Chapter 11 #2
The distant boom of cannon fire interrupted Augustus’s murderous haze. His rampage. The sky filled with blue-and-silver sails.
The Perean Navy.
The enemy ship, currently pinned by the Entia’s bowsprit, rocked under hit after hit. Splinters sprayed. Wood cracked and groaned. The injured ship fell toward the Entia. It struck the railing near the bow, splitting the wood.
Augustus swore.
A second burst of cannon fire sounded—close this time.
Augustus ducked as the smoked-out deck of their enemy’s ship exploded.
Splinters shot skyward. Smoke dispersed.
The world held its breath.
Omar’s gleeful shout pierced the quiet. “Yeah!”
This started a chain reaction of cheers throughout the men.
Another explosion shot through the enemy ship’s deck—from inside the ship. Purple-sashed bodies soared into the air, hitting masts, tangling in ropes, somersaulting overboard.
Augustus belted out a laugh. “Make trouble, indeed.”
A large bird flapped past his head, and he ducked.
No, not a bird—
Selene’s dragon. He landed hard on the rail, wings flaring. No trace of his dumb smile or flopping tongue. No bounce. He squawked in rapid bursts.
Augustus had no idea what to make of it. “What’s the matter with you?”
The dragon bit his shirt and tugged.
Irritation swept through him. “Stop that, you—”
The dragon wailed. His head and neck swiveled toward the docks and back. Then he took to the air, tugging on Augustus’s shirt again.
The truth hit him like a plankboard to the chest. “Selene.”
The dragon flapped into the sky, then circled him from above.
A wave spun through Augustus’s stomach. “Is she in trouble?”
The dragon squawked.
Augustus scanned the wreckage around him.
The ship near the bowsprit and the Perean Navy storming through splinters.
The second ship, already sinking.
Two ships.
There’d been three anchored in the bay all week. Where was the third ship?
This was a diversion.
And Selene—
Augustus sprinted for the nearest pulley and skiff.
Felix nearly took him off his feet with a single hand. “Where—?
“Selene’s in trouble.”
“Pavle!” Felix swept a hand for him to follow. “We have to go!”
Augustus slammed into a wall of darkness.
Not a wall. A crescent shadow. Creeping across the deck in an arc.
Sunlight strained to reach him from the sky.
Beside him, Felix glanced between the shadow and the sky. “It’s just an eclipse.”
An eclipse.
The icy cold traveling through his body chipped and cracked around his bones.
“When the time comes that the world becomes shrouded in shadows, a line of demarcation will be drawn.”
They were out of time.
The dragon shrieked.
“Captain?”
“Get that fucking rope,” he said, pointing at the pulley. “We’re running out of time.”
The market didn’t empty. It unraveled.
One by one, people paused their transactions. Voices dropped. Feet shuffled backward, inch by inch, as if the wind itself whispered, you don’t want to be here.
Selene caught it all from the center, a slow clearing of space she hadn’t asked for.
She was left with only her breath, her blades, and the cold steel resting along the backs of her forearms like a second spine.
And Petrina, whose presence she had yet to understand or trust, even if she had spent the last half hour facing the danger with her.
At Selene’s back, Petrina aimed her blood-stained sword at a too-close pirate with dark brown skin. “Uh, uh, uh… I’d stay back, if I were you. Unless you want to end up like your friend here.” She motioned to the dead body near his feet.
“It’s all right, Alejandro,” Thorne said, flicking his hand. “No need to hover.”
The man, smirking, gave up half a step in retreat, hands raised.
Selene narrowed her gaze. “No need to be here at all. Your fight isn’t with me.”
Thorne raised his chin. Studied her wide, ready stance. Her blade positioning. He smiled. “Miss Marinea… I’m well aware of who my opponents are.”
“Then you’re similarly aware of who my closest allies are.”
She had no idea where any of them were at the moment, but surely a Blade or two were already aware of what transpired here.
“The Blades?” He motioned toward the heart of the market, then the docks, where the call of bells still rang. “The pirates? All diverted elsewhere.”
Augustus. Oskar. What of Dimitrios? Was he in danger as well?
Petrina shifted behind her. “Looks like we’re on our own,” she muttered. “Great.”
A merchant stepped around his stall and strolled directly into Thorne’s eyeline. Myron…he had a wife, six children, and four grandchildren, and his bread was the best available in the market. He was also formidable in size, though she knew him to be one of the most gentle men in Praevia.
Myron locked eyes with Thorne. “I happen to be free at the moment.”
