Page 101 of On Brutal Thrones

Again, nothing.

There are sounds out there. I know there are. The faint ring of metal reaches me, only to vanish so quickly I wonder if I imagined it. A grunt comes from somewhere to my right. Farther away, a branch snaps loudly enough to send birds exploding from the trees, but when I turn toward it, all I see is white.

No wonder none of us have found each other.

When I was inside that mist, I couldn’t see more than a few feet in any direction. I had no idea how far I’d walked or where the others had gone. For all I know, we could be within shouting distance of one another without realizing it, or we could now be really far from each other. I have no way to know.

A flash of purple briefly illuminates the trees farther down the shore.

The Vultures.

Another burst follows, green this time, but the mist swallows the light almost immediately.

I take a step in that direction, then stop. Whatever is happening out there, everyone seems to be fighting. And after what just crawled out of that lake wearing my face, a horrible possibility settles over me.

What if the same thing happened to them?

My stomach twists. If Thorian, Fenric, and Talon are fighting copies of themselves, they’re facing opponents who know how they move, how they think, maybe even what they’ll do before they do it. I have no idea if that’s what’s happening, but I can’t ignore the possibility.

Especially because I might know how to help them.

I just have to find them.

“Thorian!” I scream, putting everything my already-aching throat has into his name.

Nothing answers.

Fear tightens around my ribs. Then movement catches my eye farther down the shore. A figure bursts from the mist near the edge of the lake, stumbling several steps onto the sand before catching himself.

Tall. Broad shoulders. Dark hair.

My heart slams against my ribs. Thorian.

Before I can even shout his name, another figure crashes into him from behind, and they disappear into the mist again.

“No!”

I run.

My boots sink into the loose sand, making every stride harder than it should be. My thighs are already exhausted from fighting Fake Nyx, and my lungs are burning too, but I push harder.

I saw him.

I know I saw him.

“Thorian!”

Metal rings somewhere inside the woods. I follow the sound along the shoreline, afraid to enter the mist and lose my bearings again. For several horrible seconds, I see nothing.

Then the two figures spill out of the woods ahead of me.

Relief floods through me. I found him.

The feeling lasts only a heartbeat, because there are two Thorians. And I know how to beat them. I just have to figure out which one is my Thorian.

Their swords crash together hard enough that the ring of metal carries across the sand. I slow, searching desperately for some difference between them. When I fought Fake Nyx, I knew almost immediately that she was wrong. Her hair was slightly different. Her face was crueler. Her eyes were pitch black.

But these two...