Nearby, an elk flung one of Thorne’s men like a rag doll. Another tried crawling and was trampled mid-scream.
“Like my mother once said,” Augustus continued, “Hesitate and die.”
Thorne rushed him, sword high. His fury was everywhere. Overhead. Behind.
Augustus caught his boot, knocking Thorne off balance.
Thorne recovered and swept a leg under Augustus’s feet. They fell into the sand, and Thorne came over him, swords locking.
“Your problem is that you mistake luck for cleverness,” Thorne said through gritted teeth. “You’re still just a boy.” His sword pressed ever closer to Augustus’s throat. “Another bloodstain waiting to happen.”
Augustus’s muscles screamed. Weeks of torture pulled at every joint, every breath.
“You’re still here,” Thorne continued, sweat dropping from his brow into the sand. “Beneath me.Weak.And your friends are all out there. You’realone, Triarius. Alone and at my mercy.”
Selene stepped out of the glaring sunlight behind Thorne, a goddess of rage and retribution. “He’ll never be alone.”
Selene’s heart pounded against her ribs, a war drum. Thorne had years of sins to answer for—but this, the blade near Augustus’s throat, would be his final one.
Thorne bounded to his feet, sword pulling back?—
Selene backhanded his face with every ounce of fury she’d buried. For Augustus. For Petrina. Forherself. Her knuckles—weighted by silver rings—cracked across his cheekbone, splitting skin.
The strike knocked him off-balance, and he fell to a knee, hand in the sand holding him up.
He glared up from the corner of his eye—then laughed. “Good for you, Selene.” Thorne touched the gash. His fingertips came away red. “Well done.”
She’d dreamed of this moment. Of standing eye to eye as his equal—not the girl he once bent beneath his thumb. In those daydreamed reckonings, he stood tall—hair slicked back, clothes immaculate, chin high with power.
But this man… This was what happened to men who crossed Augustus on the wrong day. His hair hung in loose clumps. Sweaty, bloodstained, ragged.
Selene palmed the Poignard knives from the twin sheaths on her thighs and slid them free. “You’re not looking so good, Thorne.”
He straightened and loosed a long breath. “And you’re short a sidekick. Petrina didn’t look so good either, last I saw her.”
Thorne slashed for her midsection. She caught his sword with her knife, the steel screaming.
Augustus pushed off the sand and caught Thorne’s next swing, their weapons glancing off each other.
For the first time, she and Augustus foughttogether. Blades aligned. Synchronized. Sharing in each other’s fury.
Until Augustus yanked her back.
An elk barreled through the spot where she’d stood seconds ago. The gust smelled of scorched grass and sweat-drenched hide—earthy, raw. Her hair slapped against her face.
Thorne, too, was driven back several paces, and farther still by another pair of elk.
“Thanks,” Selene breathed.
Their eyes met, and those old echoes of lives became music finally tuned to the right chord.
A smile broke across Augustus’s face. “Hi.”
She smiled. “Hi.”
Augustus lifted her left hand to study the rings there, now coated in Thorne’s blood. “My mother’s rings.” His eyes—one blue, one brown—cut to the long knives in her hands. “And her blades.”
A decision she’d made at the last possible moment. The thought had pulsed like a second heartbeat:Cassia should be here for this.
