Her retreating steps were slow. Heavy. And she held his gaze until the last possible second.
Thorne attacked as soon as she was clear.
The first clash of steel shattered the stillness like glass. Gasps echoed. Then the crowd roared, a tidal wave of sound urging them on.
Augustus’s bones vibrated upon every strike, and his body responded with warnings of his exhaustion.
Thorne’s attack never slowed. Every impact struck with wild and punishing demand for blood. Any style or elegance he might have once possessed was lost behind blind vengeance. The man embraced every loss that brought him to this day and let it flood him.
Augustus gave ground, let Thorne chase him across several feet, reading every shift of foot, every dip of shoulder, or grit of teeth. Learning where his body might betray him.
Thorne’s blade scraped Augustus’s shoulder.
Augustus twisted away, parried, and lunged. Their swords locked at the hilt. Faces inches apart.
Sweat beaded and rolled down Thorne’s nose. “You’re not strong enough to outlast me.”
“I don’t need to be.”
Augustus headbutted him.
Thorne staggered back, blood pouring from his nose.
Augustus reached for the last of his strength and attacked. Pushing Thorne’s retreat.
He moved like Cassia taught him. Like Mettius shaped him.
He moved like a Triarius.
Augustus gave everything he had until the very last possible moment. Until the strength left him, and his body collapsed beneath him, taking him to a knee.
Thorne disarmed him with a brutal twist and sent his sword spinning in the dirt at Selene’s feet.
Her eyes widened. She palmed her knives. One step scraped across sand and stone.
Oskar’s fingers closed around her elbow, and he whispered in her ear. Whatever he said caused a single tear to fall from her blue eye. Her chin dipped with a single nod.
Thorne pressed his blade to Augustus’s throat.
Augustus didn’t dare look anywhere else. He held that stare with bated breath.
“Anything to say?” Thorne asked.
“Onlyone.”
Thorne’s mouth twitched. “All right. Go ahead.”
Augustus didn’t answer right away. He just shifted his gaze over Thorne’s shoulder?—
To the person waiting there.
A blink. A nod. An unspoken promise.
An understanding between the best of friends.
“He’s all yours, Lili.”
Lili flipped her axe and shifted her attention to the man who took her father’s head.
