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

Fishing around in her pocket, she found another gold coin, though it was her last. This game was getting a bit rich for her blood.

Her opponent bit at his bottom lip as he looked again at his cards. Then his eyes flicked to Marcus, who was examining the edge of her neglected knife blade. Teriana’s senses perked. “Stakes getting too high? Might be time for you to fold, my friend.”

Her opponent snorted, then pulled a coin that glinted gold from his belt pouch, flicking it into the pile hard enough that it all went sliding every which way. But Teriana was a master at sleight of hand, and she tracked which way the coin slid, the sight of the glittering dragon on its face giving her pause. Marcus had forbidden anyone to bring Cel currency across the Endless Seas.

At the sight of the coin, memory danced across her vision. Memory of Ashok holding a handful of golden coins stamped with that very dragon.

Her pulse raced, a thousand questions burning in her mind, but getting the right answers required the right approach.

And the absence of a certain legatus.

Reaching across him for a bottle that was sitting on a log, she turned her face to Marcus, their eyes meeting. Go, she mouthed.

Marcus’s eyes narrowed, but rather than arguing, he rose to his feet. “Don’t drink it all. Dawn comes early.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She refilled her cup, waiting for him to be out of earshot before turning back to her opponent. Reaching down, she plucked up the dragon, turning the gold coin over in her hands. “Strange to see Cel clink on this side of the seas. Thought it was forbidden.”

He made a face. “Before you go ratting me out, I didn’t bring it. Won it in a card game in a brothel in Aracam. Off one of the girls who works there.”

“Why would I rat you out? Makes no difference to me.”

He shrugged. “You’re getting a bit of a reputation for stirring up trouble.”

It was a struggle not to flinch. “The only thing I’ve a reputation for is fleecing you lot at cards. And on that subject, let’s see what you got.”

He flattened his cards against the dirt, revealing a good hand. A very good hand.

But some of her reputation, she’d earned.

Laying her cards down, she smirked. “Better luck next time.”

Her opponent swore, his face twisting in frustration as she scooped the pile of coins toward her and shoved them into her pockets, though the dragon she palmed, not wanting to let it out of her sight.

Marcus returned to camp, his eyes questioning as they met hers. But she only shook her head, because the coin was proof of nothing other than that someone had violated Marcus’s orders.

“Lights out, boys,” Marcus said softly to those who remained awake, unrolling his bedding and climbing into it. She briefly entertained the idea of setting out her own bedroll next to him, but then thought better of it and set it out between Quintus and the fire, climbing beneath the blanket.

All night, she tossed and turned, sleep evading her, and as the faint glow of dawn emerged in the east, Teriana pulled the coin from her pocket, running her thumb over the shiny gold surface and its familiar snarling dragon before turning it over.

And scowling at the sight of Lucius Cassius’s face.

The mint had done a fair job capturing his likeness. His profile revealed the weak chin he’d passed on to Titus; the resemblance between the two was marked. Especially given these freshly minted coins bore none of the wear of those that had been long in circulation.

Because these coins weren’t in circulation at all.

Teriana sat bolt upright, Quintus grumbling and shifting away from her at the motion. But she barely noticed.

Hundreds of coins were minted in honor of a new consul, but they didn’t enter circulation until a fortnight after the elections, in conjunction with a ceremony where patricians exchanged a coin bearing the visage of the prior consul for one of the new. Which meant these hadn’t been in circulation when the Quincense and the Cel fleet had left Celendrial. Which meant these had been taken from the highly secure mint itself.

And there was only one person who could have managed that.

Lucius Cassius.

Tugging on her boots and fastening her belt, Teriana glanced around to ensure the men were still sleeping, then outwards to ensure those on watch weren’t watching her. Picking up a pebble, she threw it at Marcus. It struck his shoulder and, always a light sleeper, he stirred. But it wasn’t until she’d hit him a second time that he lifted his head, blinking blearily as he focused on her.

She tossed him the coin, watching as he frowned at the dragon, giving an annoyed shake of his head before looking to her askance.

Turn it over, she mouthed, and he flipped it over, frown deepening as he held it up to the growing light.

It only took him a heartbeat to come to the same conclusion she had, the muscles in his jaw tightening, the hand not holding the coin balling into a fist. Then he looked back to her and jerked his chin toward the edge of the camp.

Teriana stepped carefully around the sleeping men, Marcus belting on his weapons as he joined her at the perimeter.

“I’m going to take one last look around the city,” he said to one of the men on watch. “Start packing up and we can head back to Aracam when I return.”

The man nodded. “Give me a moment, sir, and I’ll have an escort readied.”

“I don’t need an escort.”

“But—”

“I’m not going far and I won’t be long. If I’m not back in a half hour, feel free to come looking.”

Obviously torn between what was worse: arguing with his commander or allowing said commander to wander enemy territory alone, the young man said, “A half hour, sir. And don’t hold me responsible if Quintus comes looking sooner.”

Catching Teriana’s wrist, Marcus tugged her into the jungle,