Unease rose in Silvara’s chest, and judging them long gone, she rose to her feet and started toward the ravine. Reaching the edge of the tree line, she stopped, staring at the fortress on the opposite side. Warriors patrolled the walls, one of them quickly noticing her presence, though he was too far away for her to make out his face. One of his fellows lifted a spyglass to his eye, and she waited to see if he recognized her. Waited for some acknowledgement, though she knew for them to do so would be foolish. But the man only lowered the glass and continued his slow walk down the length of the battlement.
What weakness did you see?
Part of her wanted to attempt to climb the same tree, to find the vantage Quintus had and look down into Hydrilla to see what he’d seen. Except she had neither the rope nor the skill required, and even if she made it to the top, she had no idea what to look for.
Agrippa knows.
Her chest tightened, the need to find out the information any other possible way making her want to attempt the climb no matter the risk.
Your family is in there. And the legions are planning to attack them. To kill them.
If only she could get him to tell her something, anything, maybe it would be enough that the rebels could repel the attack.
Maybe she could make a difference.
Silvara stood staring at the fortress, and it was only when she started to lose feeling in her toes that she moved, retrieving her basket and heading back toward camp.
18
Agrippa
He kept waiting for his heart to stop hammering. For his pulse to cease its endless roar. For his guts to quit twisting.
But hours after they’d made it back to camp, after he’d made his men run drills and spar and memorize new codes, Agrippa still felt like he was about to vomit.
Why had Silvara been out there?
What had she been thinking?
What had she heard?
It was the last that haunted him, because Marcus had explained a critical piece of his mad plan with Silvara only a dozen paces away. A piece that, if revealed, would get men killed. And she would never have gotten that close if Agrippa had been paying attention.
But instead his eyes and mind had kept going upward to where Quintus was climbing, his fear of his friend falling, of another of his friends dying, seeming more important than everything else. And his distraction had nearly gotten Silvara killed—for a surety, if she’d been caught within earshot, that was what Marcus would have ordered. There’d have been no choice. Not with the lives of every man in the Thirty-Seventh on the line.
Which they still were, because he had no idea how much she’d heard.
“I’ll be back,” he muttered at Quintus and Miki when they were done with their duties for the day. “Get everyone to clean their shit and put their tents in order. Felix is definitely going to hit us with an inspection.”
“Where are you going?”
“I need to deal with something.”
Pulling his hood up against the icy wind, he left camp, weaving his way through the groups of Twenty-Ninth at liberty, all of them heading toward followers’ camp. But with his face in the shadows of wool and fur, none of them paid him any mind.
He stepped into the maze of tents and canvas, hurrying through the narrow paths, his nose filling with the stink of unwashed bodies and filth and smoke and the ripe stench of corpses, more followers having obviously succumbed to conditions.
Reaching the laundry tent, he ducked inside, admonishment on his lips.
But though the other women were there, Silvara was not.
What if she didn’t make it back?
What if she’s still out there?
What if another patrol caught her?
Panic rose in his chest, then Agnes said, “She’s minding the fire.”
He headed out the rear of the tent to find Silvara lifting a kettle off the tiny fire. At the sight of him, she froze.
“We need to talk.” The words came out sharper than he’d intended, especially given the only thing he was feeling was relief that she was all right.
Her jaw worked from side to side, an argument rising in her eyes even if it had yet to reach her lips. But all she said was, “Let me give this to Agnes first.”
Habit made him want to carry the kettle in for her, but instead he crossed his arms and waited while she brought it inside, exiting a few moments later with her patched cloak over her shoulders.
Wary of the endless ears in the crowded camp, he led her out into the forest, not saying a word until they reached a clearing. Then he stopped and rounded on her. “You better have a rutting good explanation, Silvara. Because I don’t think you can begin to appreciate how close you came to getting yourself killed.”
The brown eyes that met his did not so much as blink. “We needed the food. All the ground near camp has been picked clean thrice over, so I decided to go farther afield looking for lichen.”
“Lichen?” He stared at her, horrified. “You risked your life for lichen?”
“When you’re starving, not looking for food is risking your life. Not that I’d expect you to understand what it feels like to go without.”
“I might understand your motivation somewhat better if I hadn’t given you days’ worth of food last night.”
She looked away. “Yes, well. I gave it away to those who needed it more.”
Of course she had. Never mind that she was starved to the point of emaciation and so weak she could barely carry a bucket. “If you needed more, you should have asked me. I would’ve gotten it for you.”
She crossed her arms. “I can provide for myself. I don’t need an Empire boy to take care of me.”
An Empire boy. Because that was all he was. A number.
“Be glad this Empire boy decided otherwise,” he snapped. “Else you’d be dead in the woods with a slit throat. Gibzen wouldn’t have hesitated. None of them would have.”
“Then why did you?” Her voice quivered, but her gaze was defiant. “Given there were apparently things going on that I wasn’t meant to see or hear, why didn’t you kill me?”
Because I like you. Because you didn’t ask to be involved in this. “I’d fall on my own blade before hurting you, Silvara. But I betrayed the trust of my men—my friends—to protect you. And I’ve never done that for anyone.”
