Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
“You’ve been drunk for two fucking days.”
Augustus hadn’t heard the door open or the footsteps crossing the room. Did he even recognize that voice? Where was he, and why was he on a cold, hard floor?
Gods, he really was drunk.
The slit through his heavy eyelids revealed a plankboard ceiling overhead, a stretch of gloomy shadows waging a losing battle with an early sun…
And Blaze. Bent over him with hands on his hips and his brows knitted together.
That was judgment staring down at him from that lofty height.
Augustus hated these holier-than-thou pricks. “You’re ugly when I’m drunk.”
Blaze kicked him in the shoulder. “I forgot what a cruel asshole you can be when you’re like this. Get up.”
Augustus rolled to the side with a groan...and that was where his energy levels died. He was lying somewhere between his mother’s desk and the sitting area. Roughly the spot where he sliced Selene’s dress from her beautiful body and fucked her until her eyes rolled back.
“I’m good here,” he said, then shut out the room and Blaze and begged the sharp part of his mind to stay fuzzy. Thinking made everything worse.
If he could just get a few more hours, one more day… Just a little more time away from imagining the absolute worst things that could be happening to Selene. He knew what men like Thorne were capable of. He knew what he himself was capable of, and that didn’t help, either.
Blaze’s voice startled Augustus out of his doze. “Selene would absolutely fucking hate that you’re doing this to yourself.”
A snapping fury cracked through him, and he burst upright to find the asshole crouched beside him. “You don’t have the first fucking clue what she’d say or think or do. Stop pretending you even care.”
Blaze arched a single brow. Took a slow, easy breath. Then he reached behind him and came back with a metal bucket.
Augustus was still too sluggish to understand or react before half that bucket’s contents of seawater shot up his nose and into his mouth.
He exploded to his feet, gasping, coughing, and sluicing water off his face. “You bastard.”
Standing, Blaze shook his head. “I thought I’d need help waking you up.
Lucky me… You go and give me an even better reason to use it.
And don’t think for a second that you’ll land a hit on me.
” He gave a pointed look to the fist balling against Augustus’s thigh.
“You’re in no shape to do any lasting damage.
Besides, I find myself annoyed enough to hit back. ”
“Fuck you, Blaze.”
“No, fuck you. Get yourself together and captain your fucking ship, friend.”
That there was actual contempt and anger burning in those brown eyes. What did he have to be so angry about? “What is your problem?”
“My problem is that just about everyone is here for you, and you’re hiding away in here like a fucking child who lost his favorite toy.
Lili’s snapping at everyone, and Omar—” He stopped and shrugged, and whatever thought came to him depleted his anger by half.
“Omar’s a fairly decent captain, actually.
” Blaze smiled. “Never mind. Forget I was here. I don’t know what I was thinking. ”
Augustus followed on Blaze’s heels toward the exit. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
With a sigh, Blaze turned around. “Nothing. I’m just…” He paused, then shuffled from one foot to the other. “You should talk to Lili. That’s really all I came to say.”
“Did something happen?”
Blaze opened the door to leave. “Talk to her.”
He nodded. “All right. I will.”
The Ranger left without another word, and the clap of the door shutting made Augustus flinch.
He’d screwed up. He’d let one night of loneliness and worry take over his entire personality.
Sure, the Entia could sail without his constant attention. No one needed him to chart a course or bark orders. The crew wouldn’t fall apart without him.
That didn’t give him the right to turn into a shadow wrapped in grief and drowning in booze. The right to disappear.
He dragged a hand through his wet hair and released a deep breath. “One setback, Triarius. That’s all you get.”
In the bed chamber, Augustus found an occupant already inside, curled up on what would have been Selene’s pillow. The dronsian stretched and yawned and fluttered its pearlescent blue-and-brown wings.
“Have you been here the entire time?”
The beast gave a raspy squawk in reply, then turned his head back into the pillow.
“If I have to wake up, so do you, scallywag.”
The dronsian’s body expanded on a deep inhale, then deflated. Then, nothing.
“You just missed Blaze,” he said on the way to his wash basin. “He’s running around with pails of water.”
The dronsian peered through one slitted eye, then closed it.
“All right, then. You go on and sleep. I can see you’ve been working really hard.”
Augustus caught the pull of his lips into a smirk just in time to stop it. Apparently, spending every day with the creature was turning him soft.
Selene was going to love that.
He did smirk then. The idea that she would be around again, speaking his name like a curse, loving him despite every flaw he carried, felt a whole lot better than living in a drunken stupor for days straight. She would survive Thorne, because she’d survived much worse. Lifetimes of worse.
