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

willing to supply suggestions for what he might do when he got there, kissing her being first and foremost among them.

And no part of him wanted to stop there.

Turning his back against the wall of the pool, he closed his eyes and sank under the water, hoping the cold would temper the thoughts running through his head of the times he’d seen her wearing very little, her long legs seeming to go on forever. Gods, what he wouldn’t give to have those wrapped around him while he kissed those perfect lips of hers. To rip off her clothes and drink in the sight before losing himself entirely.

Cool it, Killian, he ordered himself, but it was wasted words.

The lust, he could control. But with her, it was so much more than that, and instead of seeing her naked body, he saw her bent over sick orphans, saving their lives. Saw her sacrificing her own body to protect Gwen when the other girl had fallen beneath the mob. Saw her tirelessly fighting to get back to Celendor to free Teriana, no matter the cost to herself. She was the bravest person he’d ever met. The most loyal. The most selfless. A girl worth fighting for.

He needed to breathe.

His heartbeat grew rapid, his chest tightening and muscles starting to spasm. But he didn’t want to give up the silence under the water. The darkness. Her face.

It was only when the need was so desperate he couldn’t deny it any longer that Killian broke the surface, gasping in mouthfuls of air.

And found himself face-to-face with Lady Ria Rowenes.

 30MARCUS

He could’ve spent hours in those temples. Days, just picking out the details in the incredible artwork that alone seemed untouched by the endless damp of the jungle. There was so much to learn, so many questions he wanted to ask, so much he wanted to know, but the inlanders weren’t his priority. Not when he was going to have to punish Felix’s treason when he returned.

His men led them out of the nameless city and through the jungle until they reached the banks of a dry stream, which they followed, the incline growing steeper with every passing minute.

“Well, shit,” Quintus said under his breath, gazing skyward. “Didn’t expect to see these on this side of the world.”

Marcus was inclined to agree.

To either side of the streambed were Bardenese redwoods, some of the trees old enough to tower above the jungle canopy. He imagined that from above they must look like strange sentinels guarding a path through the forest.

“I’m surprised they grow here,” Teriana said. “Bardeen is much colder.”

“But equally as wet.” Marcus walked around a boulder, the stones of the streambed shifting beneath his feet. A stream of size had once run through here, for the banks were high and jagged with rock. Why had the water ceased to flow?

Ahead, a cliff rose out of the jungle, with a dozen or so of his men working near its base. And perhaps fifteen feet above them, a glittering xenthier stem jutted from the rock.

“Explains why none of the other path-hunters survived,” Teriana murmured, holding a hand to her brow to shade her eyes from the sun. “Drop like that would kill you if you fell wrong. And even if you fell right, most would break a leg or ankle. The man who reached us got lucky.”

“His luck didn’t last.”

At the sight of him, his men stopped working and saluted. The man in charge said, “Nearly got the scaffolding finished, sir.”

“Good.”

“I know where the stem is in Bardeen,” Quintus said. “Remember that stream we had to cross to get to the Twenty-Ninth’s followers’ camp?”

The Twenty-Ninth was notorious for many things, but one of them was the number of people who followed the legion, providing them services in exchange for the men’s coin. Paid company. Those who pandered to vices. Laundresses. They always caused problems, so Marcus never allowed the behavior, dispersing anyone who tried to follow the Thirty-Seventh about. “Yes.”

“The stream split,” Quintus said, “half of it going over the waterfall and the other half disappearing into a hole about ten feet away.”

Marcus stared up at the stem, imagining what it must have looked like with water bursting from its tip, a stream originating in Bardeen bringing new life to the jungles of Arinoquia. “Speculation was that the shaft rejoined the rest of the stream at the base of the falls.” And given that they’d been in the middle of conquering Hydrilla, no time had been spent investigating. Though apparently afterwards, someone had taken the time to reroute the stream and excavate. Xenthier was often found in streams and rivers, and even legion soldiers were eligible to receive the financial reward if they discovered a stem.

The men were moving the scaffolding into place, and Marcus waited silently until they had it steady before climbing.

“Let’s go look,” Quintus said, and the wooden frame shuddered as he and Teriana followed.

Reaching the platform, Marcus knelt, casting a backward glance at the jungle and trying to ignore the way his heart skittered at being so high. It wasn’t much of a view, the streambed winding its way into the jungle, so he turned to the xenthier, squinting as the crystal reflected light into his eyes.

“I’ve never had a chance to look at one up close. It’s beautiful.” Teriana had crawled onto the platform next to him, and his nostrils filled with the scent of cedar and orange blossoms, and inexplicably, the sea.

She reached out a hand to touch it, but Marcus caught her wrist. “Always check it’s a terminus before touching it.” Pulling loose a pebble that had lodged in his sandal, he tossed it against the xenthier. If it had been a genesis, it would have disappeared, whisked away to some unknown destination, but instead, it bounced off, falling to the ground below.

Quintus squeezed between them, the scaffolding swaying from their combined weight, and Marcus’s breath caught, the ground suddenly feeling very far away.

“Smells like Bardeen.” Quintus had his face directly