As if commanded, several more merchants and locals filtered into the open space.
Selene knew them all. Their families. Their struggles. More importantly, she knew their hearts. They were too kind for this. Too fragile. Too important to so many others.
Still, they surrounded the gathering of pirates on all sides.
Thorne scanned his surroundings with an amused slant to his mouth. “I commend you all, however, this isn’t a fight you want.”
Selene stepped closer, steel sliding into her spine. “Leave them alone.”
“Or what?” Thorne dipped his chin to peer past his dark lashes and harsh browline, all trace of mild humor having vanished. “Come quietly.”
A small knife appeared in Myron’s hand. “She’s not going anywhere with you, pirate.”
Identical sentiments moved bravely around in a circle from every Perean who’d dared leave the safety of the shadows.
Selene spun a slow circle to acknowledge them all, tears burning the backs of her eyes.
All her life, she had stood in front of danger alone. Now there were voices beside her. Knives. Shields. Flesh and bone. A wall of people who saw her as worth saving.
Why? She hadn’t earned this. Not really. She’d been a slave. A prisoner. A secret.
Myron motioned Selene over with a pair of fingers. “Come to me. We’ll protect you.”
The pirates laughed.
Thorne slanted a grin. “I offered you a peaceful way out.”
The air around Thorne rippled strangely, like heat off stone. Wingbeats womp, womp, womped overhead, and an unnaturally long and deep shadow fell across the cobbled stones. Black feathers rained from the sky like scattered curses.
Petrina looked up—
Selene only had eyes for the man before her. She took that step. Accepted the threat. For once, she released all thoughts of Augustus, her training, her doubts. She thought of the baker’s hands. The fisherman’s limp. The wails of newborns in their mother’s arms.
She thought of belonging.
And chose violence.
In the circle around her, swords sliced from scabbards, and the cry of battle bellowed through the street.
The distant clash of metal and roar of voices rolled across the water like thunder.
Augustus froze mid-row, shoulders burning like torches were jammed into his flesh.
Felix and Pavle twisted toward the sound in unison, their rowing slowed.
The dragon clung to the stern, wingbeats turned frantic. A sharp, urgent whimper clawed from his throat.
It was on the tip of his tongue to beg the dragon to find her, but to do what? Growl, hiss, and hop around?
No, it was better that the beast stayed and helped add to their speed with his wingbeats.
Felix met Augustus’s gaze. “Is this them?” He nodded back to the overrun ships. “Did they go after Selene, too?”
Augustus said nothing. Just gritted his teeth and poured all his strength into the oars. Pain flared in his shoulders, and his palms were torn raw. He welcomed it. He deserved worse.
“Oskar will be with her,” Felix said, and Pavle grunted acknowledgment.
It was the only truth holding Augustus together. Selene wasn’t unguarded.
And yet, dread clung to him like salt, sinking deeper into his skin as the daylight died. The azure sea turned gunmetal gray, the wind sharp, strange. Darkness swallowed the world bite by bite, and his mother’s voice echoed through his skull.
“The lovers, separated by oceans and seas, isolates a vulnerable king.”
This was it. This was the moment his mother prophesied, and Augustus had failed. He’d walked away from her.
“Row faster,” Augustus barked. “Faster.”
The light was dying.
Selene was alone.
And he refused to fail her—never again.
Acrate of pomegranates burst beside Selene like an open wound.
Someone screamed.
Distantly, a donkey brayed.
The cobblestones ran red—fruit, or blood, or both.
These people weren’t ready for battle.
Neither was Selene.
For months, she’d trained. Bled. Put her all into every action. All to learn now how easy the assassins had gone on her.
Selene circled through the battle, every step crunching over broken glass and wooden shards. She swung, ducked, and thrust. The men she faced…all groping hands and snarls, ropes and shackles. Attacks meant to hurt rather than kill.
Thorne needed her alive.
A rope noose caught her elbow. She spun hard, slicing the line, the man’s hand, or both—she didn’t care which.
Petrina faced much harsher treatment, not that it mattered. She could have easily been one of Oskar’s Blades. The Eye thundered into every action, a storm unleashed.
Selene kept to Petrina’s side, her back. As much for protection as support. No matter how many opponents they put down, more arrived to take their place. Never-ending.
And still, there were even more to further the chaos. The pirates set fire to the buildings. They loosed chickens from cages and horses from posts. The innocent people collided with overturned tables and kicked liberated fruit deeper into the fray.
