Page 108 of On Brutal Thrones

“Look ahead,” Fenric says gently.

His fingers tighten around mine.

I swallow against the ache in my ruined throat and force myself to turn.

It shouldn’t hurt. After everything the other teams have done, maybe I should be able to look at one of them dying and feel nothing.

But I can’t.

I don't want to become someone who can.

None of this is fair. The Trials aren't fair.

I hate the gods for this. But hating them doesn't change where I am. It doesn't save Vale or Lyra. And it won't get the four of us off this lake.

So I look ahead.

I put one aching foot in front of the other and keep walking.

The Obsidian Spire rises in the distance, perched atop a massive, snow-capped mountain. It stretches so high into the sky that it looks almost like a ladder to the divines themselves.

My stomach knots. We’re going up there.

Thorian has survived the Trials again and again, but the challenges change every time. He’s faced each one as blindly as the rest of us. In the past, when his teammates died, all he could do was reach the end and leave alive.

This time, we’re all still here. We can actually win, and Thorian has no more idea what the final battle holds than any of us.

Which is kind of terrifying.

But as Fenric's hand stays wrapped around mine, Thorian leads us forward, and Talon follows at my back, I realize fear doesn't feel quite the way it used to.

It isn't a wall anymore. It's just something I carry with me.

I lift my gaze to the Spire and keep walking. We’re close now. Close to the end of the Trials. Close to Lyra. Close to the one chance we have to leave this place as victors.

Whatever waits on that mountain, I’ll face it.

15

Nyx

Although I still occasionally dream of my warm, private, lavender-scented baths back at the manor, I’ve come to appreciate bathing in natural water almost as much. The river flows cool around me, and though it isn’t steaming or scented, it carries away the sweat and grime that seem to permanently coat my skin now.

From where I am, I can see our camp atop the hill. If the men glance down, they can probably see my head and shoulders in the water, but my clothes are safely hidden on the rocks near the base of the cliff, drying beneath the sun.

I dip my head back and let my hair go weightless, spreading around my shoulders. For a moment, I’m a little girl again, playing mermaids with Lyra before she had the shadow-touch, the two of us fighting over who got to have the pink tail. Then I’d suggested a rainbow one, which was obviously better, and we'd immediately find something new to fight over.

The memory makes my chest ache.

I scrub my hands over my skin, letting the current carry the dirt away. The woven bands of my ring brush against my stomach, then my thigh, and each time, my thoughts drift to other hands. Thorian’s. Fenric’s. Talon’s.

After being with them, twice now, I’ve started to see my body differently. Not as a possession to be practical about. Not as a prize for other people to covet and claim. It belongs to me, and I can use it to experience pleasure and give pleasure to the people I love.

Because I do love them.

All three of them.

I’m not sure exactly when it happened. Somewhere between the Trials and the bloodshed, between arguments and rescues and all those moments when one of them chose me over himself, love slipped in without me noticing.