Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
Selene Marinea, breath scraping in great heaves from her lungs, wiped the sweat from her brow with a forearm. Her entire body tensed for another pass.
She would climb that wall this time.
Her boots gripped the packed dirt, and sweat soaked the inside of her gloves. The sharp tang of metal, sweat, and torch smoke lingered on her tongue.
“Ready?” Oskar asked.
The Master Blade, untouched by any level of exertion, stood with his arms folded. No sign of the kind mentor of her past.
No, this man was trying to kill her.
And still, she gave him a single nod in response. “Yes.”
“Good luck.”
Oskar’s whistle sliced through the air like a knife.
Ahead, two Blades in solid black and steel, sprinted toward Selene.
She bore down in a crouch, knives in hand, and let her body guide her through the motions: swinging, ducking, leaping, and twisting.
Landing her killing blows. Bloodless blows for all involved, thankfully, or she’d have died months ago.
Since returning to Perean, Oskar’s training had been relentless.
Here, he put her in the Guild’s training facility for hours a day, reminding her over and over how he wouldn’t always be there to protect her.
That, as much as Augustus believed himself to be indestructible, he was just a man like everyone else.
Selene needed to put her trust in Selene.
Once her opponents were down, Selene sprinted toward the obstacle course. It changed every day.
“Every city is different. Every street changes from one to the next,” Oskar had once explained. “You must be able to escape at a moment’s notice, and do it on nothing but your natural instinct.”
Selene leapt over the first crate and hip-slid off the other side to enter the rearranged labyrinth.
She crossed dummy enemies between things like an over-under series of poles and leaps over traps that would drop her into shallow holes.
She put her fictitious enemies down with the throwing knives sheathed in a variety of holsters all over her body.
Sometimes, a real Blade would appear to give her a good fight.
Muscles screamed. Joints popped. Her breath tore out in ragged shots. She crawled, climbed, and flipped off high bars. She ran across the tops of poles that stood several feet off the ground. The wall loomed closer, and she bled momentum with every desperate step.
Then it was there. The one obstacle she had yet to defeat. The wall waited like it knew her by name. Like it enjoyed denying her an earned victory.
Selene sprinted toward her nemesis with teeth gritted. The Blades watched from certain vantage points and held their breath. Silently giving her strength.
She couldn’t think about them now. Not with the end in sight.
Three steps. That was all it would take. Maybe four.
Gods, don’t let it be four.
She jumped at the vertical wall, planted her first step…her second…
Selene strained skyward for that ledge high above and brought her foot up one more time—
Her boot gripped, and her fingertips scraped the edge. Nowhere near enough to get a good hold. Gravity refused her a fourth step, and she plummeted.
She hit the ground like a busted bag of sand. Air punched from her lungs. On her back, dragging breath in that felt like blades, Selene fought back a scream. She wanted to cry. To dissolve into the dirt. What if this was all she’d ever be? A survivor. Not a warrior. Not enough.
She slammed her fists on the ground. “Damn it!”
Oskar appeared overhead, hands on his hips. “Like I said. Four. Plan for four.”
He offered her a hand up, and she took it.
“The others do it in three,” she groused.
“The others have a height advantage that you do not.”
“Then I want a wall height advantage. Shorten it. Four inches. That’s all I’m asking.”
He pointed at the wall, eyes twinkling. “It’s the height of the average single-story building. Do you expect walls to start bending to your will now?”
Frustrated tears pricked her eyes. This was impossible. “I can’t do it, Oskar.” She kept her voice low so that the others wouldn’t hear her defeat.
Oskar signaled for everyone to leave. “We’re done for the day.”
The men left, some with encouraging words. “Good job today, Selene.”
“You’ll get it tomorrow. Keep your head up.”
They knew how badly she wanted this. She worked too hard to let this one thing stop her progress.
Oskar stared at her for several breaths, taking her in in fragments. From her balled fists to the line of hot tears in her eyes. “Selene—”
“It’s all right. I have limitations. It’s time we accept them.”
He laughed. “Limitations? You?” With a sigh, he gripped her shoulder with a hand hardened by battle.
His touch, however, was unbearably gentle.
“You were once a girl who flinched at her own shadow. You barely spoke above a whisper. And now?” He gestured at the course.
