Chapter 41 #2
Augustus barreled forward, and his body gave a satisfying jolt against Thorne’s.
He didn’t need his wrists free to make this count.
Make him feel this pain and rage. All he needed were his fists and the determination to make Tristan Thorne bleed.
Draw blood from him the way he had from Selene and his father.
With Thorne on his back, Augustus rose onto his knees, raised his fists, and the man didn’t flinch. Didn’t so much as blink.
Augustus brought his fists down like a hammer, and Thorne shifted his weight, absorbing the hit.
He fisted Thorne’s shirt and raised him until their noses nearly touched. “You killed her,” Augustus seethed through clenched teeth.
Thorne grinned, and his eyes shone with sunlight. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
He’d just ordered it. Selene’s head for a stack of coins.
Augustus was too furious to say as much and raised his hands for another blow, this one arcing sideways into Tristan’s cheek. He heard something crack and vaguely felt a fresh delivery of pain shoot through his hand.
“You took her from me,” Augustus said.
Tristan laughed—laughed—even as blood spilled from the corner of his mouth. “I’ve lost more.”
Then they were a tangle of limbs and furious fists, elbows, and rage. This wasn’t a battle for survival, but true violence, primal and ugly, born of too many ghosts. This was two men at war, grief against grief, rage against revenge.
And neither willing to let go.
Thorne pinned Augustus to his back, forearm across his neck. Sand flew, and the grit landed in his eyes. Salt tasted on his tongue. And still, he fought—
A knee jabbed into his gut, and all his air shot toward the sky. His next breath came ragged, and his vision darkened at the corners—
Tristan’s free hand rose—
A rock filled his hand and came down brutally—
The world went sideways, sand turning to stars.
Then—
Selene, taking his hand and meeting his eyes. “He’ll never be alone.”
Then nothing.
Silence.
Augustus floated in the pitch of nothingness, where pain couldn’t reach him. Time no longer mattered. Maybe this was death.
Gods, he hoped so.
This was the path back to Selene.
Color bled through the dark.
The light at first resembled stars. But as more appeared, it wasn’t sky stretching around him—it was shore. Pebbles of sand glittered in the sun. The calm sea exhaled brine and foam onto a beach untouched by blood or war.
A figure approached through the haze. First a shimmer, then a shape. A woman in a white chiton with braided straps, a gold belt, and loose blond waves.
Selene? Had to be. She’d waited for him, and together, they’d enter their next life—
Wait…no. That wasn’t her walk, nor was she that tall. She wasn’t a stranger, however. He knew that cadence.
Cassia.
His chest hollowed out, and it was only his old instincts that prevented the surfacing tears from spilling.
His mother stopped before him, bare feet coated in sand, the hem of her gown damp and fluttering in the breeze.
She gave him a cool once-over. “Did the fires of Hadate refuse you, or did you crawl from Idon’s realm on your hands and knees?”
A laugh burst from him. Gods, he’d missed her. “This is how you greet me?”
“I’ve seen you look better after losing a bar brawl followed by a drunken dip in spine-eel-infested waters.”
“Yes, well, I’m not having the best day.” He motioned to her pristine look. “You look…different.”
Stunning, actually. The treelike scar was gone from her cheek, and with the blond hair and blue eyes, she looked softer somehow. Radiant. Maybe it was the unnatural glow of this dream. The weight she carried in life was gone from her shoulders.
A chunk of hair blew across her face, and she hooked a finger around it to pull it away. “I look as I might have if the gods had given me peace instead of a sword.”
“What does that mean?”
“One day, you’ll understand their ways, but now we have bigger things to discuss.”
Augustus gestured widely at the empty shore. “Yes, I see. You’re clearly very busy.”
Her unfamiliar blue eyes sparked. “Time hasn’t cooled your tongue.”
He unleashed that smile he knew would grate her most. “I am my mother’s son.”
Where she once would have shown annoyance, instead, she smirked. “That you are. Which begs the question—why are you giving up?”
“Is that what I’m doing?”
He knew very well she saw through his lie, but he couldn’t resist any excuse to argue with her just one more time. Even if this was a dream.
“Opportunity after opportunity has passed you by,” she said, “and yet you allowed them to walk you onto that shore like a dog.”
“Your husband happens to be there too, you know. You’d rather I leave him—”
“Your father would rather you live.” Her words were a slap, striking worse than the damage inflicted on his waking body.
“Why not go to him with these demands to fight? Why are you always so godsdamned quick to point out my mistakes?”
“I’m hard on you, I know—”
“Hard?” he shouted, then chuffed out a laugh. “Demanding, brutal, unyielding—”
“Are you not perfectly suited to survive a man like Tristan Thorne?” She shook her head.
“You have no idea what it’s like to be ill-prepared for how savage the world is.
And I cannot be blamed when this is the version of me you’ve chosen to remember, Augustus.
Your heart, the way you love, you don’t just get that from your father.
You get that from me as well, and it is just as demanding and just as brutal and just as unyielding. ”
Emptiness lay where words might have taken a barbed root on his tongue.
Hadn’t he spent the last seven months recalling kinder versions of her?
For years, he’d consciously decided to focus on Cassia’s merciless nature.
Even Selene had noticed. He’d wanted to hate his mother, so he’d limited his perspective.
And dead, he couldn’t tell her what an ass he’d been, or how she’d been right all along.
“Mom,” he said, the word choked. “You must know that it isn’t just Dad I would stay and fight for. I’d have done the same for you if you’d given me the chance.”
Cassia lowered her gaze.
“You gave up,” he continued. “You dropped your blades. You—”
“Fate is a wicked, cruel thing, as you well know. My end was foretold decades ago. It was me or both of you. And you had to survive.”
As soon as the hot tears hit his eyes, Augustus shuttered his lids. Too late, the drops spilled over his cheeks, hot and heavy and unceasing.
“Son.”
He opened his eyes to her gentle stare.
Cassia swept soft fingers over his cheek. “You can’t continue holding onto this guilt. I’d make the same choice all over again. My life was never worth more than yours or your father’s.”
“Wasn’t it?”
Her pale brows lifted. “We all have a purpose. Mine was to prepare you for the trials you’ve faced and will continue to face going forward. Your journey is not yet complete.”
He released another dark laugh. “Alone and bitter like Thorne? So blind in grief that I can’t see past my own face? No, thank you. Besides, Orestis Vidalatos is dead. The gods got what they wanted from me.”
“You and Selene have more to learn and accomplish before the end.”
His heart jumped toward his throat. “She’s dead. Surely you know that.”
She pursed her lips. “Selene may lack training, but she’s clever. Smarter than you give her credit for, you fool.”
A laugh leapt from his tight chest, this one full of relief and joy. “Where is she?”
Cassia smirked. “Can you not guess the answer?”
She was fighting because if her beautiful heart was still beating, she was doing everything in her power to reach him. Now, it was on him to make sure she didn’t find a corpse.
“Now what?” he asked.
“Now, you go back and you act like the man I raised.”
Returning to the pain and devastation made his stomach drop.
Cassia cradled his face, thumbs brushing his cheeks. “I know you’re tired. I know you’re in pain. But you stay strong. You fight. You survive. That’s what our family does.” She paused, and her voice shook when she said, “I love you, my little starfish.”
The burn returned to his eyes. “I love you, Mom.”
“Wake up now. It’s time.”
Behind her, the once-quiet sea roared.
And Augustus welcomed the pain.