“The crew is… It’s not great,” she said.
Oskar stepped in to add more detail. “Omar lost a few of his people in the battle, either to death or injury. Some stayed in Perean with their loved ones who were still under a healer’s care.”
“We gained some, too,” Lili added helpfully. “He had a few family members who were still deciding. They heard how you fought during the battle and decided you were worth their time.”
“They understand we’re likely headed into a bloody war?” Augustus asked. Not that he wasn’t grateful, but he hadn’t done anything to earn loyalty like that.
Lili shrugged one shoulder. “Omar said they go where the gods lead—and he’ll be damned before breaking an oath to Cassia Rutiliana. Family isn’t always blood. Sometimes, it’s forged in fire and blood.”
Augustus understood little of that, but for one part. The gods had been yanking him around for the better part of a year.
“The rangers came aboard,” Oskar continued. “And half a dozen Blades. They’re not sailors, but it’s a battle we’re heading into, so I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“Plus the original crew members who stuck around,” Lili finished, “All in all, we’re all right. I just hope we don’t meet any of Thorne’s fleet before we have a few dozen more men aboard.”
They likely wouldn’t, seeing as how they were already three to four days behind. That distance would only grow when they had to stop for supplies. Assuming Thorne was heading for Vrinis, they would be at sea for nearly a month.
A dull pain filled his chest. Selene was alone, and would remain alone, for at least that long.
His mother’s voice filled his head. “She knows how to survive.”
Augustus hoped she was right.
“Any thoughts on where we’re going?” Lili asked. “I need to chart a course once we’re supplied up.”
“Vrinis.”
Lili blinked in surprise. “You came up with that answer mighty fast.”
“The figureheads on the attack ships were Vrinis deities. Vrinis is near the Isle of Dikha.”
And five days east of Warian Bay.
“I’m not following, mate,” Lili said.
“Thorne took the Isle of Dikha nine months ago, and with it, an ioprese mine and several ships. It was one of the details I learned from Captain Cuza the day I took theSoris. I can only assume he’s picking off the entire region, adding ships to his fleet.”
Leaving one vital question—exactly how many ships had Thorne acquired, and did the fleetstand a chance?
The sun didn’t scorch so much as it peeled—slow, patient, deliberate. Chained to the mast, back aching, alone with the strange echo of voices distorted by the wind, Selene counted the sunrises and released all hope of rescue. Thorne wanted her isolated, and she was an island unto herself. No one spoke to her by either order or intention.
The sun was rising on the fifth day when Thorne finally decided to give her his full attention. He knelt before her, an elbow propped on one knee as he held a smoking pipe to his mouth. “You’ve been very quiet, Selene. Makes a man wonder what you’re planning with all that silence.”
Her throat and mouth were dry, making her voice gravelly. “I came willingly. The least you could have done was give me a decent room. This one seems to have a few holes in it.”
His gaze swept across the open decks with a few dozen crewmen already at work. “I apologize.” His jaw muscles pulsed. “Baking someone in the sun does seem unreasonably cruel, doesn’t it?”
“I’ve been through worse.”
Thorne gripped her chin, forcing her head to the right, where he focused on her left cheek. It had been throbbing since his ring sliced her skin open. The ship’s surgeon had tended to the injury days ago, but not since then.
“That’s going to scar,” he said.
“And I shall wear it with pride.” She raised her chin just as she had the day she walked away with him. “Everyone will know how you struck me to the ground and kicked me with your clean, unblemished boots. And when you were done, I stood and met you in the eye.”
She would make him regret drawing her blood.
Thorne stood.
