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

boys so as to learn the battle strategies earlier. How those same boys had beaten him bloody every time they caught him. How he’d given up his soap ration for months in exchange for the lesson notes of a sixth-year boy in officer training who’d been particularly fastidious in his washing habits.

That had made Teriana laugh, her head tilted back to reveal the long column of her neck, the sound ringing through the shack. “You didn’t wash with soap for three months?”

“Not quite,” he confessed. “Felix got tired of how bad I smelled, so he started to share his ration after a month.”

He explained how when the Thirty-Seventh had been in their fourth year, the commandant had selected fifty boys from their ranks for training in advanced strategy and that the number had included Marcus and his inner circle, along with the two other remaining gang leaders and their circles. By the following year, it was down to him and Agrippa, and by their final year of training, Marcus had, unofficially, already been in command of the legion that would be named the Thirty-Seventh.

“Weren’t some of those boys angry about their loss of power?” Teriana asked.

“Of course. But most were wise enough to fall in line, especially once they’d taken a beating or two.”

“And those who didn’t?”

It was tempting to lie, but instead, he said, “As well you know, if a soldier is injured badly enough, he is discharged. And accidents happen.” Usually with a nudge from Gibzen, who even as a child had delighted in causing harm.

But it had been Marcus who’d given the orders to see it done.

Even now, he could remember standing back while Gibzen and Felix had beaten Agrippa to within an inch of his life until he’d finally conceded to Marcus’s authority. Or pretended to, at least. Part of him had always wondered if it hadn’t just been the Bardenese girl who’d driven Agrippa to desert but also the vestiges of rivalry between them. Whether it had always been inevitable.

“If being in command meant making those decisions, why did you want it?”

A question with many answers, all of them true.

“If you’re a second-born son in the Empire, there is almost no chance of escaping legion recruitment,” he finally said. “And once you’re in, the only way out is to die, to be discharged because your mind or body is broken beyond repair, or to desert, which almost always catches up with those who choose to do so. If you want to live, you try to find your place in the legion, whether that is in the rank and file, or as a medic, or an engineer, or a commander. For me, that place was at the top.”

It felt as though her eyes, which had been a shade of blue so deep they were nearly black, had dug into his soul when she said, “You didn’t answer my question, Marcus.”

Because he hated the answer.

“It was a way to survive.” Which was true. Even with his illness aside, he’d been small and weak and known nothing about fighting. Having Felix and the others he recruited as defenders had saved his life.

But that hadn’t been what had driven him to the top.

Like it was yesterday, he remembered overhearing the conversation between some sixth-years who were about to graduate. About how their leader was being outfitted to go before the Senate in order to be sworn in as legatus. Remembered the moment he’d learned that every legatus of every year had that privilege. How it had gotten into his head that if he could win that top spot, it would be him standing in front of the Senate. A Senate of which his father was a member.

That was what had driven him: not standing before the men who controlled the Empire, but of standing before his father, Senator Gnaeus Domitius. Year after year. Through exhaustion and pain and terror. The vision of the moment where he’d stand before the Senate and his father would see that Marcus was not only alive, but the top of his year. A peer to those pampered men in togas, not because he’d been born to it, but because he’d earned it. The moment when his father realized that he’d made a mistake in choosing Marcus’s brother over him.

Then that fateful day had come. The moment of triumph that had driven him for all those years. Marcus had walked into the Curia with Felix at his elbow, both of them dressed in their new armor and regalia. Facing the sea of men in white, he’d scanned their ranks. Once. Twice. Three times.

His father hadn’t been there.

“Once one has a taste of power, it’s hard to give up,” he finally answered. “And you know I like to be in control.”

Truth and a lie rolled into one.

 47KILLIAN

“This is madness, Killian,” Sonia grumbled. “Why in the name of the Six would Mudamorian soldiers impersonate you to attack Anuk villages? It doesn’t make sense. The whole reason we’re here is to defend against them, not incite them.”

“Just because it doesn’t make sense to us doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. And the boy had no reason to lie.”

Now, he and Sonia were watching the soldiers guarding one of the passes leading through the mountains. Not men of the Royal Army that he’d brought with him, but men from Rotahn. Rowenes men, Dwyer among them.

“I’m going to sleep,” Sonia muttered, reaching for her pack. “Wake me when it’s my turn.”

Leaning against a rock, Killian watched the Rowenes men, wishing he could hear what they were saying. But there was a strong southerly wind howling across the hills and through the mountains—nearly gale force in intensity. It filled the air with dust, little eddies swirling between the brush and pines, debris catching in the dry creek bed to his right. Lifting his head, he watched the shadows of the clouds race across the moon, running north along the range toward the towering peaks of the Northern Liratoras. His skin prickled, something