“I know,” Dayton says. “It was Ovidius’s smile. He didn’t grace you with it often, but when he did, it was something special.”
“What did you think of meeting Sira in the open?”
A slight hitch trembles in Dayton’s voice as he continues, and I place my hand on his leg to steady him. “I advised against it. I told him we should keep our legionnaires inside and pick off the enemy as they approached the wall. My brothers would hear none of it. Decimus told me I was a coward. Damocles told me I was afraid. He ordered me to march with them at dawn. Our parents and Delphia would stay safe in the castle, and us three brothers would ride out together. It was the last thing I ever heard him say.”
The water shifts again, revealing the shouting face of his brother.
“Did you follow his orders?”
Dayton’s chin dips to my shoulder, voice a low mumble. “No. I did what everyone would expect. I got drunk. I slept through dawn and their departure, passed out in some barn where no one could find me. I woke up choking on smoke.”
In the memory, I see rampant flames as Dayton rushes from a barn and into a city of chaos. People run wild, buildings burn, and goblins brandish weapons.
“It was all the Below’s trick,” Dayton says, anger tinging his words. “Sira had lured all the vile nightmares of the desert to do her bidding. She ordered them to dig tunnels beneath our city and ambush the people within. No army was left to defend them. What Damocles and Decimus found when they rode out was not a force of the Below struggling through the desert, but one adept at it.”
In the watery vision, flames lick the walls of Soltide Keep as Dayton enters. The next memory strikes me in my heart. A bloody massacre of soldiers and goblins litters the floor. I watch as Dayton falls to his knees in front of his two fathers. Jagged spears run through their lifeless bodies.
“I was too late to save them,” he says.
“You could have been killed too,” I say.
“I took a sword from each of them,” Dayton continues. “They are the swords I still wield today. At that moment, I knew I had to find my mother and Delphia. The palace was swarming with goblins, so I leaped out a window and climbed the vines alongthe outside walls. I nearly fell off multiple times, I was still so sick with drink. But from that height, I could see the sands beyond the wall. How little Damocles’ army had traveled. How surrounded they were.
“I got to Del’s bedroom and found her and my mother. They had furniture barred against the door as a horde tried to break it down.”
Dayton’s mother sparkles with a fierce glint, her hair the same color as her son’s. Delphia, looking much younger than she does now, clings to her mother’s legs. Through the waves, I watch the reunion. Sabine shoves Delphia into Dayton’s arms, ushering them to a corner of the room and pressing a stone to reveal a secret passage small enough to crawl through.
Dayton and Delphia crouch before it, their mother kissing them both.
“What did she say to you?” I ask.
Dayton’s voice is hoarse. “That I had to take Delphia to safety while she held back the force. That the goblins would surely find this passage if they came upon an empty room. I tried to tell her to let me stay instead. She refused, saying she only wished to give her children a chance. But I know the real reason.”
“Day—”
“I was in no state to even hold a sword.”
“You don’t know that,” I say. “She trusted you with Delphia. She would not have wanted you to sacrifice yourself for her. No mother would.”
Dayton tugs me against his chest, head dipping to the crook of my neck, speaking the story only to my skin. “We fled through the tunnel and into the streets of Hadria, but nowhere was safe.”
I watch as Dayton carries Delphia through the streets, each turn, each corner drawing more and more goblins and other wicked creatures after them. He turns back once, looking to the palace, only to see a figure in purple satin fall from the tower and into the ocean.
His mother.
Delphia screams, and he covers her eyes. They round a corner only to be caged between a burning building and a troll crushing columns with his massive hammer. They run back into the streets, goblins gathering on all sides. Then Dayton pitches forward, going to all fours, Delphia tumbling from his arms. Dayton’s mouth widens in a scream.
“What happened?” I whisper.
“It came to me … the Blessing of Summer,” Dayton says. “It tore through me like all the fire of the sun. All I could think was … they’re dead. My brothers are dead.”
The memory of Dayton withers on the ground, his skin becoming luminescent. Beyond this memory, the sun sinks lower on the horizon, casting sapphire-rich shadows across the beach. The sky is a riot of color: fiery oranges, rosy pinks, and dusky purples, all swirling together.
The memory of Dayton rises, glowing from our own sun, and draws his swords.
“What did you do?” I whisper.
“I suppose,” Dayton says, “I got angry.”
