Usurpers: Foundation of the Dragon: Book 2 by Robb Pritchard

Author:Robb Pritchard [Pritchard, Robb]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Robb Pritchard
Published: 2023-08-27T16:00:00+00:00

XV

Elen tried to swallow. One day, when she was young, Kenon had found some cloth belt from their mother’s clothing to play with. At first, as he chased her around the garden with it, pretending it was a snake, they were whooping with laughter. But somehow it got looped around her neck… and although she stopped laughing, Kenon didn’t. She remembered how, as he pulled it tighter, the vision at the sides of her eyes darkened and the burning in her chest was as though she’d breathed in the flames of a fire. It had taken long moments sprawled on the floor as Father beat Kenon as though he’d captured a raiding barbarian, to drag enough breath back into her lungs to beg for mercy for her brother.

The feeling was much the same as Magnus left, and the power he radiated like the sun itself trailed behind in his majestic wake. Her throat had clenched tight and she felt light-headed from trying not to gasp for air too loudly.

“That went well, don’t you think?” Grandmother beamed. Somehow she looked as though she’d just enjoyed some wine with a good friend.

“Are you mad?” Elen seethed. “Why did you keep taunting him like that? He’s the most powerful man in Britannia! He could set the whole legion from Deva against you. Us!”

Grandmother seemed wholly unperturbed. “How many times did you obey your father without question, even though you thought him wrong?”

Over the winter Grandmother’s infallible calmness often amazed Elen, but now it was infuriating. Struggling to bring her mind back from images of the Twentieth Legion laying waste to the vicus to concentrate on Grandmother’s question, she thought for a moment, but the answer was simple. “Always.”

“Because you fear the consequences.”

“Of course.” Bad dreams recalling the worst episodes of father’s displeasure sometimes woke her up at night in a sweat.

“Fear is a very valuable form of control, one the Romans have absolutely mastered. But I simply chose not to let our Magnus wield that particular weapon over our heads.” She tapped a yellowing fingernail on the table. “A slight change of plan is in order, I believe.”

All Elen cared about was getting Eugenius set up as her personal guard, and had pretty much come to terms with everything else, so changing what she’d spent the winter preparing herself for didn’t sit too well.

“We spent the last year making plans to have you wed to the Dux, but it seems that after all of that, we were selling ourselves a little short.”

Something painful seemed to blossom in Elen’s chest. She knew she wasn’t going to like what Grandmother was about to say. “What do you mean?”As quite often happened when talking to Grandmother, she wasn’t too sure she wanted to know the answer.

“My dear, how about we have you married to the emperor himself?”

“Gratian?” Elen gasped.

Grandmother shook her head.

“Valentinian? But he is only ten!” The thought of being married to a little child filled her with a new kind of terror.

“To Magnus Maximus,” she smiled calmly.

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