Page 188 of Scorched Earth
Teriana’s mood soured immediately, for though hindsight painted Cordelia in a far better light, she still wanted nothing to do with Marcus’s sister.
“Tell her I am unavailable,” Appius said.
The guard coughed slightly, then said, “An audience with Teriana, Dominus.”
Appius looked to her, and Teriana shrugged. “Might as well see what she has to say.”
The guard disappeared, and Appius said, “I will let you speak to her alone. Cordelia may be more forthcoming if I’m absent. Call if you have need of me.”
He exited the room, and a moment later, the guard appeared with Marcus’s elder sister on his heels.
Teriana eyed the blond woman, finding her resemblance to Marcus uncanny. Not in appearance, though they did look alike, but in the eyes. In the blue-grey gaze that spoke of unfathomable depths and cunning intelligence, Cordelia scrutinizing her in exactly the same way Marcus had.
“Why are you here?” Teriana finally asked. “Because if it’s to ask me to forgive him, you’re wasting your breath.”
“I don’t expect you to forgive my brother.” Cordelia smoothed her dress over her pregnant stomach, then sat. “In your position, I wouldn’t. I have a particular dislike for being lied to or misled by those I trust. Though for what it’s worth, he didn’t know that Lydia Valerius was anything to you until I told him. Very little rattles Marcus, but that revelation undid him.” Her brow furrowed. “I foundstrange comfort in his distress, for part of me had feared that the legions had destroyed all that was good in him. But his guilt and grief were palpable.”
“Don’t,” Teriana whispered. “I know you’re clever, Cordelia. I know how you think because you think just like him. If you try to manipulate me, this conversation is over.”
The other woman’s eyes narrowed, Cordelia watching her in silence for a long moment before she said, “There is something I want from you, and in exchange for it, I’ll give you the answer to the question you can’t stop asking yourself.”
“Which question is that?”
“Why.” Cordelia sipped her lemon water, then set the glass aside. “That is the question you’ve been asking yourself, isn’t it? Why Marcus agreed to personally assassinate a girl on the request of a senator.”
Teriana said nothing, only waited.
“If it were a political assassination, it would have been approved by the Senate, not a single man, and Marcus certainly wouldn’t have done it himself.”
He’d have sent Quintus.
“Not for gold, because my brother cares little for material things.”
The only thing he spent coin on was books. And a gift for her.
“Not for the killing itself, because he takes no pleasure in it.”
Was repulsed by men who did.
“Cassius was obviously blackmailing him,” Teriana muttered, wanting this to be over. Not wanting to hear anything that might temper the fury that burned in her heart for what Marcus had done. For the lies he had told. For the shattered heart he’d left in her chest. “Just like he blackmails and manipulates everyone. He told me that Cassius threatened to send the Thirty-Seventh somewhere awful, and that’s why he agreed to push them to vote for him in the elections. I can only assume Lydia’s murder was rolled into that agreement.”
Cordelia shook her head. “No. But before I tell you the information that my brother was willing to murder an innocent girl to keep secret, I want you to agree to bring a message to him.”
“Not a chance,” Teriana said flatly. “Have a messenger deliver it. It’s not as though Marcus is difficult to reach.”
“Everything is read by Cassius’s spies,” Cordelia said. “And this is something I can’t risk him discovering. Already Cassius is at the limits of his patience with our resistance to his regime, and we do not have the power to fight back if he chooses to end us. What I needto tell Marcus is something that wouldn’t just see me found murdered in my bed, but my entire family.”
The thought of being face-to-face with Marcus again made Teriana feel ill, but there was no denying her curiosity was piqued. “I can arrange to have it delivered.”
Cordelia shook her head. “It must be you.”
“Why?”
“Because he’ll listen to you.”
Teriana stood, pacing back and forth across the room, every part of her sick and tired of being the tool others used to manipulate him. “And just what is it that you wish me to convince him of?”
“To come back to Celendrial and remove Cassius from power.”