Washed, shaved, and mood slightly elevated, Augustus appeared above deck to a chorus of greetings, claps on the shoulder, and an abundance of wide smiles.
All but one.
The pale-skinned blond woman—a friend of Omar’s family, and the ship’s new surgeon—halted Augustus with a hand to the chest, and looked him up and down.
Augustus blinked down at the hand on his chest. “Good morning to you, too, Kelly.”
“Headache?” On his shrug, she nodded. “You need to hydrate. I’ll bring you something for the upset stomach.”
“I don’t—”
“Have you eaten?”
“On this imagined upset stomach? No.” He smirked, though, to be honest, he didn’t think his stomach could take it. He did feel a little green. He just didn’t want her to know that. “I’ve been hungover before, doc. I’ll survive.”
“Keelheart!” Omar’s exclamation brought the two of them around. He and his family had taken to calling Augustus by this new nickname after the battle in Castona Bay. For “the one who holds the ship steady through storm and blood.”
The quartermaster approached with one of his grandsons, who barely reached the man’s hip. “I hope you’re fixing him right up, Patch.”
“I’m trying,” Kelly said. “The captain says he’s gonna tough this one out.”
“Nothing going on that a little sun and sea won’t cure,” Augustus said, then squeezed Kelly’s arm. “I’m fine. I promise.”
She nodded and twisted to go. “I’m sending you a tea.”
“Can’t wait.”
Omar watched her go, smiling. “Good girl, that one. We’re lucky to have her.”
“Aye.”
The quartermaster focused fully on Augustus. “And you look like a chariot of horses dragged you across the hot coals of Hadate, if you don’t mind me saying.”
“Feels a bit like that, but I’ll live.” Augustus turned his attention to the child at Omar’s side. “Morning, Scout.”
“Hello, Captain,” the boy said.
Omar had a slew of grandchildren aboard, all from well into their teen years to as young as six. Scout—his real name was Max—was the new gunner’s youngest.
Omar patted the boy’s back. “Go on now. Find Tiny and make sure she’s not opening the belly of those jellyfish again. Fish’ll open her belly if he has to clean up any more entrails.”
“Fish” was a deckhand named Ramon, one of the three teens who were ordered to “make trouble” during the attack.
Augustus and Ramon recently spent an entire afternoon repairing nets together, and he finally got the entire story.
It was one of the only days Augustus had found himself genuinely laughing.
Alone with Omar, Augustus said, “Blaze suggested I talk to Lili. Something going on that I don’t know about?”
For the first time since meeting him, Omar frowned. “She asked to tell you herself, so I have to respect that. I’m sorry if—”
“It’s that serious?”
“Aye.”
Augustus had been absent for two days. No stops. No bad weather—he hadn’t been that far into his cups not to have noticed. Repairs were done—you’d never know they’d been through a battle. Surely the mood would be different had someone died. What could have possibly happened?
“A raven came while you were down,” Omar said. “We’ve been seeking information on Thorne’s whereabouts, and…”
“And?”
Omar clapped him on the shoulder. “Talk to your friend. I’ll be here to advise you further once you’ve heard.”
Omar left him, then, to search for Lili on his own.
Augustus located her at the wheel with Victoria Psomiadis. The tan-skinned woman was one of Cassia’s few remaining helmsmen. Vic was a couple of years older than him and Lili, and probably would have joined them on the Soris, but Cassia was a hard woman to walk away from.
Lili looked as if the last two days had wrung her inside out. The wind whipped her hair across her face—she never wore it loose—and her dark skin looked even darker beneath her eyes. Even her linen shirt was wrinkled.
He hated seeing her like this—unraveled and sleepless and still standing tall. He should’ve been beside her. Should’ve seen the weight bearing down long before she bent beneath it. Instead, he’d buried himself in ale and left her to carry the ship alone.
She straightened at his approach. “Back from the dead, I see.”
“Something like that.”
Victoria gave him a respectful nod. “I was just updating Lili on our schedule.”
Augustus straightened. “Anything we should be worried about?”
“No. We’re making good time. With fair weather, we should reach Warian Bay a day earlier than—”
“Warian Bay?” The question tumbled out of Augustus’s mouth like gritty stones. “You mean, Vrinis.”
Lili winced.
Victoria’s dark brows pinched together, then she shot a look at Lili. “Did I misunderstand—”
“No,” Lili cut in, carefully avoiding Augustus’s penetrating gaze. “Give us a minute, will you?”
