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

Agrippa winced. “He does that with shocking regularity. He’ll be fine.”

But Lydia was already on her feet, hurrying to the giant’s side. “Are you hurt? Let me help you.”

“You’re a sweet lass.” Baird nearly pulled her over as she tried to help him stand. “It’s the cursed ceiling—it’s too damned low!”

“It’s not the ceiling, you jackass!” Agrippa called. “You’re still drunk.”

“Am not, you ugly little shit,” the giant answered, circling the table and sitting next to his friend. Reaching across the table, he took Killian’s plate and started eating. “We ready?”

“Yes, though it’s not thanks to your lazy ass,” Agrippa answered. “Customers are meeting us at Meril’s in a half turn, so finish up.”

 80MARCUS

Living had always felt dangerous.

Like tempting fate, given how much he had to lose. How much he’d lost already. A far better thing to focus on what would allow him to keep breathing, to keep his men breathing, than to set his sights on more.

Except now more was what he had.

Teriana in his arms, her lips pressed to his, her laughter in his ears. Going back to the way he’d been before would be like seeing color for the first time only to blink and find the world once more cast in shades of grey.

So he shoved away practical thoughts about wasting precious coin and allowed her to drag him from game to game, the delight on her face as she tried her luck greater than any prize.

“Look at all that candy,” she murmured, stopping in front of a booth that had a table with a large jar of colored jellies, before which sat a puzzle made of twisted pieces of metal. As they watched, the Sibernese villagers paid copper pennies for a chance to win the jar, all of them eventually giving up in frustration.

“I’m going to try,” she said. “Give back one of the coppers I gave you. I’ve spent all mine.”

He gave her the coin and then leaned against the post holding up the canvas over the booth, watching her dark brows knit with concentration as she worked the pieces of metal this way and that, attempting to solve the puzzle. As the minute glass ran down to its last grains, she scowled, tossing the puzzle on the table with a metallic thud. “This one’s definitely rigged. There’s no solution.”

The owner of the game only chuckled, having already pocketed her coin. “Anyone else care to try?”

Everyone around shook their heads, muttering that there was no solution and that the man was conning them out of their coin. Giving Teriana a wink, Marcus said, “I’ll try.”

She shrugged. “Your copper.”

Handing the coin to the man, Marcus waited for him to turn over the timer. Then he stepped closer to the light, his eyes running over the pieces of metal, the sounds of the festival growing distant as he considered the puzzle.

“Not going to solve it by standing there staring at it, boy,” the man said. “You’d have been better off—”

Marcus twisted the puzzle and gave it a little shake, and the pieces came apart in his hands.

The man gaped at him, then laughed. “Seen this one before, have you?”

“No.” Marcus handed over the pieces. “Just a knack for finding solutions. You can give the candy to the lady.”

Teriana’s eyes shifted to the vibrant turquoise of tropical seas as she accepted the jar, then she untwisted the lid, allowing those around to take some before grabbing a handful. “Try them,” she said around a mouthful of candy. “They’re good.”

“They’re bad for your teeth,” he informed her, but when she cast her eyes skyward, muttering that he was hopeless, he laughed and took a handful, eating them one by one as they walked.

“It hardly feels as though we’re in the Empire,” she said. “This place feels … uncorrupted.”

“Most of the people here speak Cel,” he said. “And they use Empire coinage. And if it were summer, I’m sure there’d be Cel merchants here. Definitely messengers traveling the Teeth.”

She huffed out an annoyed breath. “You know what I mean. It doesn’t feel like Mother Empire is looming over their shoulders, policing every move. Like in Celendrial, where there’s legionnaires on every corner glowering at everyone.”

“Would you prefer they smiled at everyone? Because sometimes people take smiles the wrong way.”

“You are driving me insane. And I need to go find a privy,” she said. “Hold my candy. But don’t you dare eat it all.”

“Not a piece,” he promised, then lowered the jar, pretending not to notice as giggling Sibernese children took the rest of the jellies and shoved them into their mouths before racing off.

Leaning against a wooden post wrapped with garlands, he watched the Sibernese dance around the fire, holding his hands up in defeat when two men tried to push another of the little glasses of liquor into his hands. And instead of joining in the conversation, he observed. He rarely saw groups of people like this—relaxed and happy and entirely at ease. The presence of legion men always put people on edge, his presence worst of all, though he’d never realized how much so.

This was a good place. A good life. Hard, but honest. He envied them in that.

Teriana had reappeared from across the square but was waylaid by a group of young girls. One of them asked her something, and from the way Teriana’s smile broadened, her eyes growing wide and expressive, he knew she was telling them a Maarin yarn.

Then his skin prickled, some sixth sense telling him he was being watched.

Lifting his head, Marcus scanned the festival before turning to the darkness beyond the village, trying to determine what had triggered the sensation. In the distance, a dog barked, then whined, the sound abruptly cutting off.

And he knew.

He lunged in Teriana’s direction, pushing into the crowd, but before he made it two paces, legionnaires burst from the darkness.

“On the ground! On the ground!”

The Sibernese villagers screamed, dropping to their stomachs in the muddy snow. Marcus kept going. He couldn’t