She didn’t let that stall her.
She let it fuel every move.
Selene halted the breath of men. Spilled blood. Closed eyes forever. Tomorrow, she’d remember their faces. Today, she only felt the way her blade slid through skin. One day, she’d mourn the loss of her innocence.
At least she could say it was in defense of her people. These simple, wonderful Pereans.
Still, they lay hurt and dying. Entire livelihoods up in smoke.
And somewhere, above the smoke and dying, a shape circled inside the dimming glow of the sun—impossibly large, silent as grief.
Exhaustion ravaged her. She was little more than ripped muscles and burning lungs. Sweat slicked her skin. Frustrated screams bound inside her throat every time a man replaced one she’d just slain.
Selene would hold this line until reinforcements arrived. What choice did they have?
Tristan Thorne, through it all, hadn’t moved.
He watched.
He stood in spotless boots, with empty hands.
She cut down another man, then turned, breathless, straight into Thorne’s devouring gaze.
“You’re slowing,” he said, voice irritatingly calm.
“I’m fighting for my people. What are you doing?”
Cannon fire sounded from the bay.
Thorne perked his ear toward it. “I just love that sound, don’t you?”
Selene didn’t know when the cannons started firing, but realized she’d been hearing them for a while. Somewhere out there, Augustus was still fighting.
“You’re mad,” she snarled.
A thick brow kicked up. “Mad? Or patient?”
Sharp, resounding pain cracked across her cheek before she realized he’d swung, all knuckles and thick, gold rings.
She hit the ground, chest first, air ripping from her lungs in a torrent. One of her knives had skittered out of reach.
Vision blurred, and with trembling fingers, she gripped her one remaining knife. The cobblestone darkened around her, almost as if night was falling in the middle of the day.
A boot struck her in the ribs.
She rolled with the shot of pain, teeth clenched around a scream. She didn’t dare take a breath—not yet.
Thorne stood over her, wiping her blood from his rings with a white cloth. “You can end this any time.”
His focus slid across the ground, and Selene followed it to the nearest body.
Myron’s face was unrecognizable after a particularly brutal beating. His throat open and oozing.
A cry leapt from her chest and scraped past her raw throat.
Selene rolled to her knees and crawled toward Myron, finding his large, calloused hand still warm. Fat tears fell onto his bloodstained tunic.
“I’m so sorry,” she choked out.
A beast dropped out of the sky like a fallen god. A twisted crown. Feathers like black ash. Eyes like obsidian voids to nowhere.
It landed on Myron’s other side, black wings arched.
A deep rumbling call was her only warning—it snapped across Myron’s body, wings flared.
Selene skittered away, heart in her throat.
Thorne strolled to the beast’s side, the thing easily reaching the pirate’s hip in height. “It’s all right, old friend. Let her mourn her dead.”
The bird-beast relaxed and took three steps away from the body. Talons like bone scythes clicked on the cobbled stone.
Thorne came to loom over Selene. Behind him, the sun was almost gone. A sickle of light, sharp as a blade.
“These people were innocent,” she spat.
“You can end the suffering. Say the word.”
Suffering? The dead didn’t suffer. Everywhere she looked, a familiar face stared back at her from blank eyes.
Men: Rafail, Alekos, Giannis.
Women: Persefoni, Eugenia, Angelina.
The number of dead friends was too vast to continue naming. Her heart couldn’t take any more.
Selene turned her wet, throbbing face toward the sky full of rich, twinkling stars. The sun had vanished almost entirely, but for a slight ring of light.
Going…
Going…
Gone.
Throat thick, Selene dragged herself upright and turned, body aching. She had to see. Had to know. Was this really all there was? Was she the only thing standing between brutal, cold steel and another breath?
Inside the smoke, people scurried to douse the flames with their meager buckets. The once brave cries had morphed into wrenching sobs. A woman cried into her apron, rocking back and forth. A boy stood by a stall, blood on his knuckles, staring at nothing.
No Augustus.
No Oskar.
No one had come.
Even Petrina had vanished.
Selene’s chin fell. “Tell your men to stop.”
Thorne raised a single hand, and his men began their retreat.
He offered Selene his elbow. “Shall we?”
All around, Pereans sat or stood in silence. Too many eyes looked away when Selene tried meeting their stare.
The fight had been too much.
Only she could save those who had survived.
Selene raised her chin.
Thorne slanted a grin. “Is this where you tell me how Augustus will make me pay?”
“No.” She shouldered past him. “I’ll do that all on my own.”