

It had been a long time since he’d taken orders from an individual, but it was surprisingly easy to relinquish authority. Likely because he’d never had any over her in the first place. “Understood.”

“Good. Now on your feet.”

 63TERIANA

Tightening her grip on the rope, Teriana leaned backward on her precarious perch, trying to get a good look at the next obstacle before heading back to retrieve Marcus.

Beneath her was a two-hundred-foot drop, and if the rope she clung to came loose from its brackets, there would be nothing to stop her from plummeting down and her body shattering on the sharp rows of rock