Milonia
P.S. Caius has named your beasts, by the way, but herefuses to tell me until you return. I can only hope he’s chosen names to your liking.
To Milonia Dardana, Head of House, Keeper of Beasts
Thank you.
I recall a particular young man begging to adopt these howlers of the moon. Maybe he should be responsible for their training. I don’t want them howling outside my door.
Though, if they must howl, let it be at Nikolas.
Give Caius my regards.
D.
Chapter
Seventeen
Adead, fleshy jellyfish, smaller than her hand, plopped onto the wet planks in a place Selene had just scrubbed. Several men laughed.
“You missed a spot,” one said to more laughter.
“How original,” she muttered.
Everyone returned to work, and Alf—her current guard—spied Whisker, the ship’s cat, and followed its morning prowl to a basket of fish.
Perfect.
Selene usually tossed the gelatinous creature overboard, but instead, she casually dropped the jellyfish into her bucket of seawater, followed by her long-handled brush, and went right back to swabbing the decks.
“They allow us to live,”Petrina had said the night before,“and give us jobs that are meant to demean us. As if we haven’t been through much worse. Idiots.”
Selene had silently agreed. None of them had ever answered to the likes of Alexandra Vidalatos.
Yes, Thorne worked them to exhaustion, and yes, his men were rude and obnoxious. But Selene did as she’d done her entire life: she watched. She listened. She learned.
And when she was alone, she remembered.
Two weeks.
Two weeks since she’d walked away from her home, from the man who knew her better than anyone. For all she knew, Augustus still believed shedidn’t care. That she’d have given up on him and their future, all to save Perean. And she had, just not in the way either of them had planned.
And still, she had to keep moving forward. If she hesitated, if she looked back, she'd fall apart. And she couldn’t afford that.
But gods, she missed him.
Not just his voice or the way he touched her like she was something sacred, but the way he looked at her when she was angry. Like he’d still choose her. Like she could bring the world crashing down and he’d still stand there in the rubble, waiting for her to come home.
She hated him for what he’d said.
She hated herself more.
They’d fought, yes. But the silence that followed was worse. Because she didn’t know if it meant goodbye.
The sun rose higher, hot against her neck as she scrubbed. Her fingers throbbed from salt and wood. Her bucket sloshed with every stroke, and the jellyfish floated within like a soft curse.
She had something now. A tool. A plan. A path.
