The distant clash of metal and roar of voices rolled across the water like thunder.
Augustus froze mid-row, shoulders burning like torches were jammed into his flesh.
Felix and Pavle twisted toward the sound in unison, their rowing slowed.
The dragon clung to the stern, wingbeats turned frantic. A sharp, urgent whimper clawed from his throat.
It was on the tip of his tongue to beg the dragon to find her, but to do what? Growl, hiss, and hop around?
No, it was better that the beast stayed and helped add to their speed with his wingbeats.
Felix met Augustus’s gaze. “Is this them?” He nodded back to the overrun ships. “Did they go after Selene, too?”
Augustus said nothing. Just gritted his teeth and poured all his strength into the oars. Pain flared in his shoulders, and his palms were torn raw. He welcomed it. He deserved worse.
“Oskar will be with her,” Felix said, and Pavle grunted acknowledgment.
It was the only truth holding Augustus together. Selene wasn’t unguarded.
And yet, dread clung to him like salt, sinking deeper into his skin as the daylight died. The azure sea turned gunmetal gray, the wind sharp, strange. Darkness swallowed the world bite by bite, and his mother’s voice echoed through his skull.
“The lovers, separated by oceans and seas, isolates a vulnerable king.”
This was it. This was the moment his mother prophesied, and Augustus had failed. He’d walked away from her.
“Row faster,” Augustus barked. “Faster.”
The light was dying.
Selene was alone.
And he refused to fail her—never again.
Acrate of pomegranates burst beside Selene like an open wound.
Someone screamed.
Distantly, a donkey brayed.
The cobblestones ran red—fruit, or blood, or both.
These people weren’t ready for battle.
Neither was Selene.
For months, she’d trained. Bled. Put her all into every action. All to learn now how easy the assassins had gone on her.
Selene circled through the battle, every step crunching over broken glass and wooden shards. She swung, ducked, and thrust. The men she faced…all groping hands and snarls, ropes and shackles. Attacks meant to hurt rather than kill.
Thorne needed her alive.
A rope noose caught her elbow. She spun hard, slicing the line, the man’s hand, or both—she didn’t care which.
Petrina faced much harsher treatment, not that it mattered. She could have easily been one of Oskar’s Blades. The Eye thundered into every action, a storm unleashed.
Selene kept to Petrina’s side, her back. As much for protection as support. No matter how many opponents they put down, more arrived to take their place. Never-ending.
And still, there were even more to further the chaos. The pirates set fire to the buildings. They loosed chickens from cages and horses from posts. The innocent people collided with overturned tables and kicked liberated fruit deeper into the fray.
