Thorne slanted a grin. “Is this where you tell me how Augustus will make me pay?”
“No.” She shouldered past him. “I’ll do that all on my own.”
I miss you in tiny earthquakes.
In little underground explosions.
My soil is a hot disaster.
Home is burning.
You’re a lost thing.
- Yrsa Daley-Ward
Part Two
THE SEPARATION OF LOVERS
From the lost diaries of Iraklis Vidalatos
five centuries ago
The Stones should have been enough to hold him.
By the time we understood what he’d become, it was too late.
We had to act fast. Someone had to take his power, even if only a fraction.
Now, Xavlin has my blood.
And I have his power—a sliver. Enough.
He must never gain access to it, or we’re all lost.
Chapter
Twelve
Bodies.
Blood smears the marble dais like spilled ink. Cold, still faces—men Alexandra had known her entire life. Nektarios. Leonidas. Theseus. Christos. Loukas. Dead.They’re all dead. But not Selene. They chained her to a mast. The sun is back, and it’shot. So hot. The daughter, daughter,daughter—it’s safe in the shadows. Hidden but not. Sneaking. Watching. Careful—so careful. They can never know.
The pieces are moving. Do they know?
Strategy—all strategy.
The players believe themselves free. But the board has teeth.
“Be our voice,” they said.
“I want to go home. I want to go home. I want to go home.”
Alexandra whispered and mumbled and babbled to drone the voices out. She whispered her dreams and wants—not for the others who believed her mad, but as a reminder of her end goal. She couldn’t forget. She couldn’t mix them up with their intentions, which were strong and loud and demanding.
“I want my crown,”she gritted out.
She’d made mistakes before and had lost sight because of them. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.
