Why do your people not return to these lands as you do, again and again?
“Where was this?” She shoved past Luc and Xavier, heart hammering toward the globe. “Show me,” she whispered, breath ragged.
Blaze came to stand beside her, eyebrows drawn together. “Are you all right?”
The dronsian’s tail wrapped around the back of her neck like a hug, and his body vibrated with a quiet purr.
“Can you just…?” Selene trailed off and motioned to the globe, swallowing thickly. “Were there others?”
Blaze glanced at his friends and back. “Yes, though I didn’t see them. The Okosian people claim she comes from a village on a nearby island, but she never lets anyone near.”
He began spinning the globe, searching, and biting his lip.
Behind them, one of the men—Luc or Xavier—whispered to someone, “Do you know what this is about?”
“Yeah,” Roslyn responded quietly. “We came across them a few years back. The woman was a real cunt.”
Someone snorted.
“Here,” Blaze said, pointing.
Selene didn’t recognize the countries or islands in the Paraneau Sea. The most notable landmass was a country called Okos, and his finger was on an island less than a day away by ship.
The Trayterre Isles.
“Would Augustus know where this is?” she asked.
“Undoubtedly. Okos was well within the fleet’s usual route. In fact, he and I spent a lot of time in their red-door bordellos.” His eyebrows climbed high, and he smirked while reminiscing. “The ‘menu’ they offer in those places is unlike any in the?—”
He cut off ather sharp look.
“Please, do go on,” she said tightly.
Blaze cleared his throat and lowered his gaze. “Sorry, yes. He’s familiar with the area.”
“Would he have visited this island?”
She couldn’t imagine Cassia, Mettius, or Augustus would have dismissed seeing anyone with blue and brown eyes. Surely, he’d have mentioned it by now.
Blaze shrugged. “The woman rarely went to the mainland, and her people didn’t have anything of value that I’m aware of.”
Nothing to steal and sell back in Warian Bay.
Selene sighed and turned for the exit. “Are you good here?”
She was well outside the door when Blaze’s voice reached her. “Yes. See you later, then?”
That depended on Augustus.
Chapter
Seven
Selene entered a cloud of seasoned smoke and grilled fish just as several fishermen laughed, conversing with the man grilling seafood over an open flame, exchanging their coins for a hearty meal. Her stomach rumbled, but the ache went deeper than hunger. She needed more than a warm meal—she needed answers.
Not ten steps later, she ducked and spun around a man who was part of a row of dock workers tossing lightweight crates between each other. The crates originated in a skiff and ended up on a growing stack on the far side of the pier.
Safe on the other side, she sought theEntiaacross the water. The sun was beginning to set, turning the bay cerulean as the sky itself caught fire in layers of red, orange, and yellow. Cassia’s ship anchored in that middle ground of the white horizon, almost daring the sea and sky to see her as anything other than the threat she was.