And though he might be a fool for it, he'd do it again if that was what it took to keep her safe.
“Why?”
He couldn't explain. So instead, he curved his fingers around her cheek, and bending his head, he kissed her.
Silvara let out a soft gasp of surprise, then her arms were around his neck, her tongue chasing over his. She tasted liked sweet nettle tea, her lips soft and warm as he pulled her against him, as he kissed her harder. Her hair was like silk between his fingers as he moved from her lips to her jaw to her throat, her soft whimper sending a hot flood of desire through him.
He lifted her up, her shoulders against a tree and her legs around his waist, her skirts sliding up to reveal naked skin he’d dreamed of touching, and he ran his hand up her thigh, feeling her quiver. Feeling her run her fingers through his hair as her lips captured his again.
His pulse raced, because this was a forbidden thing. A line he’d never crossed. Not the kissing but the caring. For as much as he wanted to strip the clothes from her body to satisfy his lust, he wanted her. Wanted to make her smile, to hear her laugh, and to keep her safe from the nightmare the Empire had brought down on her world.
You are the nightmare.
The thought was worse than a kick to the balls and he jerked away from her, stumbling back. “I can’t.” He wiped a hand over his mouth, because he could still taste the sweetness of her lips. “I can’t do this. Can’t have my loyalties divided this way. Just…please don’t tell anyone what you saw today, all right?”
“Agrippa…”
She reached for him and he took a staggering step back, because he knew if he felt her hands on him again, that hi
s willpower would crack. “Please, Silvara. Just promise you won’t say anything. Promise me I can trust you.”
Her chin trembled, but she nodded once.
“It’s getting dark. You need to get back to camp.” I can’t leave her out here. “I’ll take you back.”
Careful not touch her, he led her back through the trees, stopping at the edge of the forest. The sun was nearly set, the only light an eerie blue twilight that filtered through the clouds, and as he turned, fat snowflakes began to fall. “I’ll ask about getting food to the camp. Just…just don’t go wandering out there again.”
She was shivering violently, the wind rising higher by the minute, a storm coming. And it was all he could do not to pull her into his arms to warm her. Except if he did, he’d stay. Would find her something to eat and wood to burn for heat and then stay with her through the night. And one thing would lead to another. And tomorrow, everything would be a thousand times worse.
“Don’t go,” she said softly. “I don’t want you to.”
His eyes burned, and he rubbed at them before they could betray him. “Goodnight, Silvara.”
Then he walked away.
19
Marcus
“You shouldn’t be in here,” Felix said under his breath as they approached the tunnel. “Some of that smoke might still linger.”
“I’ll be fine.” Whether that was the truth or not, Marcus didn’t know. His attacks weren’t set off as easily as when they were children, but it could still happen. And to have his illness discovered after keeping it secret for so long was not something he wanted to contemplate. Especially given the consequences.
Flanked by their escort, they stepped into the darkness of the tunnel, Felix holding a lamp to light their path. Even now, there was a faintly acrid scent in the air that left a metallic taste on his tongue, and he briefly considered going back. Except he hadn’t made it this far in life by backing down, and he refused to do so now.
The tunnel had been built wide enough to allow four men to walk side by side, the ceiling braced with thick beams of redwood, the ground worn smooth. Deep enough beneath the surface that it couldn’t be collapsed by Hydrilla’s catapults, it angled upward with the slope of the hill, where it had passed beneath walls Marcus knew to be twelve feet thick. Hostus’s plan had been to attempt to take the fortress through the tunnel, and if that proved too difficult, to collapse the tunnel and a section of the wall and take it through the breach.
Except the Bardenese knew their business.
They’d heard the noise of the digging and dug a tunnel of their own to meet it, filling it with poisonous smoke so that when the digging soldiers broke through, they were overcome. Dozens dead and the rebels had barricaded the tunnel once again with debris, most likely with their smoke traps waiting to be lit if the legions tried to move the rubble.
The barricade appeared, illuminated by the lantern light, and Marcus signaled silence to the men with him as he approached, eyes running over the rocks. Nothing that couldn’t be removed with effort, but to attempt to gain the fortress again by the same method would be folly.
And that wasn’t the reason why Marcus was here, anyway.
Standing entirely still, he listened. And then faintly, barely audible over the sound of dripping water and the howl of the draft, he heard voices. He reached up to the top of the barricade, cautiously pulling loose one rock and setting it on the ground. Then another and another, careful never to make a sound. And when he caught sight of a pinprick of light, he motioned for Felix to put their lantern out entirely before easing out the final rock.
A beam of firelight shot through the hole he’d made, barely large enough to fit his fist, and with it came voices speaking in Bardenese.
“Maybe we should take their deal,” a man said. “Maybe turning them down was a mistake.”
“We didn’t turn them down, you fool,” a woman answered. “We catapulted their messenger’s head into their camp. I think it’s fair to say their deal has expired. And even if it was still on the table, do you want your children taken from you and forced into indenture? Made to scrub some Cel patrician’s floors and empty his chamber pots, earning their freedom too late in life to do anything with it?”