The helmsman was barely out of earshot before he lost control of his tongue. “Selene is in Vrinis. Five days east of Warian Bay.”
“I know.”
“You could at least have the decency to look me in the eye as you betray me.”
Lili’s dark eyes turned molten. “You don’t think I agonized over this decision? Every hour you were below, I waited for you to surface. But you didn’t.”
“Nothing—nothing—is more important than finding Selene. I never would have agreed to this.”
Lili turned her face into the wind and closed her eyes. Finally, her chin dipped, and she took a deep breath. “Taran Phya is funding Thorne’s war against the fleet.”
“No. He wouldn’t— Phya doesn’t involve himself in—”
“You screwed up, mate.” Lili met his frozen stare. “You signed a contract and didn’t deliver.”
An old conversation between himself, Mettius, and Cassia winged through his memory.
“We lost a portion of the steel during the oxbeast attack,” Augustus had told them.
“How much is a ‘portion’?” Mettius asked.
“A quarter of it now lies unretrievable along a steep mountainside.”
Augustus sank into his back foot. “The steel shortage.”
“Aye.”
If there was one thing his parents had drilled in him growing up, it was that you don’t piss off the money man. Cassia and Mettius had given Phya an entire ship to compensate for the missing steel, knowing it was a temporary measure, with the idea that they had time to make things right.
Surely, his father would have said something had things gone wrong. Surely, he would have warned Augustus that the contract he’d signed remained in question.
Augustus dragged fingers across his scalp. “Okay. This is bad, but this doesn’t explain the change in our route.”
“Because, not only is he funding Thorne’s fleet, but he’s crippling ours. All within the bounds of the law, mind you—selling the fleet’s goods to the lowest bidder and inflating the cost of goods in return. Loyalty doesn’t put food on the table, Augustus. They’re losing men.”
The idea was preposterous. How many would have walked away so easily? Most had been with the fleet for decades. These crews were family. They’d always had a small percentage filtering in and out, but never a number that caused concern.
“It can’t be that bad,” Augustus said, folding his arms. “And it won’t last. Dad’ll figure this out. In the meantime, we stay on course to Vrinis.”
Lili shook her head. “Thorne has the numbers, Augustus. We can’t face him on our own.” She gestured at the crew. “We never could. We need the fleet—and the fleet needs us.”
A harsh laugh leapt from his chest. “The fleet doesn’t need us, and we’ll figure it out. I just need to see what we’re up against—”
“He has twelve ships, and that’s a low estimate.
My contact thinks he might have up to eighteen—the number varies.
Two we took down in Castona Bay. But you were right—he took Vrinis six months ago, and with it, their ships.
Phya’s likely supplied him with more. Thorne’s ready, Augustus.
The war isn’t just a threat anymore. It’s happening. ”
Lili paused and gripped his hand. “I had to choose our family.”
The Triarius Fleet, after all was said and done, was down to eight without the Entia.
Eight against twelve was questionable. Eight against eighteen would wipe the fleet out.
“Fuck,” Augustus muttered.
And to think…less than a year ago, he’d gloated to his parents about having eleven ships to Thorne’s seven.
Augustus paced to the nearest railing and stared down at the churning sea.
Lili came up beside him and leaned forward onto the railing. “I’d give anything to go back and tell you not to take that deal.”
“Did you have reservations about it that I’m not aware of?”
“No, but—”
“Then stop. No one could have foreseen what happened.” Rage surged through him like a storm-chased tide. “Fucking oxbeasts.”
Lili twisted to face him. “You understand, don’t you? Why I changed course?”
He wanted to rage at her, but deep down, in the cold place reserved for command decisions, he knew—he would have done the same. For good or ill, the path still led to Selene.
His chin dipped. “Our fathers need the ship and whatever crew we can offer. But even with the Entia, the fleet is still outnumbered in this war. Thorne will crush us.”
“I’d rather die,” she said, standing, “knowing we tried.”
“Omar and his family didn’t sign up for this.” His thoughts went to the young ones aboard, then immediately to the other innocent life caught in the middle. “Thorne will bring Selene right into the thick of it. He’ll use her to weaken me.”
Lili nodded. “I’m so sorry, Augustus.”
It didn’t seem fair that he had to make such a choice. He’d always known Selene deserved better than him, and this only proved his case.
“Selene will survive,” he said. “It’s what she does. And gods help Thorne if he underestimates that.”
“To war, then?”
Augustus set his jaw and, belatedly, nodded. “To war.”