“The only thing standing between you and…well, you, is one damn wall.”
Weight filled her chin, and she let it fall to her chest.
Oskar spun her to a crate and had her sit. “What’s with the frustration? You’ve never let a training session get to you like this before.”
That morning’s guilt re-emerged. The look on Augustus’s face…
Five months. She hadn’t given the passing of time a second thought, not even when she noticed him staring at the sea.
Or how he woke every few days from a nightmare he refused to share the details of.
He used to walk around with his shoulders back and chin high.
These days, he sank into things. Onto walls, into chairs, and atop their bed.
“We’re leaving,” she said and swiped a rogue tear. “Augustus isn’t happy.”
Oskar’s lengthy pause only made her feel worse. “Did he say that?”
“He didn’t have to. I can see it on his face. He’s miserable. I promised Dimitrios three months, and it’s been five.”
With a sigh, Oskar sat beside her. “You had never planned to stay forever, so what’s bothering you?”
A long-ago memory drifted through her mind with a very different version of Augustus. “If by some twist of fate we leave this world tonight, I go with only one regret.”
“What would that be?”
“That I didn’t get to show you the world.”
Selene couldn’t count the number of times Augustus had promised to show her the world since they survived the mountain. She was eager to experience the lands and the people and the food he described when they were alone at night. When they lay in bed whispering plans for their future.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t ready to begin their lives, but maybe she wasn’t so ready for the world. After all that happened the last time… She still didn’t know how she survived.
Augustus had always faced the obstacles the world put before them with that cocky grin and a smart remark. He could do anything. Face anything.
That simply wasn’t her reality.
Selene met Oskar’s gaze. “I’m scared of what’s out there. The world could swallow me whole before I realize its jaw has been around me the entire time.”
Oskar pulled her against his side and kissed the top of her head. “You’re ready, Selene Marinea. No matter what those voices in your head say.”
“What about my training? I can’t even climb a wall properly.”
His laugh rumbled through her. “Find a stool.”
Selene laughed in response. Not because it was funny, but because…
She didn’t have to outrun her fear.
She just had to carry it.
And climb anyway.
Augustus wasn’t allowed to know where Selene trained every day, so he waited for her at the fountain in the middle of the East Harbor Market.
She never appeared from the same direction.
Likely a tactic of the Blades to hide their location.
Never take the same route twice in a week or some such thing.
She strolled toward him from the direction of the harbor today, wearing slimming black pants and a sleeveless royal blue top that wrapped around her frame.
The effect left a deep V in the neck that Augustus appreciated often.
These days, she wore her Kopis knives sheathed at her hips as if they were an extension of herself.
Not that she required protection, just that this was who she was now.
Selene’s expression up close told Augustus exactly how training had gone.
She’d failed the wall run again. Under the defeated look, she wore fresh bruises, and the thick braid hanging over her shoulder was a mess.
However, with an air of confidence like that, it wasn’t her outer appearance that drew the attention of the locals.
Cassia used to have the same effect on people.
Shaking off the sudden chill, he reached for her hand, and her fingers threaded between his. “You’ll get there, i pychi mou. It takes time.”
Her lower lip jutted out, and he resisted the urge to suck it into his mouth. “You sound like Oskar.”
“He calls you by a sweet pet name, too? I’ll have his balls.”
Finally, a laugh. “I hate to tell you this, but I’m almost certain he’d have yours first.” Selene nuzzled into him, and she was all roaming hands and teeth. “And I happen to like you with all your parts as they are.”
“That’s good to know. Now. Are you hungry?”
“Famished. What did you have in mind?”
“To start, I passed a cart full of berries on the way here that were as big as my palm. We can eat those on the way. Dinner should be in our rooms by the time we arrive.” He finished his answer in her ear. “And then I’ll have you, on your back, legs spread wide for dessert.”
She giggled. “Sounds like I’m the one who’ll benefit the most.”
“You’re just going to have to trust me. It’s definitely me.”
Minutes later, Selene dropped silver into the vendor’s palm, then tipped him extra with her warm smile and genuine thanks. She cradled the overflowing carton of red berries to her breast and asked, “How does your granddaughter fare? I heard she took ill with fever.”