One of the Blades staggered past them, calling a whole other name entirely. His words were clogged with tears. “Freya, hold on. I’m coming.”
“Augustus, please.” Selene was begging now.
Down the beach, Blaze stumbled between a pair of boulders. “I’m almost there, Augustus.”
What the…?
“Augustus!”
Augustus snapped to attention and dragged his feet forward. “I’m coming,i psychi mou. Just holdon.”
Plan for four.
Oskar’s instruction guided Selene like a hand. Her boot gripped the wall’s stone in a way wholly unlike the solid surfaces back home.
She didn’t think.
Shestepped. She climbed. She scaled that wall as if a true and final death threatened.
Two steps.
Three.
Selene let out a roar of determination, reaching, pitting herself against the natural laws of the world?—
Her boot came down a fourth time, and she gripped the ledge. Joy and surprise burst through her as she pulled her body up, up,up?—
Petrina helped Selene the rest of the way, her brown hair plastered to her temples and flushed cheeks. “I’ve got you,” the assassin grunted.
The thick, round stone on the top dug into Selene’s knees and was hot against her palms, but those minor pains were second to her need for a full breath. Her lungs were on fire.
On the ground, the guards had reached them, and many of them sprinted up the stone with ease.
“Jump!” Petrina shouted, and they leapt into the forest.
The forest tried to stop Augustus with its roots and thick brush. The branches clawed at his face and tore at his chest.
But nothing would stop him. Nothing.
Nothing stood between him and the woman he loved.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Sunlight speared through the dense canopy, a guiding light.
“This way,” Selene said.“This way. I’m this way.”
“I’m coming.”
And every man trudging through the forest echoed his words. “I’m coming.”
They were all coming.
Heat struck Selene in the back, and the deafening rush of erupting flames filled the air, followed closely by bellowing screams.
