Her lowered tone was born purely from Oskar’s influence. The man was always wary of newcomers taking advantage of the locals. Thieves, smugglers, pirates, etc… He still kept one eye on Augustus, which…fair.
“We were asked here by the High Chancellor,” Blaze said. “A man named?—”
“Leonidas Primakos,” Selene finished. “We know who he is.” She had no love for the councilman. He and the other council members hadn’t made Dimitrios’s transition easy.
“He hired us to rid your forests of an oxbeast infestation. A few packs have spread their territory a little too near the farmlands.”
Selene met Augustus’s raised brow with one of her own.
“So he hired pirates?” Augustus asked. They might dress like they knew what they were doing, but did they really?
Blaze snorted. “Piracy isn’t the only way for men like us to survive, Augustus. Nor are we all descendants of pirate royalty.” To Selene, he explained. “We’re Rangers.”
It was Augustus’s turn to snort. He’d heard of groups hiring themselves out to hunt wild beasts—the bigger, the deadlier, the larger the payday. They rarely lived long. “Monster hunters?You?”
Selene’s sharp elbow needled him in the side.
Blaze’s smile only widened. “Things change. Not to brag, but we’re fairly renowned on this side of the Tineian Empire. We cleaned up the Selpi swarm in Crudea just last year.” He hit one of the men in the chest. “Remember the hydra in Okos? Nasty creature.”
Augustus mirrored the man’s wry smirk. “I killed an oxbeast a fewmonths ago. Maybe I’ll give you some pointers.” He set an arm across Selene’s shoulders. “And Selene killed a shedine. Underwater. With only a knife. Saw it with my own eyes.” He squinted down at her and grinned. “I suppose that makes us Rangers now, too.”
She rolled her eyes and shoved his arm away. “Dimitrios will be glad you’re here. We weren’t sure if the council had plans to deal with the situation.”
There was a situation? First Augustus was hearing about it…
Blaze linked elbows with Selene as if it were the most natural thing in the world. A ghost walking beside the living.
Augustus’s palms itched.
They started toward the palace like old friends, Blaze talking nonstop. “You know the king personally? Wait, no, he’s not actually the king, is he? Does he have a legitimate claim? Tell me everything.”
The Rangers shouldered past Augustus to follow the others and left him slack-jawed, hugging a carton of berries.
He glanced around at the exactly zero people left to pay him any mind. “What just happened?”
Chapter
Four
Kai waited alone with her thoughts for a long time. The entry chamber to the Eternal One’s tower room held a distinct chill despite the roaring fires. It had always been this way, resulting in ghost stories and fear of her power. Did the gods control her, or was it the other way around?
Her mother’s words were a fire all their own, burning a path she couldn’t escape beneath her pacing steps. She couldn’t get away from them.
The gods had already spoken.
What did that mean? She and Fala would take a male in the upcoming week?
Her stomach turned like a stone off a mountain peak, falling a hundred feet.
A young, cream-robed woman appeared out of the spiral staircase and bowed her head. “The Eternal One will see you now, Kai Silver Wolf.”
Kai could only nod, her mouth suddenly too dry to speak. She followed the woman up and up and up toward the mountain’s peak. Few made the lengthy journey in either direction. It was as if a whole other world existed at the top. In truth, it did. A clan all their own.
While she climbed, Kai finger-combed her windblown braids out, cursing her mother again for not allowing her time to clean up and dressproperly. Ochre fabric wrapped crossways across her upper body in an X pattern, and her leather pants and boots were her most worn-in and comfortable. One lone blade hung at her side.
The way up turned charcoal gray, then slate, then pitch black, stripping Kai’s sight. Her fingers acted as guides on the cold stone wall as she followed the shuffling footsteps ahead. She quickly lost herself in the rhythmic walk:scuff, scuff, scuff?—
Shuffling, scraping, dragging steps woke Kai from where she slept with all the other children. Firelight glinted off the head of a raised spear. The weapon thrust down, and the sound it made as it cracked through Doba’s chest was unlike anything she’d ever heard. Hot blood splattered across Kai’s face.