“It’s better than dead,” the man retorted. “We’ve nothing to feed them, Shaeva. I’m not barefoot because I like the cold. My wife boiled my boot leather to feed our children, and my boots were the last to go. We’ve got nothing. There is nothing. At least scrubbing floors is a life.”
“If we concede, Bardeen will fall,” a third voice, that of an older man, said. “Hydrilla is the spirit of the rebel cause, ever defiant against Celendor and its armies. Better for every man, woman, and child in this fortress to starve in defiance than to bend their knees to the Senate.”
“Easy for you to say!” the first snarled. “Your daughter is safe!”
“She is many things but safe isn’t one of them! You know what she’s been asked to do! You know the risks she’s taking!”
The woman, Shaeva, made pacifying noises. “The legions are still licking their wounds, my friends. And they will lick them again tomorrow if they try again. And the next day. All we need to do is stay strong until the winter winds blow in from the south and drive those tree-burning bastards back to the coast as they have always done before.”
“Not this time,” Marcus said in Bardenese, feeling Felix start next to him. “The winter winds will not save you.”
He heard the panicked intakes of breath, the mutters to get reinforcements, to light the bonfires, and he swiftly added, “Calm yourselves. I’m here to talk, not to fight.”
Silence.
“There is a xenthier terminus not an hour from where we stand,” Marcus continued. “A stem that delivers supplies from the heart of Celendor, a place where the cold never reaches. Where crops yield all throughout the year. And it is nothing for the Senate to supply us through this winter and the next and the next. Especially with a prize within its grasp. All of which you know. So I tell you again, winter will not save you.”
“Lies,” the older man snarled. “Trickery in an attempt to see us surrender and spare yourself a fight.”
“No lies,” Marcus said even as he lied through his teeth. “Stand on your ramparts tomorrow and watch the wagons arrive if you don’t believe me. Watch while we feast and your children starve for the sake of your pride.”
“Is it pride that we fight for our freedom, you Cel vermin?” the woman spat. “Some things are worth dying for.”
“And some worth living for, even if it’s not the life one dreamed of,” Marcus countered. “You chose this path, but what of your children? Did they ask to be locked in this fortress? To starve and die because their parents value principle over their lives? Do they applaud your heroism, or do they weep for the pain in their bellies?”
Silence. Or nearly so, for he could hear their breathing, rapid with fear and uncertainty and doubt.
“Tomorrow,” he continued, pulling an orange he’d taken from Grypus’s supplies out of his belt pouch, “we will offer Hydrilla the opportunity to surrender its children into service to the Empire. It might not be the life you wished for them, but it is a life. And they’ll have the opportunity to make of it what they will, whereas this path will only see them dead.”
“Never!” the older man hissed. “You’re mad to believe we’d concede to such a thing.”
“It’s up to you,” Marcus answered, peeling the orange, the citrus smell filling the tunnel. “I tell you now only so that all within Hydrilla know the choice is there. For I know better than most how higher powers keep information to themselves in order to maintain control. Knowledge is power.”
He turned to walk away, but the other man—the one with the children—called out, “Wait!”
Marcus paused.
“How do we know you won’t just kill them if we hand them over?” the man demanded. “What certainty can you give that we won’t watch our children be slaughtered b
y legion blades?”
“Because I give you my word. And my word is something that I always keep.”
“Who are you?”
“The legatus of the Thirty-Seventh legion.”
There was the sound of falling rocks as the man climbed up the barricade, peering through the hole Marcus had made. Taking the lantern from Felix, Marcus held it up as eyes appeared, illuminating his face.
“It is you,” the man whispered. “I recognize your face.”
“Noon tomorrow,” Marcus replied, reaching up to set the orange within the man’s reach. “You have until then to make your decision.”
Turning his back on the barricade, Marcus strode down the tunnel, Felix at his side. But it wasn’t until they were well out of earshot that his second hissed, “What was that about? Now we’ve lost the ability to listen in on their plans by revealing the chinks in their barricade, which they are sure to bolster. But more importantly, you don’t have the authority to offer that deal.”
“Yes, I’ve no doubt that they’ll be filling the tunnel with rubble even as we speak,” Marcus answered, glancing up at the night sky. “As for the other, you’re going to help me with that.”
“How so?”
“By manipulating the proconsul’s fondness for the Thirty-Seventh’s finest fighting man, obviously.”
Felix made an aggrieved noise but said nothing as they made their way back to camp. Marcus pulled his cloak close around him as the wind sliced through his clothing with impressive force, his summer blood disliking the chill. “I’m going to talk to Hostus. Alone.”
“No,” Felix said flatly. “If he gets upset, he’ll hurt you. And you never fight back.”
Because fighting back was what Hostus wanted. As much as the older legatus depended on Marcus’s strategies to make him look good, the darkness that lurked inside Hostus’s mind hungered for an excuse to put Marcus in the ground the same way he had Dareios. “It will be fine. I’ve a solution for him, which will put him in a good mood.”
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