Chapter 28
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
Augustus sent Gus ahead some time ago, and he stood at the bow of his borrowed vessel, staring at the approaching island. He must have sailed near these isles a dozen times and never given them much notice. To be fair, they were almost entirely shrouded by a thick mist. Haunted, some had ventured.
But as they neared Trayterre Isle’s main island, the tendrils of white fog parted, and an entirely new world opened up, formed by high, jagged cliffs and dense forests.
Augustus couldn’t think of a single land that compared.
Boulders protruded from the shallow waters all the way up to the sparkling, pebbled beach.
The twisted, gnarled forest whispered ambiguously of an ancient past, while almost begging entrance.
Come, it seemed to say. Let me tell you everything I know.
It also said, We shall determine later if you are free to leave.
Augustus refused to turn back. Whether the voices were real or tricks of his imagination didn’t matter—Selene was here, and something ancient waited with her.
He envied Gus his wings. The dronsian would see her first; maybe he’d found her already.
Augustus would appreciate some kind of signal saying so. Knowing Gus, he would stay with her. She was the one he was bonded to. Augustus was just the man who put up with that tongue flopping around, that big, goofy smile, and those wide, innocent eyes.
Augustus missed him.
Damn the gods...that was incredibly inconvenient.
Selene was going to love this.
A smile stretched his mouth. She was alive, and she was close, and he was going to see her today. He couldn’t believe it. That crafty, gorgeous woman escaped an extremely dangerous ship of pirates. She was nothing short of amazing.
“Nervous?” Lili asked, coming up beside him. She pointedly eyed the tap, tap, tapping of his fingers on the railing. “She might still be pissed at you. She’s likely to slap you first, then kiss you after.”
A breathy laugh shot from his chest. “I’ll take her in any order she comes in. But yes, if you must know, the way I left things sits heavy on my mind.”
Half a smile pulled at her mouth—she hadn’t summoned a full one since finding her father’s remains. “She loves you, mate. You have nothing to worry about.”
Augustus knew that. It didn’t make him any less anxious to spill the apologies Selene was owed. More than anything, she had to know he regretted every stupid thing he’d said.
Lili’s humor evaporated, and she turned to scan the small ship they’d acquired.
A small crew of Okosian sailors managed the wheel and sails.
The rest of them—the Rangers, the Blades, Felix, and Pavle—hung about in huddled conversations.
All the people who had refused to waste a single minute without laying their eyes on Selene. Anxious to reach her.
Maybe not so much the Rangers; they simply followed Blaze wherever he went. And Blaze went where Augustus did. It was like old times, for good or bad.
Augustus’s stomach twisted. He’d let things go too far with Blaze, and he would have to tell Selene everything.
About the kiss, the way he hid the prophecy…
He couldn’t begin to guess her reaction.
He’d betrayed her on several levels. A slap was the least of his concerns, though he was preparing for at least one.
“I have more to worry about than you realize,” he admitted aloud, swiping a hand through his wind-knotted hair. “I kissed Blaze.”
Lili jerked upright and nearly barreled into him to get closer, anger contorting her face. “Say that a-fucking-gain? You didn’t. Tell me you fucking didn’t.”
“It was a goodbye,” he said. “But that won’t make it easier for her to hear.”
“Then you use your words, mate, not your godsdamned tongue.” A sharp, dark laugh bubbled up from her. “Selene always was too good for you.”
Lili started off.
“Hey!” he shouted at her back. “What’s—?”
She spun back, hands fisted. “Are we all just pawns in the game to you?”
Augustus’s mind emptied of all words. He didn’t recognize his own best friend or the blatant rage emanating from her.
“All our lives, you’ve just decided the path and put us on it,” she continued. “I was young and stupid to think—” Tears climbed into her eyes and spilled over. “We weren’t ready for this.”
“Ready for what?”
Lili’s arms shot out as if to encompass the world. “This. You a captain, me a sailing master. We walked away as if we didn’t need them, and you made me believe that was true. Well, you were wrong. We are young and stupid, and you couldn’t make that more obvious every single day.”
