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

Sonia made a soft noise, nodding slowly. “For all he claims that he can’t teach, Killian is remarkably able to become the teacher each student needs.” She turned her head back to watching the pair spar, and then she said, “I like to watch them together. It reminds me that beneath the anger, he’s still in there.” Then she reached out and took Lydia’s hand, squeezing it hard. “You’re not just going to Derin to rescue Malahi. You need to bring back Killian, too.”

 60MARCUS

They’d covered 140 miles.

It was an incredible feat, given the obstacles they’d faced, but as Marcus stared at the map on the wall of the shack they currently inhabited, he feared it might all have been for naught.

It was snowing.

The lack of visibility had kept them from traveling to the next shelter, but if it continued to snow, it would be the carpet of white flakes on the ground, which was growing thicker by the hour, that would trap them. And with both daylight hours and their supply of meat dwindling, it wasn’t a delay they could afford. As it was, they didn’t have enough food to make it even halfway to the nearest legion fort, which meant they’d be forced to try to fish or hunt right as the season shifted into winter.

He rolled his shoulders so that his back cracked, then lifted the candle to stare at where the Via Hibernus intersected with the Via Mortis, which was the route through the Sibernese Teeth. The mountain range was long and narrow, passable—in theory—in a matter of days, which was why Empire couriers used it. But only in the warmer months. And the men who undertook the journey were experienced climbers.

“Where are all the Sibernese?” Teriana asked, her head bent over the repairs she was making on her clothing.

“Mostly, they’re on the coasts or south of the Teeth where the weather isn’t as foul,” he answered. “Only a few live on the plains during winter, and they’re nomadic. They have to be with such scarce game.”

“Don’t they have trouble with the wolves?”

“Yes.” He scribbled a calculation on the wall with a bit of charcoal and frowned. “But they keep wolfhounds that run the packs off.”

“Maybe we’ll get lucky and come across a group of them. We’ve got coin, and I’ve a few hair ornaments that I’d part with for something different to eat.”

“Hope that we don’t.” He set down the charcoal. “They might let you live, but I’d be dead the moment they determined I was Cel. Doubly quick if they figured out I was with the legions.”

“What are you talking about?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Teriana look up from her mending. “Sibern’s been a Cel province for what, two hundred years?”

“One hundred eighty-four.”

She snorted. “Right. Specific dates aside, that’s quite a few years of peace, no? And wouldn’t there be a reward for them assisting you of all people? You are fairly important, last I checked.”

Marcus hesitated. The situation in Sibern—and in several of the other provinces—was not something the Senate wanted known. But given that the animosity of the Sibernese people toward Celendor was a very real threat to him—and to Teriana by extension—he decided to answer. “There is no peace. Not in the interior, at any rate. They know helping a legion officer would net them a small fortune in gold. They’d still feed me to their dogs if they got the chance.”

“We traded down the eastern coast of Sibern last year,” Teriana said. “I didn’t even hear a whisper of dissent.”

“Not surprised. The coast has a heavy legion presence, and the larger cities are more … integrated with the Empire. It’s the places that only see the legions and the Empire administrators once or twice a year that are the problem.”

“How so?”

“It started with them refusing to tithe their second-born sons, or rather, claiming that there were no second-born sons.” Sitting on an upturned log, Marcus tossed another piece of wood in the stove, wanting to be comfortable as he aired the Empire’s dirty laundry. “They refused to keep birth records, hid the boys or pretended they were the children of families with no sons. Sibern’s not the only place it’s happened—the Bardenese have turned evading child tithes into an art.”

“Why is it that no one has ever heard of this?” Teriana’s eyes were a brilliant blue; Curious, he thought. And something else.

“Because the last thing the Senate wants is anyone finding out that evasion is possible,” he said, watching her expression. “It’s in the Empire’s best interest to have its people believe its power is absolute and uncontested, so any rumors to the contrary are vigorously quashed.”

Teriana’s brow furrowed, but she said nothing.

“But in Sibern, the Empire erred in how it handled the situation. Or rather, the legatus dealing with it erred and the Senate had to go along with his decision in order to keep from looking foolish. Or worse, weak.”

Extracting a whetstone, he ran it along the blade of his knife, waiting.

“Well?” she finally demanded. “Are you going to tell me what he did?”

“Can’t you guess?”

“Obviously I can guess,” she retorted. “But what good is you being a walking encyclopedia of facts if you aren’t going to give me the full story?”

“As you like.” He sheathed the weapon, stretching one leg out in front of him. “So in circumstances of tax evasion, what one does is to go into the town or village or hamlet and have one of the Empire’s administrators estimate how much tax is owed, and then take it. By force, if necessary. Obviously the administrator estimates high, and the legatus in charge will usually turn a blind eye to his men taking a bit more to supplement their own income. The result is that the evaders end up paying more than they would’ve had to if they’d been law-abiding, thus dissuading them from repeating their