Gilded Serpent Danielle Jensen (i can read with my eyes shut .TXT) 📖

depicting the entirety of the Empire. It was covered with dots of various colors, most of them red and green. There had to be hundreds of them. Xenthier stems.

“What do red and green mean?” Her voice rasped, and she wished she had a glass of water. Or a bottle of rum.

“Unmapped xenthier stems. Green for geneses. Red for terminuses.”

There were so many. So very, very many.

“I shouldn’t let you see this.” He coughed, and she winced at the slight wheeze to his breath. “It’s treason.”

As were so many other things he’d said and done. Except things had changed. Now those who’d punish him were within reach. “Then maybe you should put it away.”

He stared blindly at the map, then nodded and rose. Rolling up the map, he stowed it and the ledger back in the chest, the lock clicking loudly as he secured it. Picking up a bottle sitting on top of the chest, he jerked out the cork and took a large mouthful. “I’ve had this headache ever since we took Aracam. It just throbs and throbs and I can’t think.”

“Rum won’t help that.”

“Probably not.” He took another mouthful, then set it on the table between them. “Even the best-laid plans go awry when the game changes. I know that well, and yet…”

Outside, the volume was increasing by the second, the men shouting and cheering and laughing. Marcus turned his head, listening to them, then he said, “If we find the xenthier, your people will be freed. You’ll have your freedom.”

“Freedom that comes with a steep price.” For when Cassius had his paths, Marcus and his legions would not be left to sit idle in Arinoquia. It meant war against the West. And against her.

“I don’t know what path to choose.” He exhaled a shuddering breath. “I don’t know what to do.”

Neither did she. For everywhere she looked, all paths led to blood.

 24LYDIA

Lena and Gwen walked with her back to the temple, word that the High Lady had sent them ensuring they were given rooms in the dormitories. Not that space was a premium given how few healers remained. And once they’d dropped off their things, the three of them moved into the library.

“What a mess,” Lena said. “Who did this?”

“Me,” Lydia admitted. “I was organizing.”

“An obvious priority in a city overrun by possessed corpses.”

Sighing, Lydia moved stacks of books off chairs so they could sit. “I’m hoping to find some clue to how we might combat the blight. Maybe it has happened before. If not here, then somewhere else. I’m not sure exactly what I’m looking for, only that the sum of healer knowledge resides within these walls.”

“The library at the temple in Revat is bigger,” Gwen mumbled, wrapping her thick blond braid around her hand. When both Lydia and Lena turned to stare, her pale, freckled skin turned pink. “What? Sonia told me it was so.”

Shoving aside her piqued curiosity, Lydia said, “Be that as it may, we can hardly venture to Gamdesh to visit a library. And I suspect if I ask to send a letter requesting the Gamdeshian healers search for me, that it would be denied. The King seems to have little interest in other nations knowing the full extent of Mudamora’s plight.”

“Malahi always said his pride would be our downfall.” As soon as she said the words, Lena sucked in a breath and glanced at Lydia. “What happened to her … It wasn’t your fault any more than it was his.”

His. Killian. Because he’d sworn to protect Malahi but had left the Queen to come after her.

“Malahi made her bed,” Lena added. “She didn’t deserve what happened to her, but she caused it.”

And yet if Malahi were alive, how different would things be? She’d be Queen, not Serrick, and their differences aside, Lydia knew that the other girl would have shown more empathy for the people. Would have listened to any possible solution that saw them saved. As much as it hurt to admit, the kingdom would likely have been better off if Killian had stayed by her side. “Were you there?” she asked softly. “When Rufina took her?”

Lena gave a reluctant nod. “Not that we did much good. We were riding as hard as we dared back to Mudaire, her at the center of the group. But it was so dark.” She bit her bottom lip. “We never saw Rufina coming. Never heard her coming.”

The soldiers that escorted Lydia and Quindor back to Mudaire had known a few of the details of what had happened, but Lydia kept silent, waiting for her friend to continue.

“The deimos just dropped from the sky,” Lena whispered. “Rufina caught Malahi around the waist and dragged her off the horse. High Lord Calorian was closest to her. He caught hold of Malahi’s ankle, but the deimos knocked him off. And then the rest of us were trying to get arrows out. To shoot Rufina without hitting Malahi. But…”

But it was a difficult shot. And none of them were good archers.

Killian would’ve saved her.

She shoved away the thought.

“Malahi screamed the entire time.” Lena’s eyes were distant, her face tight with remembered horror. “But there was nothing we could do.”

Silence hung like a pall.

“Did they find her?” As she asked the question, it struck Lydia that the King had shown no signs of grief when she’d met him today. It was possible he was enough of a politician that he could hide his sorrow over the death of his only child, but that rationale fell flat in Lydia’s mind. Especially given how often she’d seen senators back in Celendor spin the loss of a child to their advantage. To her, it felt almost like he was acting as though she’d never existed.

“No.” Lena closed her eyes, her grief for the fallen queen real, and Gwen wrapped an arm around her shoulder, pulling her close. “Though the High Lady has a shifter in her employ who is still searching.”

Even if she were a desiccated corpse, Malahi’s clothing and jewelry were enough