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

he stood and pushed him down onto the narrow cot. “And I didn’t save your ass only to have you fall into a stove, so sit still.”

Lifting the kettle, she poured warm water into the cups and handed him one, then drank deeply from her own. Marcus only stared at his, unblinking. Finally, he said, “Freezing would’ve been the easier way to go.”

“What?” she demanded. “Clearly you need to lie back down if you’re spouting nonsense like that.”

“It’s not nonsense, Teriana.” His hands balled into fists, and he rose, unsteady on his feet. “We’re in the middle of bloody Sibern! In winter. With no supplies, the wrong sort of weapons, and on the opposite side of Reath from where we are supposed to be!” He threw his cup against the wall, water splattering everywhere. “We should’ve just laid down for the wolves, because now we get to slowly starve to death while we lose our minds in a shack in the middle of nowhere.”

Teriana glared at the fallen cup, the side now dented inward, then she turned to fix her glare on him. “I’ve noticed that you do this from time to time, Marcus, and I can’t say that I like it.”

“What’s this?” he retorted. “Present you with facts?”

“This is losing your head. And it’s not when things get ugly or complicated or hard, but when you aren’t in control.” Picking up the cup, she refilled it and shoved it back into his hands. “You can’t stand it when the world isn’t marching to the beat of your drums. Now drink.”

He scowled and didn’t move. “Are you finished dissecting my character flaws?”

Giving him a wide smile, because the alternative was to slap him upside the head, she said, “I don’t know: Are you finished with your little tantrum?”

They stared each other down, and Teriana felt no small amount of satisfaction when Marcus looked away first, drinking from his cup.

“Between the two of us, we have a few skills,” she continued. “Surely we can figure a way through this.”

“We’re at least a thousand miles from the coast.” His voice was acidic. “And of all the men in the Thirty-Seventh you could’ve landed here with, I have the least practical experience in survival. Possession of skills is irrelevant if said skills are wrong for the task.”

Closing her eyes, Teriana took a deep breath, wishing that her cup were filled with rum and not melted snow. “Marcus, if you don’t start being more helpful, I’m going to toss you outside to die with that awful wolf.”

He crossed his arms, fixing her with a stubborn glare.

“For starts, how do you know we’re that far from the coast? How do you know where we are at all?”

“There’s a map on the wall behind you.”

Teriana’s cheeks warmed and she turned, eyeing the framed map nailed to the wall. Taking one of the candles from the supply shelves, she lit it at the stove then held it up so she could see the lines. At the top right corner of the map was written the number 203.

Marcus came up behind her. “We’re on the Via Hibernus.” He pointed to a line crossing the expanse of the enormous province. “It’s the longest road in the Empire, and we are apparently in shelter number 203. Which is here.” He moved his finger to a small red dot, which was far closer to the middle of the map than she’d hoped.

A faint flutter of panic settled in her stomach, and because she knew it would be worse if she didn’t persevere, she asked, “There’s an actual road beneath the snow?”

Marcus shook his head. “There’s mile marker posts driven into the ground so that travelers can stay on route. Though even with them, if the visibility is bad, it’s easy to lose your way.”

“Right.” It was late in the year, which meant winter was nearly upon the province. More snow seemed inevitable. “And there’s more of these shelters?”

“By necessity. The wolves make it impossible for those traveling in small groups or as individuals to be outside after dark. They’re maintained and restocked annually by whatever legion gets stuck with the task. It’s shitty work.”

Shitty work or not, his words eased her panic. If all the shelters were stocked like this one, they could move between them, living off the supplies, making clothes out of the blankets. They’d be hungry, but it was doable. “How far apart are they?”

“Twenty miles.”

Teriana bit her lip. A long walk, especially in the snow, but they were both fit.

“On good terrain, it’s reasonable for a messenger to travel three to four miles in an hour,” Marcus continued. “In the height of summer, there are eighteen daylight hours for travel. But at this time of year…” He paused, then shook his head. “In the depths of winter, there is daylight for less than six hours. Right now, I’d estimate we have about eight hours to travel twenty miles in snow without snowshoes, with little to no food, and with less light each passing day.”

Her knees quivered as his words sank in.

They were going to die out here.

 38MARCUS

The night was interminable.

Hours and hours of blackness, the only sounds the groan of the wind, the crackle of the fire, and the endless whining of the dying wolf outside the shack. It ground upon his nerves, inspiring a strange distance from himself that he’d only ever felt in the doldrums.

A sort of madness.

Marcus wanted to go outside and finish the damned thing off if only for the peace it would bring, but he knew the others would be out there until dawn. Either eating the man-tiger or shifter or whatever it was Teriana had called him, or standing watch over their dying pack member.

That would cost them. Would probably be what killed them, in the end.

Kill all or kill none was what they’d been taught about the Sibernese wolves. The creatures were said to hold an almost humanlike grievance against those who killed a pack member. A desire for vengeance