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

His breath was coming too quickly, his chest tightening, because this shouldn’t be happening. Not in the Thirty-Seventh. Not to him. “Tell me now or you’re out.” The words slipped from his lips almost without thought. “I won’t have men under my command that I can’t trust, so you either tell me what you fought over or you can no longer consider yourself Thirty-Seventh.”

“Shit,” Servius muttered under his breath. “This is out of hand.”

Marcus ignored him, watching instead the horror forming on the faces of the men before him, several exchanging glances with one another. “Well?”

He felt the moment where they mutually agreed, then one stepped forward. “It was over some things that were said about you in the mess tent, sir.”

“What things?”

The man’s jaw worked back and forth, then he sighed and said, “That you’re not following legion protocols, sir. That you’re not holding yourself to the standard of the Thirty-Seventh. And that maybe it will be better once we find the xenthier paths, because once the Senate has authority here, things will go back to normal.”

Things will go back to normal. The words were like ice water, because they were identical to what the traitor had told Ashok. “Who said that?”

“Was a conversation, sir. More than a few involved, and the argument sparked after the speaker left the mess tent. Men taking sides and such.”

“Who wanted things to go back to normal? Who said that part?”

Silence.

“I will have Racker burn the Thirty-Seventh’s mark off your fucking chests if you don’t tell me!” Marcus shouted.

The tension mounted, then finally the man gave a sharp shake of his head. “Was the tribunus.”

Felix.

“Well,” Marcus said, all his control going toward keeping his expression in check. Toward keeping from breaking down entirely. “Given recent developments, he might soon get his wish.” Turning to Servius, he said, “Three lashes each and garnish the cost of the narcotics from their wages.”

And without another word, he turned and walked away.

Teriana and Quintus were mercifully absent from the command tent when he returned, so there was no one to see him slump down on a stool, elbows on the table and his head in his hands.

No one to see the way he scrubbed at his eyes, hating the unfamiliar burn of tears. Hating the way his breath kept catching, not with one of his attacks, but with grief.

It had been Felix. Felix who’d betrayed Teriana’s position. Who’d gotten six of their men killed, who’d crippled Miki, who’d ruined Quintus’s life. Who’d set Marcus on a path that had nearly seen the Thirty-Seventh caught between two armies. Who’d betrayed him.

A sob wrenched from his throat, and he dug his nails into his scalp, trying to regain control. Trying to shove the twist of pain and hurt back behind the walls that normally protected his heart so well.

Behind his closed eyelids, memory flitted across his vision. Of standing in a tiny room next to a bunk that seemed a sliver width compared to the bed he’d left behind at home, the ache of his abandonment heavy in his chest.

“Top or bottom?”

He’d turned to find another boy standing behind him, golden skin tanned considerably darker than Marcus’s by the sun, ears sticking out beneath his freshly shorn hair.

“Pardon?”

“You want the top or the bottom bunk? You were in line behind me for processing, by the way. See?” The boy pulled down the neck of his tunic to reveal a tiny tattooed number. 1518.

His skin still stung from the needle that had left a 1519 on his own skin, and he couldn’t imagine how much worse it would be when it was replaced by a larger version when he graduated. If he lived that long.

“Means we’ll be standing next to each other pretty much the rest of our lives unless one of us croaks,” the boy said. “What did you say your name was?”

Gaius rose on his lips, but he clenched his teeth shut on it, because that wasn’t his name anymore. Everything that had been his was gone now. And the thought sent fresh tears spilling down his cheeks as he managed to choke out his younger brother’s name. “Marcus.”

“Hey, it’s all right.” The boy patted his shoulder. “Gosh, you’re skinny. Good thing you’re here—Lescendor feeds us well, I’ve heard. Clean bedding and new clothes, too. I’ve bet you’ve never had it this good.”

Marcus opened his mouth to say that he’d never had it this bad, but fear silenced him. Because if anyone learned that his family had sent him instead of his younger brother, he, his father, and his brother would be executed for treason. His mother stripped and exiled, his sisters along with her. Which meant no one could ever find out who he was, and that meant keeping everything secret. His breathing came faster, one of his attacks coming on, because everyone had abandoned him. Everyone. “I’m afraid.”

“Hey.” The boy slung his arm around him. “Why don’t you take the top bunk. That way, anyone who wants to get to you will have to get past me first.”

“Why would you do that?” he managed to ask between gasps. “You don’t even know me.”

“Because we’re brothers now,” the boy said, gesturing for him to climb to the upper bunk. “I’m Felix, by the way.”

“Sir?”

Marcus jumped, his heart flipping at the sound of Felix’s voice as it pulled him from his memories, and he lifted his head.

“I’ve the revisions to the ranks.” Felix held two pieces of paper covered in his familiar, messy scrawl. “You said you wanted to see them first.”

Taking them, Marcus rubbed at his temples, the names blurring as he read. Nothing sinking in except that his best friend had betrayed him.

“Hard to get any sleep last night with all the noise.”

The celebrations of the men had been predictably raucous, but even if the camp had been silent, Marcus wouldn’t have slept well. Wasn’t sure if he ever would again. “I slept fine.”

Felix sighed. “Not sure if you are