Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
Selene tore open her wardrobe, too aware of Augustus’s every move behind her as he sank onto the foot of their bed.
The tension between them fit about as well as Cassia’s clothes—not at all.
She wished they could return to the night before, when he was open to every word she had to say, no matter how hard it had been to hear.
That wasn’t the same man sitting behind her.
This man had made her feel dismissed and imbecilic, and now he was trying to pretend he hadn’t said those things.
He was trying to pretend that he hadn’t told her they were leaving, without discussing the severity of the situation they would be leaving behind.
On the bed, Augustus bent over his lap and buried his face in his hands. “I can’t believe he’s been here the entire time.”
This was exactly the problem. For him, the topic of Lazaros was important, but Perean and its ruling party meant nothing.
Lazaros’s appearance mattered. Of course, it mattered. To see Lazaros at Dimitrios’s side, in a place of trust, wearing a soldier’s uniform—it was wrong. Could—should—they trust Lazaros with Dimitrios after everything he’d done? During the worst time imaginable?
Selene rifled through the pretty silks and fine linens. Gauzy, semi-sheer muslins. Clothes for a woman who wanted to feel light and airy and feminine.
On the other side: leathers and quilted gambesons. Heavy wool. Everything a knife-wielding girl needed to test her skills on a certain back-stabbing pirate-turned-soldier.
She sighed.
She didn’t want to fight. She wanted peace, but peace was not a dress she could put on today.
“Are you all right?” Augustus asked from behind her.
“No.” She shut the wardrobe and flattened a hand to the surface.
“If this is about Lazaros—”
She turned. “It’s about everything, Augustus. We were gone for one night, and the entire kingdom turned upside down.”
“And that’s our problem, how?”
“Dimitrios is our friend—”
“He’s your friend.”
Heat burst up her neck and filled her cheeks. Did that distinction really matter for this discussion? Why did it have to be that way at all? As if integrating his world with hers was some kind of death sentence. She’d let these retorts go for months, but her patience had run too thin.
“Fine,” she growled. “My friend, my stupid pet dragon, my people, my country, my home.”
Augustus shot to his feet, and an expression came over him that she didn’t recognize. Muscles feathered up and down his jaw, and a fire caught in his eyes. “Funny, I thought your home was with me.” He aimed a rigid finger at the window. “I thought our life and future were out there.”
“I seem to recall a time when you thought we had all the time in the world. Now, suddenly, we don’t? Which is it?”
He sank onto his back foot. “Is this the part where you ask me for five more months?” His tone gave the semblance of calm, while his expression remained unchanged. He was going to fight this battle to his dying breath. If only she understood why.
“When do you expect you’ll finally be ready to walk away?” he continued. “A year? Five? Ever?”
The hateful question took her aback, but not for long. “If you must know, yes, I’m wondering how I can walk away from all this. It’s like turning my back on a raging fire and holding the only bucket of water.”
“There are a thousand buckets of water in this city, Selene. You are not the answer to all of Dimitrios’s problems.”
“You feel no guilt at all, is that it? You are responsible for Lazaros being here in the first place.” It wasn’t fair to blame him, but her reason had snapped like a bone-dry branch.
“We dragged Dimitrios into this life by the ear, and if it weren’t for us, he would still be home with his family. Safe.”
His teeth flashed. “You forget who I am, Selene. Guilt isn’t something I allow to bear fruit. And if Lazaros is the problem, there’s an easy enough remedy.” He swaggered toward her with a sharp, cutting glint in his eyes. “I’ll slit his throat within the hour if that’s what it takes.”
A smile spread across Augustus’s face that was all teeth, one he reserved for his enemies. The ones he knew, undoubtedly, he would beat. He’d used it on Cassia a time or two. His mother hadn’t taken it, and neither would she.
Selene stood firm against his storm, a barrier of stone and sand to his tempest. “As if that would solve all our problems.”
“I have no problems, save one. Getting you away from here before things get worse.”
Selene gaped. “I’m not a ragdoll you haul over a shoulder and cart around wherever you wish.” She turned and spoke to an invisible crowd. “Everyone stop what you’re doing”—she shot him a glare—“I might get my dress dirty.”
His responding chuckle was dark. “Are you under some illusion that after a few months of training to be a weapon, you’re suddenly ready for war? Because that’s where this situation is likely heading. Could you even take a life if it came to it? Be honest.”
