Page 23 of On Burning Paths

There's no other explanation for this. The storm didn't roll in… it detonated, cracking open the sky the moment we cleared the cemetery, as though the god had been waiting, watching, and the second we stepped free of that place he let us have it. We all understood it without having to say it aloud. Nyx had walked back into his trial and undone what he'd built. She'd stood in the middle of that cursed ground and given those children permission to leave, and they had. Now he was making sure we knew how he felt about it.

I glance at her through the curtain of rain, her head down against the wind, and I realize that I admire the hell out of her. She’s like no one I’ve ever met in my life, and that’s a good thing. Valtor can be as pissed as he wants but this one mortal woman ruined the “toys” he was playing with.

So, let him rage.

Ahead, Thorian plows through the foliage, making it easier for Nyx and I as we move. It’s like he naturally takes care of people, even while pretending he doesn’t. Thorian is an interesting guy.

After going berserk in the swamp, I'd woken half-submerged in water, my warm body cooled by the stuff, every muscle screaming. I don't remember much of what came before, but I remember waking to Nyx's face above mine, and Thorian's steady hands, and understanding in a slow, foggy way that they had kept me alive through the night when they had no obligation to.

I glance at them again through the curtain of rain and feel a fierce, uncomplicated warmth rise inside me. If I'm going to endure a storm like this, I'm glad it's with them.

We're not just soaked. We're drowned. Sodden from head to toe, moving through the forest like dishcloths floating through a washing bucket. It feels less like we’re in a rainstorm and more like we’re standing directly beneath the torrent of a waterfall. The wind whips viciously, turning the drops into projectiles that sting the face and hit the skin like a thousand tiny pebbles. Leaves and branches and debris fly through the din, smacking into us from every direction.

When a particularly large branch comes hurtling toward Nyx, Thorian turns back, his arm appearing through the haze just in time to catch it and hurl it to the ground. Like the giant demi-god he is.

It’s hard not to feel jealous… and a little impressed.

The thing is, this storm is miserable, and yet, I’d walk through ten storms like this one. A hundred. If it means those children are free, if it means they found whatever warmth is waiting for them on the other side, I will endure every miserable, sodden, wind-battered step of it and count myself fortunate.

Thorian shouts something I can't quite make out and we turn, following him up a rocky path. I keep a hand on Nyx in front of me, terrified she'll lose her footing on the long rocky expanse to our left, slicked with rain and treacherous underfoot.

And then, all at once, the storm goes quiet.

We step into a cave in the rocky outcropping, my ears ring from the sudden shift. The wind no longer whips against me, but it’s like my body can’t adjust to this newest change in environment. Inside the cave, it’s as though we’re in our own little bubble. Protected.

“Thank the gods,” Nyx mutters, her back hitting against one of the stone walls. She slides down, sitting and wrapping her arms around her knees. Then, she mutters, “Not actually. It’s just a saying. Gods. Ugh.”

Thorian and I share a look. Nyx has been through a lot today. We just need to get her warm and resting, so she can face whatever the gods have planned for her tomorrow.

Thorian busies himself with trying to make a fire, and I rummage through the pack he left on the ground for what we have left. A handful of nuts, some squashed berries, two mushrooms. Not much, but something.

Nyx looks wet and cold, her leather outfit darkened with rain, her hair matted against her head and neck, a few tendrils stuck to her forehead. I sit next to her, thinking the heat of my body might help. I reach out and pluck a leaf from her cheek, thinking of the three of us walking through the autumnal woods together, back when all of this felt new and uncertain.

It feels like eons ago.

"It was my father," Thorian says, his voice hard. He snaps a few twigs in half. Luckily, there were some already in the cave and mercifully dry. "He was furious that you freed the Ashen. The storm was his way of punishing everyone. A godly tantrum that he lost the children, the toys he liked to play with."

Nyx doesn't look surprised. None of us are. We'd all understood it without saying it aloud, the moment the sky cracked open as we cleared the cemetery.

"He was keeping them there," she says quietly. It isn't a question.

"For his own amusement," Thorian confirms, his jaw tight. "Even in death, those children were useful to him. Something to frighten the competitors with. Something to make the trial more interesting." The word comes out with undisguised contempt. "He's a barbaric son of a bitch who plays with the suffering of others. I suspect not all the other gods approved, not that any of them would have done anything about it. They're all complicit, either through their own malice or through their tolerance of his."

"That's disgusting," I say, and I mean it down to my bones. Children. He kept children trapped in that place, frightened and alone and unable to rest, because it served him.

"It is," Nyx whispers.

Every time Thorian speaks of his father, it's with this unfiltered rage, like a wound that's never fully closed. Over the past days, our bond has strengthened into more than I ever anticipated when we first set out together. I've come to understand that this anger isn't Thorian being difficult. It runs deep, and it's earned.

I watch as he gets a fire going somehow, despite the damp and the poor excuse for kindling, and I wish I knew how to give him somewhere to put all of that rage and unhappiness.

"Hey," Nyx says, getting to her feet and moving to him. Thorian goes completely still when she wraps her arms around him, setting her cheek against his back. "Nobody here thinks otherwise about your father. We're on your side."

"We are," I say, and I mean that too.

Thorian's anger seems to drain out of him at her touch. They stand like that for a long moment, and I watch them, feeling a quiet warmth settle in my chest. Belonging, maybe. The kind that makes a place feel like home.

When Nyx lets go and turns back to the fire, I find my voice.