Straight into the blade arcing toward her throat.
The man was already mid-swing, his whole torso behind it. Hesmiledas the steel carved through her neck.
Petrina didn’t fall right away. She turned toward Selene?—
Her knees buckled. Her hand reached toward Selene…then dropped.
Lifeless.
Petrina’s head parted from her crumpling body.
“Strip him,” Phya ordered.
The last thing Augustus saw before the mercenaries turned on him was Phya turning his back on the scene. He couldn’t even watch his own punishment play out?
Cassia’s voice echoed through his mind as the mercenaries descended. “Humiliation isn’t the end of you, Augustus. It’s a moment—a weapon men wield to make you forget who you are. Don’t let them.”
“Watch, you coward!” Augustus shouted through the throng. Knives sliced away his clothes, taking no care for his skin in the process. He ignored the stinging pain. “Look me in the fucking eye, Phya.”
Taran Phya paused, then raised his chin and turned. A slight quiver took him as he lengthened his spine and stared down his nose at Augustus. “I’m looking.”
The mercenaries stepped away, except for the two holding his arms. The flow of blood tickled his chest, back, and various spots along his hips and arms. They’d sliced him all over, though none deep enough to kill him.
The Crossroads was alive with chatter as Augustus stood in the open, naked inside Phya’s web. Sharp whispers cut like knives through the crowd.
“Finally getting what he deserves.”
“Phya’s lucky Cassia’s dead.”
“You think they’llkill ‘im?”
Augustus would laugh at the turn of events if he weren’t so godsdamned pissed. He’dknownmercenaries couldn’t be trusted. Hadn’t he been concerned already that they’d walk if the war proved too much? They weren’t loyal toanyonebut themselves.
As if summoned by Augustus’s thoughts, Darian came around to stand in front of him. “Your offer was good. His was better.”
Augustus summoned his most wrathful smile. “Fuck you. You’re a dead man.”
A small smile touched the Bladesworn’s lips. “There’s only one man in this city who could even come close to killing me.” His gaze shifted to the mismatched buildings, roughly in the direction they’d last watched Selene disappear. “But Oskar Dahlin’s got his own problems right about now.”
Augustus was a fucking fool.
Tomas had disappeared around the time he sent Selene away. Darian said he’d sent men to the ship, and Augustus had believed him.
Augustus bared his teeth. “If anything happens to Selene?—”
“It’s done.” Darian folded his arms. “Phya paid for you. Thorne paid for her and the girl. He wants their heads.”
Augustus lurched with a snarl. The men held him tight, and his bare feet scraped against the loose dirt and cobbled stone. “I will fucking kill you.”
Cassia filled his vision, black braids, eyes like midnight. Those scars marred her cheek like branches on an ancient tree.
She gripped his chin in a tight hold and held his face still. “They want to see you flinch, to see you beg. Don’t give them that satisfaction.”
She wasn’t really there, of course. Even so, her words and visage quieted his wrath. Calmed his fear. Cassia’s ghost had been telling him one particular thing all along, and his mother was never wrong.
Selene was a survivor. Today would be no different. As much as it killed him to turn off his worry and fear, he had to focus on his own survival right now.
Behind Darian, Phya shouted, “String him up.”
