Thorne pinned Augustus to his back, forearm across his neck. Sand flew, and the grit landed in his eyes. Salt tasted on his tongue. And still, he fought?—
A knee jabbed into his gut, and all his air shot toward the sky. His next breath came ragged, and his vision darkened at the corners?—
Tristan’s free hand rose?—
A rock filled his hand and came down brutally?—
The world went sideways, sand turning to stars.
Then—
Selene, taking his hand and meeting his eyes.“He’ll never be alone.”
Then nothing.
Silence.
Augustus floated in the pitch of nothingness, where pain couldn’t reach him. Time no longer mattered. Maybe this was death.
Gods, he hoped so.
This was the path back to Selene.
Color bled through the dark.
The light at first resembled stars. But as more appeared, it wasn’t sky stretching around him—it was shore. Pebbles of sand glittered in the sun. The calm sea exhaled brine and foam onto a beach untouched by blood or war.
A figure approached through the haze. First a shimmer, then a shape. A woman in a white chiton with braided straps, a gold belt, and loose blond waves.
Selene? Had to be. She’d waited for him, and together, they’d enter their next life?—
Wait…no. That wasn’t her walk, nor was she that tall. She wasn’t a stranger, however. He knew that cadence.
Cassia.
His chest hollowed out, and it was only his old instincts that prevented the surfacing tears from spilling.
His mother stopped before him, bare feet coated in sand, the hem of her gown damp and fluttering in the breeze.
She gave him a cool once-over. “Did the fires of Hadate refuse you, or did you crawl from Idon’s realm on your hands and knees?”
A laugh burst from him. Gods, he’d missed her. “This is how you greet me?”
“I’ve seen you look better after losing a bar brawl followed by a drunken dip in spine-eel-infested waters.”
“Yes, well, I’m not having the best day.” He motioned to her pristine look. “You look…different.”
Stunning, actually. The treelike scar was gone from her cheek, and with the blond hair and blue eyes, she looked softer somehow. Radiant. Maybe itwas the unnatural glow of this dream. The weight she carried in life was gone from her shoulders.
A chunk of hair blew across her face, and she hooked a finger around it to pull it away. “I look as I might have if the gods had given me peace instead of a sword.”
“What does that mean?”
“One day, you’ll understand their ways, but now we have bigger things to discuss.”
Augustus gestured widely at the empty shore. “Yes, I see. You’re clearly very busy.”
Her unfamiliar blue eyes sparked. “Time hasn’t cooled your tongue.”
