In the orange glow of a low-hanging sun, men strode across the damp decks to the cadence of creaking rope, lighting the lamps. Purple sashes, bound around the waists of hanging pirates, flicked and snapped in the wind like sails.
A sobbing, red-faced man threw a bottle of ale at one of the swaying bodies and cursed the dead pirate’s soul to an eternity in the fires of Hadate. Glass shattered and sprayed ale across the feet of everyone nearby, but no one said a word. His grief and rage were theirs.
From the temple, bells tolled the hour. More smoke than usual wafted from its prayer rooms, perfuming the city with incense.
Sailors whistled melancholy tunes to themselves, the sound thin as wind through broken sails. They sat atop barrels, boots knocking against wood, watching the dead sway. Not speaking. Not looking at each other. Where there used to be laughter and conversation over grilled fish, there was only silence.
Selene would hate this. These weren’t her people, her city. She’d walked away with that madman to save lives, to ensure laughter and camaraderie continued.
It would again. He’d make sure of it. And if his prayer held any power at all, he would give it all to the Triarius Fleet in the coming days. Tristan Thorne would pay for this.
Oskar Dahlin stood at the end of a pier, arms folded, head bent toward three familiar faces: Lili Savali, Felix Ruiz, and Pavle Sabauri. People Dimitrios considered friends, but who likely wanted him skinned right now for locking up their captain.
“Good evening,” Dimitrios said.
They straightened too fast. Too stiff. Their silence was a blade they looked ready and willing to draw.
That was fine. He was sharpening his own.
The Blade nodded back. “Your Majesty.”
To Lili, Dimitrios asked, “I sent you Augustus and Selene’s personal belongings. Did you receive them?”
“Aye,” she said and folded her arms. “A lot of good they’ll do my captain once he’s swinging.”
Pavle grunted and spat to the side of Dimitrios’s boots.
He should get to the point of this visit before Felix decided to take a swing at his jaw. “Oskar, I’m leaving for Braryn in the morning.”
Oskar lowered his chin and glanced at the others, then nodded. “I’ll send some men with you.”
“Thank you.” Dimitrios reached for Oskar’s hand, and the two men clasped. He held their hands together around the key that dug into his palm, and gave him a pointed look. “I trust you can utilize that time wisely?”
The Master Blade didn’t miss a beat. “How long will you be gone, Your Majesty?”
“Two days. Three at most.”
“I can manage in far less time than that.”
“Good.” Dimitrios stepped away, careful to avoid the eyes burning into the side of his head. They didn’t understand. But they would. “Good luck to all of you,” he said and walked away.
In his dream, Augustus ran for Selene’s still form on the floor inside the bathing chamber. Just that morning, he’d thought her sari—made from a tawny material with sunbursts of gold—had complemented her suntanned skin. Now, it was the beacon he sprinted toward—gold over still limbs and silence.
“Selene!”
Cassia halted his run. “Wait,” she warned, her black eyes glinting in firelight.
The scene was just as it had been that day. He’d all but screamed at her with his eyes, and she’d merely looked at him with severe patience.
Then Cassia did something in the dream that she hadn’t in that hour before her death. She caressed his cheek. “You are your father’s strength and my will. And she”—Cassia glanced at Selene—“she was raised in the middle of a viper’s nest. She knows how to survive.”
Augustus burst awake that second night, chest heaving, his mother’s lesson digging deep. And he finally understood. It was never his job to protect Selene. He was meant to complement her, as his father did his mother.
He should have trusted Selene with everything. Had he done so, maybe things would have been different.
But he’d made every choice that had him chained by the ankle in this tower prison. Like Mihail, but without the torture and starvation. In fact, for a man scheduled to hang in a few days, they kept him pretty well fed.
At least he could admit now that he’d fucked up by killing Lazaros. He’d grown too comfortable in his freedom around the palace, and now Selene was days ahead, and he had no idea what progress was being made on his ship. Did anyone intend to go after her atall? Lili and the others, surely. Selene was one of their own.
