He unleashed that smile he knew would grate her most. “I am my mother’s son.”
Where she once would have shown annoyance, instead, she smirked. “That you are. Which begs the question—why are you giving up?”
“Is that what I’m doing?”
He knew very well she saw through his lie, but he couldn’t resist any excuse to argue with her just one more time. Even if this was a dream.
“Opportunity after opportunity has passed you by,” she said, “and yet you allowed them to walk you onto that shore like a dog.”
“Your husband happens to be there too, you know. You’d rather I leave him?—”
“Your father would rather you live.” Her words were a slap, striking worse than the damage inflicted on his waking body.
“Why not go to him with these demands to fight? Why are you always so godsdamned quick to point outmymistakes?”
“I’m hard on you, I know?—”
“Hard?” he shouted, then chuffed out a laugh. “Demanding, brutal, unyielding?—”
“Are you not perfectly suited to survive a man like Tristan Thorne?” She shook her head. “You have no idea what it’s like to be ill-prepared for how savage the world is. And I cannot be blamed when this is the version of me you’ve chosen to remember, Augustus. Your heart, the way you love, you don’t just get that from your father. You get that from me as well, and it is just as demanding and just as brutal and just as unyielding.”
Emptiness lay where words might have taken a barbed root on his tongue. Hadn’t he spent the last seven months recalling kinder versions ofher? For years, he’d consciously decided to focus on Cassia’s merciless nature. Even Selene had noticed. He’d wanted to hate his mother, so he’d limited his perspective. And dead, he couldn’t tell her what an ass he’d been, or how she’d been right all along.
“Mom,” he said, the word choked. “You must know that it isn’t just Dad I would stay and fight for. I’d have done the same for you if you’d given me the chance.”
Cassia lowered her gaze.
“You gave up,” he continued. “You dropped your blades. You?—”
“Fate is a wicked, cruel thing, as you well know. My end was foretold decades ago. It was me or both of you. Andyouhad to survive.”
As soon as the hot tears hit his eyes, Augustus shuttered his lids. Too late, the drops spilled over his cheeks, hot and heavy and unceasing.
“Son.”
He opened his eyes to her gentle stare.
Cassia swept soft fingers over his cheek. “You can’t continue holding onto this guilt. I’d make the same choice all over again. My life was never worth more than yours or your father’s.”
“Wasn’t it?”
Her pale brows lifted. “We all have a purpose. Mine was to prepare you for the trials you’ve faced and will continue to face going forward. Your journey is not yet complete.”
He released another dark laugh. “Alone and bitter like Thorne? So blind in grief that I can’t see past my own face? No, thank you. Besides, Orestis Vidalatos is dead. The gods got what they wanted from me.”
“You and Selene have more to learn and accomplish before the end.”
His heart jumped toward his throat. “She’s dead. Surely you know that.”
She pursed her lips. “Selene may lack training, but she’s clever. Smarter than you give her credit for, you fool.”
A laugh leapt from his tight chest, this one full of relief and joy. “Where is she?”
Cassia smirked. “Can you not guess the answer?”
She was fighting because if her beautiful heart was still beating, she was doing everything in her power to reach him. Now, it was on him to make sure she didn’t find a corpse.
“Now what?” he asked.
