Page 19 of A Spark in Time (A Knights Through Time Romance #21)

T he second wave of Spartans came with the sunset, their ships dark against the dying light like wounds in the sky.

Things I should have learned by now: never celebrate surviving one disaster because the universe is definitely preparing another one. Also, Spartans are like cockroaches—there’s always more than you think.

The Nereid was already crippled, listing badly where the bronze ram had torn through her hull. They’d patched what they could, but she moved like a drunk debutante at four in the morning—all wobble and no grace.

“Pósoi?” — How many? Kassander asked his lookout, voice steady as granite.

“Hex plo?a… ísōs heptá.” — Six ships… maybe seven.”

The crew went silent. Seven ships against their broken bird and Dmitri’s Revenge . Even Bebe could do that math.

“We could run?” Alexios suggested, though his tone said he already knew the answer.

“We can’t outrun them. Not with this hull.” Kassander studied the approaching ships like a chess player considering a board where all moves led to checkmate. “We make them pay for every inch of water.”

Of course we do. Because heaven forbid we try something sensible like surrendering or negotiating or literally anything that doesn’t involve pointy objects.

But she was already moving, gathering medical supplies—what little remained. Strips of cloth, the wine they used for wounds, a heated blade for cauterizing. She’d learned enough in the last battle to know what came next.

“You should take the boat,” Kassander said, appearing at her elbow. “You and the worst wounded. Dmitri can?—”

“Stop.”

“Bebe—”

“I said stop.” She turned to face him, chin high despite the fear crawling up her spine like ice. “We’ve had this conversation. I stay.”

His hand caught her face, thumb brushing her cheekbone with surprising gentleness. “This isn’t like before. This is?—”

“The end?”

“A last stand.”

“Then we stand together.”

Something broke in his expression—control, maybe, or the careful distance he’d maintained since that kiss in the storm. He pulled her against him, kissed her hard, desperate, tasting of blood and goodbye.

“Stubborn woman,” he murmured against her lips.

“Reckless man.”

“We’re well matched then.”

The first burning arrow hit the deck, then another, then dozens, falling like stars giving up on heaven. The tar-soaked wood caught immediately.

“POSITIONS!” Kassander roared, breaking away from her, all warrior again.

The Spartans came in a rush—no strategy this time, just overwhelming force. They crashed into the Nereid from three sides, men pouring over the rails like wine from a broken bottle.

Kassander fought like something out of Homer’s fever dreams—terrible, beautiful, inexorable. His blade was everywhere, holding the line through sheer will and violence. But there were too many. Even gods could be overwhelmed by numbers.

Bebe worked frantically—dragging wounded men from the fighting, pressing cloth to fountaining wounds, trying to save what couldn’t be saved. The smoke was getting thicker, the fire spreading despite their efforts.

She saw the spear before Kassander did.

A Spartan officer, coming from his blind side while he fought two others. The bronze point aimed at his exposed ribs, a perfect killing thrust.

“No!”

She moved without thinking, throwing herself between them. The spear meant for his heart took her in the shoulder instead, punching through flesh like paper.

The pain was... educational. White-hot, electric, consuming. She’d thought she knew what pain was—corseted too tight, feet bleeding in new shoes, the rake through her palm that started everything.

This was different. This was the kind of pain that rewrote your understanding of the world.

“óchi! Katára ston Hádē! — No! Curse Hades!”

Kassander’s roar could have shaken Olympus. He killed the spear-wielder with his bare hands—literally tore the man’s throat out—then spun to catch her as she fell.

But he didn’t stop fighting.

Even as he held her, even as his own blood mixed with hers from the three arrows now decorating his chest, he kept his sword moving. A Spartan approached; he gutted him. Another tried to flank them; Kassander’s blade found his neck.

“You impossible woman,” he gasped between kills. “You impossible, magnificent, infuriating?—”

An arrow took him in the thigh. He stumbled but didn’t fall, driving his sword through another attacker even as his leg gave out.

“Kassander, you need to?—”

“Shut up.” But he said it softly, almost lovingly. “Let me save you for once.”

He fought from his knees, using his body to shield hers, taking wounds meant for her. A sword cut across his back. Another arrow in his shoulder. A spear thrust that glanced off his ribs but left him gasping.

The ship was fully ablaze now, the heat like a living thing. Through the smoke, she could see they were alone—the crew dead to the last man, the Spartans pulling back to watch them burn.

“Can you swim?” he asked, blood bubbling on his lips.

“Yes, but?—”

“Good.” He pressed his dagger—the one she’d carried, the one she’d used to cut bandages—into her hand. “The current will take you east. There’s a fishing village?—”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Yes, you are.” He coughed, more blood. Too much blood. She pressed her hands to the worst wound, but it was like trying to hold back the sea.

“Please,” she begged. “Please, there has to be?—”

“Listen to me.” His hand caught her face again, forced her to meet his eyes. They were still so blue, even as the light faded from them. “I was nothing before you. Just another sword, another war, another meaningless victory. You made me more.”

“Kassander—”

“Zíse, argyrí kóri!” — Live, silver girl! His voice was fierce despite the weakness creeping in. “Live. See your everywhere and anywhere. Tell terrible stories about the Thessalian bastard who kidnapped you. Curse me if you must—but live .”

The deck beneath them cracked, flames eating through.

“I can’t?—”

“You can. You’re stronger than Athens, smarter than their councils, braver than their armies.” His thumb brushed away tears she didn’t know she was crying. “You survived time itself to get here. You’ll survive this.”

Another crack. The ship was breaking apart.

“Pídē!” — Jump! he ordered, using the last of his strength to push her toward the rail. “Now.”

“I love you,” she said, because someone should say it, because it was true, because she’d traveled twenty-four hundred years just to learn that love was always goodbye.

His smile was soft as spring rain. “I know.”

The deck collapsed.

She hit the water hard, the cold shocking her wounds into fresh agony. When she surfaced, gasping, the Nereid was a mountain of flame against the dark sky.

Swim, his voice echoed in her head. Live.

So she did. Through water that felt thick as blood, through waves that wanted to drag her down to wherever heroes go when their stories end. She swam until her shoulders screamed, until her lungs burned worse than the ship behind her.

She swam because he’d told her to.

Because it was all she had left of him.

The fishing village lights twinkled in the distance like stars that had decided to try living on earth for a while.

Behind her, the Nereid gave one last groan and slipped beneath the waves, taking Kassander and his terrible smile and his beautiful violence down to the dark.

Live, silver girl.

She would. She’d live enough for both of them.

But first, she was going to cry until the sea itself tasted of grief.

The ring at her waist pulsed once, cold now, cold as the water, cold as the space where he used to be.

This is what you brought me here for? She thought at it. To learn that love is just loss waiting to happen?

But even as she thought it, she knew it wasn’t true.

She’d learned that love was a choice. That freedom had a price. That sometimes the most beautiful things were also the most temporary.

Damn you, Kassander. Damn you for making me understand.

She swam on, toward lights and life and whatever came after happily never after.