The king pounded a fist on the table, rattling dishes. The entire length of table silenced. “You had the Perean council murdered!”
Alexandra covered her shock by tossing a chunk of meat from her lap. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“The attempt on your cousin failed, by the way. Dimitrios lives.”
She breathed slowly through her nose. Shewouldn’treact.
Servants placed a fresh plate before Titos without a word.
“Mad or not, you’re still royal blood,” Titos said, without looking at her. “And blood still buys loyalty.” Titos turned his attention to a large brussel sprout. “Until the day I find your presence useful, you’ll leave Perean and its affairs to me. Whatever designs you have are over. Do you understand?”
Alexandra sprung up, and her chair crashed backward. She leaned forward, sauce dripping down her neck and chest. “Perean is mine.”
“Not anymore.”
Straightening, she scanned the faces down the length of the table. Her cousins, Calliane and Belenor, the current heir. Thessa and, finally, Evander. Him she smiled at. He shrank deep intohis chair.
“What are you doing?” Queen Daphira spat, silverware dropping. “Don’t look at him.”
“Why not? He’sso precious.”
Daphira shot a look to her husband. “Lock her away if you must keep her alive.”
Titos motioned for a pair of soldiers behind Alexandra. “Escort my niece to her rooms. She’s soiled her pretty dress.”
Alexandra curtsied low to her uncle. “Thank you for dinner. I’ll return the favor soon…” She flicked her gaze to the queen. “With fewer mouths, of course.”
She whipped around, smiling, fueled by gasps and demands for her immediate execution. The soldiers were there, but she passed right between them, untouched.
Alexandra reached the exit just as Titos’s assurances overruled his family. “She’s harmless.”
“No, you are not,” they said.
“No. I am not,” she agreed.
Augustus stood at the foot of their bed, staring at the impression of her head in her pillow. As if she had just been there and was now bathing or dressing orsomewheresafe.
Minutes, maybe hours, passed as he hovered over their bed. He could’ve recalled how sweet she smelled in the mornings, how she sighed in her sleep. But no. He didn’t deserve those memories.
It was her face the last time he saw her. He’d already pictured it most of the day, so the recall was easy. But in addition to that defiance, he also thought about the hurt in her eyes. How she’d looked at him, as if he were a stranger.
It wasn’t far from the truth. He’d spent the last five to six monthshidingfrom her. He’d taken on the responsibility of managing her safety without telling her—or anyone—that sheneededprotection. He, in all his bottomless wisdom, thought he could outrun the gods and their will.
“I miss my mother,” he told Selene’s empty pillow, saying all the words he couldn’t before. “I dream of her every night. She haunts me with that fucking prophecy.” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “Shewarned us this would happen, and I failed you. I’m so sorry,i psychi mou. So, unimaginably sorry.”
Selene’s dragon whined, drawing Augustus’s attention to his large, blinking eyes at the foot of the bed. He sat calmly on his back haunches, having never been more than a foot from Augustus’s side since appearing on the ship.
They’d scoured the market together. He’d ridden on Augustus’s shoulders while he questioned the survivors of a massacre so severe that the people of Perean wouldn’t soon forget.
“She went with the man,” an old woman had told him in the end. “He said his name was Tristan Thorne. She saved us.”
Of course she had.
Rage and utter devastation barreled through Augustus. Without anything close enough to punch or break, he gripped his hair in tight fists and yelled his outrage and anguish into the void. Once all his breath was gone, he let the weight of his guilt take him to his knees.
The dragon jumped onto his shoulder and curled around his neck.
A day ago, Augustus would have been annoyed. Right now, the only thing that mattered was finding Selene. And until his ship was back in working condition, he wasn’t going anywhere. Not that he had a direction in mind or a particular vessel to look for.
