“I wouldn’t say he’s mine, exactly. I can hear him, and he’s my friend. Why else would he be around?”
“I don’t know. I guess I thought maybe the gods were watching out for you.”
Selene loosed a sharp laugh. “The gods? All they’ve done is lure me into danger for their own ends.” She straightened to go, dodging a young boy sprinting by. “Safe travels, Roman. I wish you well. Truly.”
Roman seized her wrist, and his voice cut through a nearby snap of canvas. “If the gods have given you this power, you can’t ignore it. You need to talk to another to understand your role.”
“Another? Like Aspasia?”
“Yes.”
“No. Absolutely not.”
His eyes flicked between both of hers, then lowered. With obvious reluctance, he said, “There are two others. I don’t know where they are, only that they set out from Perean long ago.”
Selene yanked her wrist free, skin hot where his fingers had pressed. “You mean to tell me there are more of us out there?”
“Three factions, all guardians of the stones.”
Images passed through Selene’s mind, as clear as if she stood right there. Marble stone remains on an old dais. Her blood feeding those strange, drinking veins.
Noi’s blood… The veins beneath her dying body…
They’d acted the same.
Selene didn’t know how or why, but none of it was right. That wasn’t how it was supposed to be. And there was some distant part of her soul that knew exactly how this started.
“Aspasia broke the Llinunae Stone,” she said, lifting her gaze to his. “She moved it. Why?”
“She had her reasons.”
“You never questioned them?”
“It’s not our business to question her motives.”
“Like you never questioned why she chained up her dronsian? Turos despises her. There’s somethingwrongwith her.”
Omar’s shout rose from the ship, commanding the final gangplank from the dock.
Someone bellowed Roman’s name.
He flinched, and his gaze flicked from her to the ship and back.Finally, he stepped away, hesitation carved in every line of his face. He scanned her one last time, his mismatched eyes burning.
Selene remained at the rail, heart thudding, frustration balling her fists. She’d been a fool to stall this conversation, and now it was too late.
“You can’t trust her,” she called to him.
Roman kept moving, shaking his head, mouth dipped in a frown. “Maybe not, but I trust you. And you can trust the others. Turos will know how to find them.”
“I don’t even know who I’m looking for.”
“Drakaa was the first. If anyone has the answers, it’ll be her.”
A breath shot from Selene. She knew that name. She’d almost died in her temple. “She’s alive?”
Roman’s strides were long and purposeful now that more men had joined in to call him to the ship. Lines creaked as canvas snapped full.
Roman vaulted the gangplank and bounded onto the deck. At the railing, the sea churning below, he waved.
