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

forehead was pressed against the side of the boat now, his breathing rapid. Rubbing her now age-spotted hands together in an attempt to warm them enough that she could work, Lydia took the knife that was strapped to his belt, as her own had been lost to the water. The sharp blade easily sliced through his clothing to reveal a well-muscled torso with four numbers tattooed in black across the backs of his shoulders.

Ignoring the tattoo, she bent to examine the arrow, which was embedded just below his shoulder blade.

Not bothering with a warning, she caught hold of the shaft and yanked. Agrippa screamed and thrashed, forcing Baird to drop the oars to hold him steady, but Lydia already had her hand pressed against the injury.

I know he’s the enemy, she silently whispered to Hegeria. But help him anyway.

Then life flowed from her fingers, her heart fluttering as she repaired the internal damage before moving outwards, the feel of muscle and flesh knitting together beneath her palm unnerving no matter that she’d done this a hundred times or more.

“Enough!”

Hands closed over her shoulders, pulling her back, and she stared up at Killian. His voice was dark as he said, “If any one of you even thinks of selling her out to Rufina, I will hunt you down and your death won’t be swift. Understood?”

However the other travelers reacted, it must have satisfied him, because he nodded and moved to the back of the boat. Lydia turned on her hands and knees, intending to follow so that she could deal with the deep slice across his ribs, but then his eyes latched on hers. “No.”

“But—”

“I said no.” He sat on the back edge of the boat, eyes on the forest they floated past. “We’ve another two hours until nightfall. Baird, are we going to make it to your next camp?”

“It’s going to be tight,” the giant said, eyeing the sun, which was nothing but a faint glow through the growing cloud cover, droplets falling to splatter against his face. “And this rain is not our friend.”

“Can you stop it?”

Baird gave a slow shake of his head. “If I meddle any more, I risk bringing worse down on our heads.”

“So we’re going to be in for an interesting night,” Killian muttered. “The rest of you start bailing. We need speed if we are going to survive this.”

But as the rain shifted to snow, a cold wind whipping down from the mountains, Lydia couldn’t help but wonder if there was any chance of them surviving the night at all.

They reached the camp just as the sun was setting. Everyone silently followed Killian’s orders, dragging the boat to the center of the charred perimeter, the rest working to fell trees to use for the fires they’d need for tonight. Not that Lydia had any idea how they were going to get them started.

The wood was soaked from rain and snow, and the oil that had been in their supplies had been lost when the boat had upturned, along with a good portion of their food.

“You need to rest,” Lydia snapped at Agrippa, catching him dragging a tree back to camp. “That wound is only partially healed.”

“The mimics like this spot,” was the only answer he gave, dropping the sapling and then striding back into the woods, his ruined clothing flapping around his body.

Ignoring her own exhaustion—her mark was taking longer than it usually did to regather her strength—Lydia checked on the little girl, who was sitting with her mother next to the cook fire Killian had managed to get started.

“You’ve made a mistake coming into Derin, Gertrude,” the mother whispered under her breath. “I don’t care how pretty that man of yours is, leaving Mudamora was a mistake.”

“I can’t very well turn around now,” Lydia answered, holding her hands over the flames. They ached, the pain reaching all the way up to her elbows, and she idly wondered if this was how they’d feel when she’d actually aged. If what she felt was her future, if she lived long enough to know it.

The woman glanced in Agrippa’s direction. “Rufina hunts the Marked,” she whispered. “And he’s her general. If you were smart, you’d have let him die.”

“We need him and Baird in order to survive this,” Lydia replied, knowing her tone was flat but unable to help it. Unsure of whether saving Agrippa had been a mistake or not. Only that he’d taken that arrow for her and that letting him die hadn’t been something she was willing to do.

Killian chose that moment to reappear, helping one of the other men carry a tree over to where Baird was chopping wood. Her eyes went immediately to the slice in his coat, the fabric gaping to reveal the bleeding wound beneath. He had injuries on top of injuries, and marked or not, he had limits. Climbing to her feet, she moved to intercept him before he went back into the forest. “Let me stop the bleeding.”

“No.” He moved to step around her, but she shuffled into his path. Scowling, he bent low. “You’re not recovering as swiftly as you should. It’s been hours and you still look old enough to be your own grandmother when you should be looking your normal self. Is it this place? Or is it something else?”

“I don’t know.” She bit down on the insides of her cheeks. “At the very least, let me stitch it up.”

“Agrippa said he’ll do it once the fires are lit.”

Agrippa? Logically, she knew that the young man would have received training to do it, but that didn’t mean he was good at it. And even if he were, why would Killian choose him over her to do it? Hurt flooded through her chest, but Killian had already stepped around her and was heading back into the forest.

Pulling off her spectacles, she rubbed at her stinging eyes before shoving the wire frames back over her ears. She needed to do something to keep busy, so