Everyone within earshot had paused to listen and stare. A line had burrowed between Blaze’s eyes, and Augustus sent him a slight shake of the head. If he came over now, this would get much worse.
“I know, Lili. I already know all of this.”
“Someone should warn Selene about you before it’s too late.”
Augustus flinched. “Lili—”
“We’re in this situation because of you! My dad—”
Cold realization sank into his gut like rotten meat. She blamed him for Loto’s death. Honestly, she wasn’t wrong. It’d been his contract he failed to fill, and now Taran Phya was putting all his weight and coin behind the man who murdered the entire crew of the Akias.
Roslyn crossed the deck to Lili and put an arm around her, whispering in her ear. Lili leaned into the much smaller woman and closed her eyes.
The women strode away, arm-in-arm, and Augustus let them go. As much as he wanted to beg for Lili’s forgiveness, she wouldn’t hear him. He knew her well enough to know that much.
Blaze started for him, but Augustus held up a hand. He was the last person Augustus should be talking to right now.
“Captain Triarius,” the ship’s captain said, climbing the forecastle stairs. “We have to drop anchor here. You and your people will have to row the rest of the way.”
The boulders in the shallows. Right. “Thank you.”
The island was still a couple of miles out. Not a terrible distance, but his nerves wished it were less. He needed to see Selene. Needed to see with his own eyes that she was safe and unharmed. Everything that came after, he would deal with as it came. He deserved whatever was in store.
They took two rowboats. Lili went with the Rangers and a handful of the Blades. Augustus sailed with the rest. Every now and then, Oskar watched him in that quiet, thoughtful way.
Finally, the old man said, “She’ll be all right.”
“Who?”
“Lili. She’s hurting. We’ve all been there. It’s hard to make sense of things in the aftermath of a loss like that.” His chin lowered, and he fingered the ring chained around his neck. “You know that better than anyone, I’m sure.”
Augustus’s experience was slightly different—he’d been locked in a cage after his mother died. He’d been useless for a couple of days but was shaken out of it quickly. He’d had no choice but to go forward so they could escape. So they could live.
Right now, no one’s life was in danger, and Lili had all the time in the world to spin out.
“She’ll find a reason to push on,” Oskar said. “Her mind will clear, and she will see this isn’t your fault.”
“The problem is, she’s not totally wrong.”
Oskar nodded, then sent his gaze through the parting tendrils of fog. “Lessons are always learned the hard way.”
The silence that followed sank like a weight on his chest, and Augustus gave over to it. The lap of water became a soothing melody. The cry of birds, a chorus.
“Augustus.”
The whisper surrounded him like one of those tendrils of cloud, except this had substance. He turned his entire body toward the sound—toward the shore and the forest beyond.
“Augustus. I need you.”
Augustus straightened. He knew that voice. “Selene.”
The men aboard the skiff stared toward the island, rowing paused.
“Augustus. Come find me.”
Her voice should have filled him with hope.
Instead, it hollowed him out.
Something was wrong.
Selene walked ahead of Petrina through the market. She met the villagers’ curious gazes, fighting her body’s urge to bolt. Instead, she smiled at the Drynopian people.
Some, she startled to realize, had normal eyes—they weren’t reincarnated. Those who were, however, recognized her and whispered “Eva” as she passed. But unlike Roman, they hesitated to do more than smile and watch her curiously.
Fine by her.
They walked for several minutes before the wall became visible through the man-made structures and over the thatched roofs. They just needed to keep this pace a little while longer—
A horn blew in the distance, then twice more. The villagers had stopped to count each blow.
Silence, then all eyes fell on Selene and Petrina.
Petrina filled her hands with knives. “Run.”
They broke into a sprint, and people scattered out of the way—the signal had been for them.
The Drynopian Guard appeared in the streets, outfitted in deep green tunics that hung to mid-thigh. Leather chest armor fit snugly to their bodies, and they wore matching vambraces and leather pauldrons. Secured to their belts were short swords and curved daggers.
