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

“How can you live with yourself? You betrayed your brothers. You betrayed me.”

Her eyes snapped open, moving from the fire before her to search her surroundings. Killian still held her close, his slow, measured breath telling her he was asleep and unaware of the danger.

“You deserted us.”

“No, I didn’t.”

It was Agrippa who’d spoken, responding to the accusation in Cel, and realization dawned on her that it wasn’t Marcus she was hearing, but one of the mimics. Except how was that possible? How could the creature replicate the voice of a young man it had never crossed paths with? Speak a language it had surely never heard?

How did it know which voice would cut a person to the core?

“Didn’t you?” Marcus’s voice was bitter. “How long has it been since you tried to find a way back?”

“There is no way back. I searched.”

“You gave up. You’re a deserter.”

“I’m not.” Agrippa’s voice was hollow, and her eyes finally found him, pacing around the perimeter of camp, his hands balled into fists.

“You are. And when we find you, 2483, we’ll make you bleed for it.”

She heard Agrippa’s breath catch, saw the way he was looking to the opposite side of the fire with what looked far too much like intent. And as much as she longed to see this young man dead, Killian was right. They needed him.

Drawing his weapon, he took another step toward the fire.

“Decisto!” The word tore from her lips, and she silently cursed her error as his shoulders went rigid. Slowly, he turned to stare at her.

Shit.

Killian stirred, and as she sat up, he opened his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Or possibly everything. “Go back to sleep.”

He watched her for a few seconds, then tightened his grip on her hand and closed his eyes. A few minutes later, his breathing deepened.

“Interesting choice of language,” Agrippa said quietly, his eyes fixed on her face. “Other than the Maarin, I thought I was the only one on this half of Reath who could speak it.”

Because there was no way to backtrack on her error, she said in Cel, “Did you really believe you were the only one to accidentally cross the world?”

Silence.

Then, his voice ragged, Agrippa asked, “Do you know a way back?”

“No, I don’t.”

His shoulders slumped. “Doesn’t really matter, at this point. I can never go back.”

With all the things Agrippa knew about the West, him going back to the Empire would be catastrophic, but curiosity still demanded she ask, “Why not?”

“Because they’ll execute me as a deserter.”

“But you said you didn’t leave by choice,” she pressed. “Surely once you explain the circumstances, they’ll understand.”

“That the xenthier took me to the far side of the world? To a place that doesn’t even exist in their minds?” He snorted. “Thanks to some choices I made about a girl prior to my unplanned departure, no one in my legion would believe me, most especially not my friends. I’d be dead long before anyone would corroborate my claim.”

You might be surprised, Lydia thought. “The Senate does not execute individuals without trial.”

“The Senate doesn’t execute deserters—the legions do.”

“But—”

Agrippa held up a hand to forestall her. “I know what the law is, Gertrude. But I also know what actually happens when a deserter gets caught. I’ve seen it.” Sheathing his weapon, he came back over to the fire, taking a seat. “It’s an unwritten rule that if we catch a deserter, we bypass official channels and return him to his legion for justice, and I assure you, there is no trial. And the execution isn’t a hanging, either. The deserter gets beaten to death by his brothers.”

Lydia pressed a hand to her mouth, horrified by the visual. Logically, she knew that legion training fostered violence, but she’d been raised to believe their obedience to the Empire was unquestionable. This smacked of something entirely different.

“You’re a civilian,” he said. “No one outside the legions understands—desertion is the absolute worst thing you can do. Worse than even murdering one of your brothers, which happens a lot more than desertion, in case you were wondering.”

“Why?” she demanded. “Surely they, more than anyone, could understand why someone might choose a different life?”

He made a face. “Because … because it makes those left behind feel weaker, and no one likes that. Especially given the things we face.” Scrubbing a hand through his hair, he added, “The reason the legions do what they do so well is that we rarely fight as individuals. So it’s not only your own strength bolstering your nerve, but the strength of the men to either side of you and your certainty that they’ll hold their ground. Having a man desert is like having a man abandon the line and leaving your flank undefended. It rattles your certainty that the man on the other side of you won’t do the same, leaving you all alone. It’s terrible for morale, and catching the deserter and killing him is like … like cutting out the weakness.”

He was right. She didn’t understand. Refused to understand how boys raised to be like brothers could kill one another because one decided they didn’t want to kill at all.

As though reading her thoughts, Agrippa said, “I can tell you don’t get it, so you’ll just have to believe me when I say it’s true. And by the time a deserter is caught, they are so vilified that nothing they say matters—guilt has already been decided. We were with the Twenty-Ninth when they got ahold of one of their deserters. What was left of him wouldn’t have filled a jar. After nearly four years of me being gone, the Thirty-Seventh would do the same to me in a heartbeat.”

Though she’d known that must be his legion, hearing it from his lips still made her shiver. Especially given the legion’s relative proximity.

“No one escapes the Empire’s net.” Marcus’s voice filtered across the fiery perimeter of the camp. “Nowhere on Reath is beyond our reach.”

“Oh, shut up,” Agrippa snapped.