Augustus might as well have struck her—it would have felt the same.
Was he wrong? No, but that didn’t take away the sting.
All those months together at sea, she’d battled constantly for him to save lives while he would turn himself over, under, and backward for a reason to kill a man.
It was one of their more glaring differences, and while they could usually find a middle ground, she wasn’t sure this was one they’d ever reach.
Before she could even formulate a response, he deflated. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s what you think, and you shouldn’t have to apologize for that. I won’t apologize for caring, either.”
Selene started for the exit before he saw the tears lining her eyes, or worse, she said something she couldn’t take back.
“Don’t leave, i psychi mou. I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight.”
She paused, torn, face to face with an opportunity to let him have this. Accept his apology and swallow her feelings. She’d let him define so many lines before now. What was hers, and what was his. What was theirs, even. He decided how close she was allowed into his heart and mind.
And that had been okay before now because he’d followed her into the mouth of this storm all those months ago, joining the search for the heir when he’d wanted to sail in the opposite direction entirely.
If not for her, he wouldn’t have left his parents and the fleet to begin with.
He never would have lost his ship or his friends or his mother.
He’d acquiesced his freedom—his entire way of life—to stay here… for her.
He may not let guilt bear fruit, but she’d been harvesting rot for months. Her part in this kept her up at night because Augustus wasn’t the only unhappy one here. Dimitrios looked lost and alone every single day. She would never forgive herself if anything were to happen to him.
Selene swallowed the lump in her throat and faced him.
His shoulders hung low, and his gaze darted swiftly over her face, searching…searching… Could he see the divide she straddled?
“Augustus.”
His steps ate up the space to her, and he carefully took her hands, his mouth shaping into that smirk she loved so much. “Today has been tense, and we got swept up in it. I should have realized how personal this is for you—if I had, I wouldn’t have said so many stupid things.”
“But you still feel them.” It wasn’t a question. Augustus never said things he didn’t mean, cruel or indifferent as they could sometimes be. “You’re only sorry you said them out loud.”
Augustus dropped her hands and stepped away. “Yes. Fine. I’m a villain, and you’re the incorruptible soul who got trapped into living every life with me.”
His words were a blade slicing straight to her bones. The hot tears she’d been holding in came flowing out, and her throat was too tight to let a response free.
“I need to go,” he said. His shoulder bumped hers on the way by. “I have a crew to hire, and we’re beyond all common sense right now. We’ll talk when you’re ready to stop setting fires we can’t put out.”
After everything she’d said, he still hadn’t heard her. He would still forge forward with the plan to sail away and leave all their friends—her friends—to fight this battle alone. Did he think she would do that with a smile on her face?
He was halfway out the door before she managed to find her voice.
“Augustus.”
He paused to look at her, brows raised.
“I’m staying in Perean. I need to help Dimitrios.”
Augustus’s jaw muscles flared as his gaze flew elsewhere. Without a word, he stormed from the room and slammed the door behind him.
The Entia’s deck burned beneath Augustus’s boots, sunbaked and dry. The wind was stiff and salt-heavy, snapping through the rigging, rattling the taut ropes overhead. Below the hull, the tide slapped sluggishly against the ship.
Augustus should have been below deck, lost in the rhythm of stowing the crates, but another wave of fury pummeled through him. Instead, he stood enthralled in another repeated memory, his tight hold on the crate biting into his palms.
Selene had just stood there, chin raised, coldly delivering the end of his vision of their future. “I’m staying in Perean. I need to help Dimitrios.”
With or without him.
Augustus gritted back a yell and hurled the crate against the main mast. Tools spilled out and hit the deck with a variety of clunks and ticks as the hammers, saws, and nails went everywhere. The crate itself was in splinters.
Pavle froze mid-step with a crate of his own in hand, eyes wide. Likely wondering if, as the ship’s carpenter, he should take responsibility for the “spill.”
That guilt Augustus bragged about never feeling? It punched him square in the fucking chest.
He dragged a hand into his wind-knotted hair. “Fuck.”
Lili jogged over with an empty crate and a wobbly smile. “We’ve got it, Pav,” she said. “We’re all good here.” She then glared at the dozen or so members of Omar’s family who stared at the scene. “Nothing to see here. Back to work.”