Chapter 14 #2
The Entia had the speed and capabilities to deal with the situation, but their captain was currently locked away. Augustus’s crew—loyal to the point of righteous anger at the moment—refused to go anywhere without him.
And Oskar was ready to join whatever ship set off first.
Dimitrios scrubbed his face. “Let’s just get through the rest of the hangings, then I’ll decide.”
The City Guard was hanging up to ten of Thorne’s pirates a day along the harbor, giving Dimitrios roughly a week to find a solution.
Nikolas didn’t look happy, but he gave a respectful nod.
“Any changes to the inquisitor’s condition?” Dimitrios asked.
“None. He sleeps on.”
Not for the first time, Dimitrios longed for someone to talk to.
Pandora or Selene. Someone who could help him work through these problems. Nikolas was his friend, but he’d sworn an oath to Perean.
He aimed to keep Dimitrios on a much more rigid path than he was prepared to go.
One without nuance or empathy. It wasn’t in Dimitrios’s nature to ignore his heart.
Pandora’s last bit of advice returned to him again. “You need allies, and who better than your own blood?”
“Do I have time to ride to Braryn?” Dimitrios asked. “I know the city is in chaos—”
“There’s no chaos,” Nikolas said, brows raised in interest. “Our military forces are stable. With much of Court away, the palace remains quiet. And there’s no need for you to attend all of the executions.”
“I only need two days. Maybe three.”
“Take them. Are we finally going to speak with your grandfather?”
“Yes, and I will need guardsmen.”
Nikolas nodded. “You should also bring some of your Blade friends. Selene was right to consider taking men you can trust. They’re not the sort that outside royals can buy, and they were loyal to your father.”
“I’m surprised to hear you say so.”
The commander glanced around the palace grounds, then stepped close. “The longer the council is gone, the more details are coming to light.”
Dimitrios’s heart rate increased. “Such as?”
“General Pateras was shocked by the thin numbers of men guarding our borders, especially with Soterran forces inching closer. It’s almost as if they’re looking for a weak spot.
He’s sent men to bolster our numbers, but it makes me wonder…
Was Tassatos intentionally opening us up to fail?
And if he was doing that, what was Panilis doing with Perean’s coffers?
Where’s our wealth gone and why? What was Callas saying to our foreign allies? Do we have any left?”
Dimitrios sank into his back foot. It was disorienting to hear many of the same concerns voiced back to him.
And put like that, he felt cold. This wasn’t just corruption.
This was a slow, precise gutting of Perean itself.
A self-sustaining kingdom, one with its full power and privilege, could fight back.
But a carcass, stripped of its wealth, its armies, its alliances… ?
“It seems you’ve been doing a lot of thinking of late,” Dimitrios said.
“Perean needs its king, now more than ever.” Nikolas slanted a wry grin. “You know, it’s too bad we can’t hire the Assassin’s Guild to go around covertly slaughtering our enemies. Let them do the dirty work so your hands stay clean, all the while preventing a much larger war.”
The back of Dimitrios’s neck tingled.
Nikolas’s eyes narrowed. “I was joking. Tell me you’re not considering it.”
“No. Of course not.”
It wasn’t a lie, exactly… He didn’t need the entire Guild.
Only one Blade.
Dimitrios pulled his cloak’s hood up to move through the gaps of people gathered along the harbor.
In the orange glow of a low-hanging sun, men strode across the damp decks to the cadence of creaking rope, lighting the lamps. Purple sashes, bound around the waists of hanging pirates, flicked and snapped in the wind like sails.
A sobbing, red-faced man threw a bottle of ale at one of the swaying bodies and cursed the dead pirate’s soul to an eternity in the fires of Hadate. Glass shattered and sprayed ale across the feet of everyone nearby, but no one said a word. His grief and rage were theirs.
From the temple, bells tolled the hour. More smoke than usual wafted from its prayer rooms, perfuming the city with incense.
Sailors whistled melancholy tunes to themselves, the sound thin as wind through broken sails.
They sat atop barrels, boots knocking against wood, watching the dead sway.
Not speaking. Not looking at each other.
Where there used to be laughter and conversation over grilled fish, there was only silence.
Selene would hate this. These weren’t her people, her city. She’d walked away with that madman to save lives, to ensure laughter and camaraderie continued.
It would again. He’d make sure of it. And if his prayer held any power at all, he would give it all to the Triarius Fleet in the coming days. Tristan Thorne would pay for this.
Oskar Dahlin stood at the end of a pier, arms folded, head bent toward three familiar faces: Lili Savali, Felix Ruiz, and Pavle Sabauri. People Dimitrios considered friends, but who likely wanted him skinned right now for locking up their captain.
“Good evening,” Dimitrios said.
