That morning’s guilt re-emerged. The look on Augustus’s face…
Fivemonths. She hadn’t given the passing of time a second thought, not even when she noticed him staring at the sea. Or how he woke every few days from a nightmare he refused to share the details of. He used to walk around with his shoulders back and chin high. These days, he sank into things. Onto walls, into chairs, and atop their bed.
“We’re leaving,” she said and swiped a rogue tear. “Augustus isn’t happy.”
Oskar’s lengthy pause only made her feel worse. “Did he say that?”
“He didn’t have to. I can see it on his face. He’s miserable. I promised Dimitrios three months, and it’s been five.”
With a sigh, Oskar sat beside her. “You had never planned to stay forever, so what’s bothering you?”
A long-ago memory drifted through her mind with a very different version of Augustus.“If by some twist of fate we leave this world tonight, I go with only one regret.”
“What would that be?”
“That I didn’t get to show you the world.”
Selene couldn’t count the number of times Augustus had promised to show her the world since they survived the mountain. She was eager to experience the lands and the people and the food he described when they were alone at night. When they lay in bed whispering plans for their future.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t ready to begin their lives, but maybe she wasn’t so ready for theworld. After all that happened the last time… She still didn’t know how she survived.
Augustus had always faced the obstacles the world put before them with that cocky grin and a smart remark. He could do anything.Faceanything.
That simply wasn’t her reality.
Selene met Oskar’s gaze. “I’m scared of what’s out there. The world could swallow me whole before I realize its jaw has been around me the entire time.”
Oskar pulled her against his side and kissed the top of her head. “You’re ready, Selene Marinea. No matter what those voices in your head say.”
“What about my training? I can’t even climb a wall properly.”
His laugh rumbled through her. “Find a stool.”
Selene laughed in response. Not because it was funny, but because…
She didn’t have to outrun her fear.
She just had to carry it.
And climb anyway.
Augustus wasn’t allowed to know where Selene trained every day, so he waited for her at the fountain in the middle of the East Harbor Market. She never appeared from the same direction. Likely a tactic of the Blades to hide their location. Never take the same route twice in a week or some such thing.
She strolled toward him from the direction of the harbor today, wearing slimming black pants and a sleeveless royal blue top that wrapped around her frame. The effect left a deep V in the neck that Augustus appreciated often. These days, she wore her Kopis knives sheathed at her hips as if they were an extension of herself. Not that she required protection, just that this was who she was now.
Selene’s expression up close told Augustus exactly how training had gone. She’d failed the wall run again. Under the defeated look, she wore fresh bruises, and the thick braid hanging over her shoulder was a mess. However, with an air of confidence like that, it wasn’t her outer appearance that drew the attention of the locals.
Cassia used to have the same effect on people.
Shaking off the sudden chill, he reached for her hand, and her fingers threaded between his. “You’ll get there,i pychi mou.It takes time.”
Her lower lip jutted out, and he resisted the urge to suck it into his mouth. “You sound like Oskar.”
“He calls you by a sweet pet name, too? I’ll have his balls.”
Finally, a laugh. “I hate to tell you this, but I’m almost certain he’d have yours first.” Selene nuzzled into him, and she was all roaming hands and teeth. “And I happen to like you with all your parts as they are.”
“That’s good to know. Now. Are you hungry?”
