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She didn’t have a family.
She was alone. Completely and totally alone.
And it was all her own fault—for trusting people, for believing in them. Aurelius? Calix? Fabulosa? Securia? She was a fool for thinking they wouldn’t betray her, one after the other.
As she neared the final few boats on the dock, something caught her eye. Up on the last ship in the line, smaller and sleeker than the big cargo boats, was a figure.
It was the figure!
The one who had done this.
The one who had ruined everything!
Princess Zosime walked up the gangplank, dressed in inconspicuous clothing, flanked by two people of such varying height they could only be Pikra and Elexis. Each of them was leading a pegasus, with a fourth steed loaded with heavy saddlebags.
She ducked behind a crate as Pikra kicked away the wooden gangplank and the hulking body of Elexis cranked the winch of the anchor.
Pegasi? Saddlebags? They are the Sisters that are going to head off Xiber!
Teigra pulled the still-wet hair from her eyes.
Are you a delicate little flower, Teigra? Or are you a rose with fucking thorns?
She knew there was probably still time to make things right. She could find a ride back to Mestibes. She could still serve her punishment for her family.
Or... she could show the princess what she was really made of!
She’d been wrong to blame herself. Teigra hadn’t ruined everything; Zosime had! It was her plan that had destroyed Teigra’s relationship with Calix! And now she was just going to leave? Sail to distant shores? Not caring about what she’d done?
Zosime shared a laugh with a sailor on the bow of the ship, who was thumbing the long whip that would spur the team of shackled hippocamps into action.
No! thought Teigra, jogging toward the edge of the water. No! She isn’t going to get away with it!
The leather flail arced through the sky, sending a snap all along the dock. The ship jerked forward, picking up speed fast. Teigra ran alongside it, finding pace she didn’t know she had. Pace she’d forgotten that she had.
Sailors ducked out of her way as she reached full stride, leaping over crates and spinning around livestock pens, eyeing the anchor at the back of the boat, too far to reach from here.
Up ahead, the ship line ended.
The open bay beckoned beyond.
There was no time left!
She won’t get away with this!
Teigra hit the edge of the dock and jumped, sailing out into nothing. She caught the anchor full in her hands, not giving a damn about the cuts.
With all of her residual rage, she dragged herself up, collapsing onto the deck.
80
AURELIUS
Jaspar kept his word. The last Aurelius heard was the sound of the carriage heading south at pace. But that too faded into blur as he ran past the sparse faces in the parklands, through thickets of trees, thicker, thicker, until he arrived, panting, at the edge of what had to be the Great Grove.
Dappled sunlight passed through the mighty oak overhead, down onto the field of swaying green buds. It was silent here, with not a single soul around. Just him and the certainty in the pit of his being.
The certainty that he could do this.