They straightened too fast. Too stiff. Their silence was a blade they looked ready and willing to draw.
That was fine. He was sharpening his own.
The Blade nodded back. “Your Majesty.”
To Lili, Dimitrios asked, “I sent you Augustus and Selene’s personal belongings. Did you receive them?”
“Aye,” she said and folded her arms. “A lot of good they’ll do my captain once he’s swinging.”
Pavle grunted and spat to the side of Dimitrios’s boots.
He should get to the point of this visit before Felix decided to take a swing at his jaw. “Oskar, I’m leaving for Braryn in the morning.”
Oskar lowered his chin and glanced at the others, then nodded. “I’ll send some men with you.”
“Thank you.” Dimitrios reached for Oskar’s hand, and the two men clasped. He held their hands together around the key that dug into his palm, and gave him a pointed look. “I trust you can utilize that time wisely?”
The Master Blade didn’t miss a beat. “How long will you be gone, Your Majesty?”
“Two days. Three at most.”
“I can manage in far less time than that.”
“Good.” Dimitrios stepped away, careful to avoid the eyes burning into the side of his head. They didn’t understand. But they would. “Good luck to all of you,” he said and walked away.
In his dream, Augustus ran for Selene’s still form on the floor inside the bathing chamber. Just that morning, he’d thought her sari—made from a tawny material with sunbursts of gold—had complemented her suntanned skin. Now, it was the beacon he sprinted toward—gold over still limbs and silence.
“Selene!”
Cassia halted his run. “Wait,” she warned, her black eyes glinting in firelight.
The scene was just as it had been that day. He’d all but screamed at her with his eyes, and she’d merely looked at him with severe patience.
Then Cassia did something in the dream that she hadn’t in that hour before her death. She caressed his cheek. “You are your father’s strength and my will. And she”—Cassia glanced at Selene—“she was raised in the middle of a viper’s nest. She knows how to survive.”
Augustus burst awake that second night, chest heaving, his mother’s lesson digging deep. And he finally understood. It was never his job to protect Selene. He was meant to complement her, as his father did his mother.
He should have trusted Selene with everything. Had he done so, maybe things would have been different.
But he’d made every choice that had him chained by the ankle in this tower prison. Like Mihail, but without the torture and starvation. In fact, for a man scheduled to hang in a few days, they kept him pretty well fed.
At least he could admit now that he’d fucked up by killing Lazaros.
He’d grown too comfortable in his freedom around the palace, and now Selene was days ahead, and he had no idea what progress was being made on his ship.
Did anyone intend to go after her at all?
Lili and the others, surely. Selene was one of their own.
And then, if he managed to survive this, Augustus would make Thorne’s death last for a very long time.
“The gods know you’re not going to do anything,” he murmured to the dronsian after that particular thought.
The beast had come through one of the slim windows that overlooked a courtyard. A place that constantly pushed at the back of his memory—a time when a woman screamed the song of his end, as he stared up at the blade meant for his neck.
Augustus pushed that memory of Nikos’s death as far away as possible.
The dronsian had remained inside the tower with Augustus every day. He must have gone out to eat while Augustus slept because he was always curled beside him in the morning.
“You’re like a barnacle,” Augustus whispered to him and tried not to succumb to the wide, innocent eyes that stared back. “Or a starfish. You know that, don’t you?”
The dronsian purred and rubbed his snout against the back of Augustus’s hand.
“Stop that.”
Then the thing crawled into his lap.
“Oh, come on,” he said, holding his hands out and away. “You’re being ridiculous. Go find Blaze. He’ll pet you.”
On the third night, well after midnight, with only slices of moonlight to see by, Augustus stared down at the snoozing beast. The way it curled beside him, tail tucked, head on his knee—just like she had, once, after a long night of wine and comfortable silence. A memory. A ghost. A weight.
“I miss her, too.”
The dronsian’s head came around, slow and sleepy, to nod.
“You’re more aware than I’ve ever given you credit for. But to be fair, I don’t give anyone much credit. It’s kind of why I’m in this predicament to begin with, isn’t it?”
The dronsian curled back into itself.
“You really need a name. I can’t keep calling you dragon, can I?”
A near-silent click of the lock sounded from the bottom of the stairwell.
Augustus set the dronsian aside and climbed to his feet as the steady scuff of footsteps ascended toward his tower prison. The dronsian skittered to the top of the stairs and waited like a little guard dog, a low growl in the back of his throat.
Augustus chuckled. “Stand down, barnacle. You realize only a friend would sneak into the tower this time of night?”
“Happy to know I still count as one,” Oskar said. His dark shadow scooped up the now-purring dronsian.
Augustus scrubbed his bearded jaw. “If you’ve come to break me out, I could’ve used you three days ago. But hey, I’m not picky.”