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

And Hegeria’s mark couldn’t cure death any more than it could reverse the passage of time.

Except is that entirely true? A thought teased at the back of her head, slowly shaping itself into something that resembled an idea.

“I’m going to try something,” she said. “As soon as Gwen and the High Lady return.”

Lena only stared at her, tears rolling down the sides of her cheeks. Then her eyes widened and she screamed.

They were out of time.

Lydia pressed her hands against Lena’s heart. But this time when the Corrupter’s talons sank in, she didn’t push.

She pulled.

 42MARCUS

“How deep are the posts set?” Teriana already had her knife in hand and was on her knees, ear against the ground.

Wracking his memory yielded nothing. “A couple feet, I’d guess. Which is nothing for these animals. They burrow their own dens—digging is what they do.”

“How long do we have?”

“That depends how long they’ve been at it.” Swearing, Marcus pressed his ear against the wall, attempting to determine precisely where the wolves were digging, but it was almost impossible over the sound of the wind. It was a tactic he’d used himself—using noise to disguise the work of legion sappers as they mined under a fortress wall in Bardeen.

But Marcus had no intention of being out-strategized by overgrown dogs. “Help me get this board off. We need to see where they’re digging.”

Together, they jammed their knives in between two planks, prying one of the boards away from the posts it was nailed to. Icy cold rushed in, and the wolves immediately attacked the openings.

“Oh, you think you’re coming in, do you?” Teriana shouted. Snatching up the frying pan, she slammed it against the muzzles of the wolves trying to force their heads inside, eliciting loud yelps of pain.

Dropping to his knees, Marcus peered through the gaps, trying to get a good visual of where the wolves were digging. But it was black as pitch outside, moon and stars obscured by clouds, and all he could make out were flashes of motion in the darkness. Swearing, he extracted a burning piece of wood from the stove and shoved it through a gap in the posts. Before the flames flickered out in the snow, his eyes found the mound of frozen earth the wolves had extracted from the tunnel, and as he watched, a wolf backed out of a hole, one of its pack mates swiftly taking its place.

“Here.” He marked a spot on the ground. “We need to start digging.”

Teriana lowered her frying pan, turning to stare at him. “What? You want us to help them get inside.”

“To lay a siege, one must also understand how one defends against a siege. Now start digging.”

It was backbreaking labor. They had only their weapons and tin cups to dig with, and within an hour, Marcus’s hands were screaming in pain, nails torn and skin bleeding.

“Stop and let me listen.” He pressed his ear to the ground, feeling the vibrations of the animals digging as much as he heard them. “Close.”

Teriana shoved her arm back into the hole, then yelped and recoiled. A second later, the pack bayed in excitement. Snatching up one of the tin cups, Marcus scraped it along the base of the stove, filling it with embers, which he dumped in the hole followed by the damp scraps of wool blanket left over from the clothing they’d made. A cloud of smoke billowed up, and he covered the opening with a plate to keep it inside.

The sounds of digging stopped.

Neither he nor Teriana spoke, both of them listening intently between the gusting howls of the wind. Moving the plate, Marcus dumped more fuel on the smoking flames below, which were already dying low.

“Will they give up?” Teriana’s whispered words seemed loud after the silence.

It wasn’t enough smoke to drive away men. If this had been a fortress under siege, he’d have choked the tunnels with the smoke of bonfires-worth of green wood. If he’d had something poisonous to burn, so much the better. Except they had nothing but bone-dry wood, and giving up their clothing to the flames would only delay the inevitable. But these were animals, so maybe—

The scratching resumed.

“Shit!” he snarled. “They’re digging around. We need more smoke.”

“It’s too narrow to get more fuel down there.” Teriana’s eyes were wide with fear. “We need to fill it back up. Put the cot or the stove over top.”

The stove. Marcus’s attention jerked to the cast-iron stove and the tin pipe rising to the roof above. The angle was wrong, but it might work.

Slamming the stove door shut, Marcus wrapped his hands in the blanket, took hold of the sides, and heaved, sliding the pipe out of the hole in the roof.

The shack immediately filled with smoke.

Tipping the stove over on its side, Marcus dropped to his knees next to the stovepipe and cut it with his knife, sawing through the metal even as his lungs filled with smoke, his eyes burning and watering.

He heard Teriana coughing, felt her wrap sodden fabric over his nose and mouth, his fingers burning from the escaping heat.

Beneath his knees, the ground was shifting. Trembling. In moments, it would collapse and the wolves would be in. Work faster.

But he couldn’t breathe.

Coughs wracked his body, the knife sliding in his grip.

There is no quitting here, only dying.

Wrenching on the stovepipe, he bent it backward, snapping it off and sending choking clouds of smoke into his face.

The world was swimming, everything moving as he tried to angle the pipe into the hole.

Then hands shoved him aside.

Marcus fell against the gap in the wall, sucking in desperate breaths of clean air. The wolves were yipping and running around the shack, several of them slamming their paws against the walls.

Teriana.

She was coughing, consumed by the clouds of smoke, barely visible in the faint light. Grabbing hold of her shoulders, he tried to haul her back, but she pulled away, choking out, “Almost … got … it. There!”

He dragged her against him, pushing her face against a gap