Pandora raised her chin, and the defiance in her eyes turned his blood cold. He’d gone too far, but it was too late to take it back.
“I apologize,” he said. “The day has thinned my senses.”
Her expression softened. “My father has strong opinions and a strong hold on the family. My siblings likely wish to meet you but won’t until he gives his blessing. When you do meet them, I only ask that you do so with an open mind.”
Dimitrios stood and knelt at her feet, taking her hands. “You raised me to do what’s right, and I will not fail you when you’re gone. I swear it.”
She swept her fingertips across the side of his head and smiled. “I know you will always do the right thing, but I am your mother. I will always worry.” Tears sprang to her eyes suddenly, and her next breath shook. “You look so much like him.”
A hard lump entered his throat.
She never said things like that, and if she had, there’d been a time he’d have formed a blockade against it. Maybe she sensed the shift in his thoughts where Mihail was concerned.
“One day,” he began, “I hope they’ll say I ruled as he would have.”
Dimitrios was no longer going through the motions.
His heels were firmly planted into Perean’s soil.
God help the men standing in his way.
Chapter
Six
Augustus climbed aboard his mother’s ship. TheEntiawas technically his ship now, but he still couldn’t accept the change of hands. A world simply didn’t exist without his mother’s reign.
And yet, here he was, standing in a world that dared to spin without her. Breathing on a ship that used to creak beneathhersteps. Groan athertouch.
Even without her, just hearing the stretch of ropes was a balm. The lap of water against the hull better than any symphony.
This washome.
Selene was his world, and he would give anything for her, but their life in the palace couldn’t compete with how it felt to stand aboard a ship’s deck within the wind’s call to set sail.
Boots thudded across the boards, pulling his attention from the open blue sky and the cry of gulls. Lili, his sailing master and closest friend, appeared with a sweeping gaze across the empty, silent planks. They’d come aboard a few times since Mettius left him the ship, but this was their first with no soul around.
Lili swatted her long, dark brown braid off her shoulder and sighed. “It won’t be easy filling her. She’s even bigger than theSoris.”
Back in Warian Bay, he’d have reached out to Taran Phaya for the job. Perean, having spent decades cleaning its city of pirates and smugglers,didn’t exactly have a “business” tailored for the sort he’d have hired in the past. Experienced sailors, crafty and bold, who walked the line between ethical and not, and would put the ship and its crew before the law of any land.
Augustus certainly didn’t want another problem like he’d had on theSoriswith his rushed-to-hire crew. In the end, a good portion of them had tried to, first, steal the ship the moment he stepped off, then later, resorted to kidnapping and plotting his murder. Not to mention the man who acted on behalf of the king, who plotted to drop Selene and Augustus into the fires of the Ethereal Mountain.
One day, he’d find Lazaros Bareas and make him answer for his crimes.
For all intents and purposes, Augustus was going legit. Honest money. And if a few side hustles happened to land in his lap along the way… Well, who was he to turn down the benefits of additional coin? Selene wouldn’t complain too much as long as no blood was spilled.
That was the hope, anyway.
Augustus hooked hands to his hips. “Thoughts on our potential quartermaster?”
“He smiles too much.” Lili climbed the stairs toward the wheel, her natural home.
He climbed after her, keeping pace. “Some might say kindness and humor naturally instill trust in a crew.”
“Exactly my point.”
Augustus snorted and leaned on the railing near the wheel.
