Page 100 of On Brutal Thrones

“We start again.”

The words turn my blood cold.

I imagine her rising. Picking up the dagger. That horrible smile returning to my face. Fighting until one of us finally kills the other, exactly as the gods intended.

I don’t know if she’s telling the truth. For all I know, this is simply another part of the Trial. Another trick designed to make me pick up that blade and do exactly what it wants.

But she isn’t reaching for the weapon.

She’s waiting.

“Alright,” I whisper.

I grab the dagger.

I have to do this without thinking. Without giving myself time to question what she is, whether she’s lying, or whether there’s another choice I haven’t found yet.

I grab the dagger.

When I thrust the blade forward, there’s resistance. Then a sickening give. Warm liquid oozes over my hand, but I force myself to look.

Black blood coats my fingers, thick and sticky. Fake Nyx stares at me with her mouth hanging open, but there’s no pain in her expression.

Just relief.

A thin stream of black leaks from the corner of one eye. Then her face begins to change. Her cheek ripples. Her shoulder collapses inward. The edges of her body lose their shape, her form turning to water before spilling into the lake behind her.

I yank my hand back, but she catches my wrist.

Her fingers are already losing their shape. Cool water slips between mine.

I freeze.

Fake Nyx looks directly into my eyes.

And with the last of my voice, she whispers the last thing I ever expected to hear from someone I just buried a dagger in.

“Thank you.”

14

Nyx

The moment Fake Nyx dissolves completely into water, the mist around me sinks into the ground.

Sound rushes back first. The distant clash of metal. A shout I can’t make out. The faint crackle of magic somewhere deeper in the woods. I spin in a circle, disoriented by how much larger the world suddenly feels after being trapped inside that wall of white.

The lakefront is still clear. Behind me, though, the woods are still buried beneath the strange mist, the trees disappearing into white only a few feet past the edge of the sand. It’s nothing like real fog. It hangs too thickly between the trunks, shifting and curling as if it has a mind of its own.

“Thorian!”

I wait, straining to hear an answer.

Nothing.

My relief at surviving my own fight drains away.

“Fenric! Talon!”