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

Quintus jerked upright, turning to look at her, and the anger twisting his face made her take a step back. “What do you want?”

“I wanted to see how you were,” she said, taking in his injuries. He was stripped down to the undergarments the legionnaires wore beneath their tunics, his naked shoulders and chest wrapped with bandages. Running her tongue over her still-healing lip, she added, “And I wanted to thank you. For what you did.”

“Then I suppose you’ve accomplished what you came for.” Quintus’s voice was barely recognizable. “Now go.”

“You’re being an ass.” Miki coughed, lifting a hand to cover his mouth as he cleared his throat. “It’s not her fault. If you can’t be nice, be silent. If you can’t be silent, why don’t you get some air.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“I’ll be fine. Go find me something better to eat than the broth the medics are forcing down my throat.”

Quintus’s jaw worked back and forth. “Fine.” Rising from the stool, he leaned over Miki, kissing him once on the forehead. Then again on the lips. “I won’t be long.”

He pushed past Teriana, heading toward the entrance of the tent.

“Apologies.” Miki motioned to the vacant stool. “He’s upset and taking it out on everyone he crosses paths with.”

“I don’t blame him.” She sat on the stool, toying with the blanket draped over Miki’s legs. Servius had said that he wasn’t able to move them—that the surgeon believed his back was broken, paralyzing him from the waist down. Working up her courage, she lifted her face to meet his gaze, searching for the changes the corrupted had wrought upon her friend.

Immediately she understood why no one had yet demanded an explanation from her. Other than the faint creases around his eyes and mouth and a few glints of silver in his short red hair, his pale, freckled face appeared almost the same. It was only because she knew what the corrupted could do that Teriana recognized the changes for what they were. Miki, physically, was no longer a nineteen-year-old boy, but a man closer to thirty.

Tell him. It was the right thing to do, but the consequences …

“You look like shit,” Miki finally said. “Like someone used your face for sparring practice.”

“Not inaccurate.” Exhaling, she said, “I’m sorry for what happened, Miki. I hope you don’t think I had anything to do with it? I’d never…” She trailed off, because wasn’t that exactly what she was supposed to be doing? Sabotaging the Cel legions? Getting enough of them killed that Marcus was forced to retreat?

“I don’t.” Reaching out, he took her hand, his palm calloused from a lifetime of holding weapons. “I saw you pick up Quintus’s weapon and fight. Saw the look on your face. We might not be on the same side in all of this, Teriana, but I know that you weren’t responsible for that ambush.”

“Doesn’t appear that Quintus is like-minded.”

“It’s not that.” Miki let go of her hand, resting his head back against the pillows, and Teriana’s chest tightened as tears gleamed in his eyes. “Surgeon made the call earlier today. I’m not going to get better. I’m never going to walk again, and that means I’m never going to fight again.”

And if he couldn’t fight, he wasn’t any good to the legions.

“The day after tomorrow, I’m being put on a ship destined for that island where the Quincense is moored. The island where they keep the cripples.” He rubbed his eyes, angrily, but one tear escaped to run down his cheek. “The day after tomorrow, I’ll no longer be part of the Thirty-Seventh.”

 12MARCUS

“I don’t trust the imperatrix.” Amarin cleared the table of cups, setting the bottle back on the sideboard, out of Marcus’s reach. “She’s calculating.”

“So am I.” Marcus rested his elbows on the table, noticing for the first time that Amarin seemed to have aged in recent weeks, the wrinkles in his bronze skin deeper, his hair now more grey than brown. No longer a man in his prime as he’d been when first assigned to Marcus. “And everyone is angry at me, despite my calculations being in their best interests.”

“Do you blame them?” Amarin circled the table, coming up behind Marcus and taking hold of the sides of his head. “Breathe.”

Marcus obediently took a deep breath, and his servant twisted his head sharply left, making his spine crack loudly, and repeated the motion to the right. Then Amarin dug his thumbs deep into the knots in Marcus’s neck, kneading out the tension.

“What I think is that they are rather ungrateful given that I’ve ensured we have the funds to pay wages and fill bellies for a long time to come, never mind that we now have an ally strong enough to ensure we won’t have to go into battle anytime soon.”

“Was keeping them in the dark necessary to achieve those ends?”

“If word had leaked of my intentions, I’d never have the chance to negotiate with the imperators. They’d have brought their armies to the meeting and I’d have had a battle on my hands. Or rather, Titus would have had a battle on his hands, because I’d be dead and he’d be in command of this mission.”

“Since when have you had cause to doubt that your officers would keep your confidence on something of this magnitude?”

Since one of them betrayed it. Marcus only shrugged, brushing away both Amarin’s question and his hands. “They didn’t need to know.”

“You have to trust someone, or you’ll drive yourself to madness.”

“Thank you for your words of wisdom.”

The older man snorted. “As usual, you’ll ignore them.”

“Where is he?”

Marcus jumped at Teriana’s voice, but before he could rise from his stool, she shoved her way into the tent, the men outside giving him apologetic looks.

“You can’t do it!” She leveled a finger at him. “I won’t allow it.”

“You’re going to need to be more specific,” he answered, watching Amarin sidestep Teriana as he made his way outside.

“You cannot separate them!”

He stared at her, his brain sluggish. “Pardon?”

“Miki and Quintus!”