Petrina led a path through the streets that Selene followed with ease. She’d trained for this. This was an obstacle course, just like back home…with very obvious differences. This was a real place, with real people, and a very real danger.
The passageways and alleys narrowed in many places but widened in others. They took stone stairways and crossed raised platforms. The guards came from all directions, appearing out of shadows and through doorways. Only sheer instinct kept them out of reach.
A familiar squawk drew Selene’s attention toward Turos, who flapped overhead. He guided them away from guards and dead ends, and provided them with shortcuts through the market.
Still, the guards closed in.
Finally, the edge of the village came into sight, and the women ran through a hub full of food stalls and boiling cauldrons.
Petrina paused at one, skidding on loose gravel. She aimed her knife at the vendor. “Move.”
He did, and she snatched a thick, fork-tipped stick from his hands.
“Keep going, Selene,” she said, then rammed the fork under the lip of the smoking cauldron.
Selene sprinted for an alley where Turos had turned.
Behind her, Petrina tipped the boiling contents into the road just as the guards drew close. They retreated, leaping out of the way and tripping over one another. Screams rang out, and new orders were shouted into the wind.
Selene turned the corner just as a large net came down like a shadow from overhead—
Reflexes took over, and she leapt back. Petrina spun them both out of the alley just as the net landed with a rush of air and dust.
Petrina’s gaze flicked between the failed trap and the villagers on the roof. “We literally can’t trust anyone, can we?”
Those weren’t guards. Those were her people.
These aren’t your people, she reminded herself.
Turos, with a furious screech, dove toward the roof with claws outstretched. The people scattered away from the edge, ducking and screaming. The dronsian’s anger pulsed through the air like a heartbeat.
“We have him on our side, at least,” Selene said.
“A lot of good that’s doing us.”
They didn’t have the time to debate it. Too much time had been wasted to avoid this trap, erasing the gain Petrina had given them. Time Selene had desperately needed.
They had a clear path to the wall now, and it was the Blade obstacle course all over again. Selene got through it all, only to find herself falling short at the end.
“I can’t do it,” she said, her legs screaming, her lungs burning. “I can’t run the wall.”
“You have to,” Petrina said. “Don’t think. Just do it.”
Defeat pulsed through her, the weight of all her past failures an anchor around her neck.
Still, she ran. Despite the burn in her lungs, her arms, her legs. Despite the looming exhaustion. She would not give up. After everything they’d been through, all they’d survived, she would climb that wall.
They jumped over a knee-high stone barrier that acted as the village limits, only to then contend with the island’s natural setting.
Waves of tree roots arced in and out of the ground like a sea snake.
Ivy dripped from branches, and streams of water wove throughout the forest. Shadows twisted around them, while low branches snagged at their clothes.
Behind them, the footfalls grew heavier and louder, a burgeoning storm on their heels.
That despair Selene struggled to hold back began to swell. This was the Drynopian people’s land—they knew how to navigate it. These obstacles only slowed her down. Time was closing in, and she feared that, even if they made it to the wall, they’d never make it over the top.
“Faster!” Selene shouted as she dodged a jutting root. She could just see the stone wall through the thick tangle of trees.
Branches snapped underfoot, and a flash of movement caught her eye on the left—one of the guards had closed the distance enough to reach out, just a few strides away. She barely had time to dodge right, veering back toward Petrina, who swore under her breath as she stumbled over a hidden stone.
The wall loomed into view, but even as it appeared, the guards’ voices grew louder, their weapons glinting through breaks in the trees, and every heavy footfall struck like the tick of a clock.
Branches lashed at Selene’s face, adding stinging pain to the burn of every muscle in her body.
“No. No, no, no,” Petrina said, her steps faltering and a pang of desperation in her tone.
The wall towered ahead, unyielding, but so did the guards. Armed men flooded the clearing in front of them.
They were surrounded.
There was no escape.