Page 128 of On Brutal Thrones

Thorian releases us first. Of course he does. He clears his throat and looks toward the mountain, his face severe against the storm-dark sky. For one distracting second, I find myself thinking that no man has any right to look that handsome after days without a proper bath.

Then his eyes meet mine.

“This will be the worst Trial,” he says. “It’s not just the Vultures anymore. The gods will interfere. The closer we get to the end, the worse it’ll become.”

Talon exhales through his nose. “Fantastic. I was worried they might let us walk up.”

Fenric’s mouth tightens. “We’ve made it through everything else.”

“We have,” Thorian says.

There’s no hesitation in his voice, and I cling to that certainty even as my stomach rolls unpleasantly around the handful of berries and nuts I forced down this morning.

We’re almost there, close enough that finally, the end feels real.

We turn toward a narrow trail winding through the broken black terrain at the base of the mountain, but movement catches my eye before we can start.

“Wait.”

Nearly a field’s length away, three figures emerge through the gloom. Lightning flashes, and for one bright instant, I see them clearly. The Vultures.

My stomach drops.

Magnus stands between the others, his ruined skin unmistakable even at this distance. The brief flash of light catches the wet, uneven surface of his face before darkness swallows him again. The sight is enough to bring back the memory of burned flesh and acid, and my breakfast threatens to come back up.

He doesn’t hesitate. None of them do. They head straight toward another trail cutting through the foothills, moving quickly toward the mountain.

“No rest?” Talon mutters.

“They knew where they were going,” Fenric says.

Magic blooms around the three warlocks, muted reds and purples glowing through the storm. The colors seem weaker than they once did, but they still make fast progress over the broken ground, barely seeming bothered by the wind.

Too fast.

“Valtor,” I say.

Thorian’s jaw flexes. “Maybe.”

Or maybe their magic is protecting them. Maybe they’re simply less exhausted than we are. Maybe I’m so used to Valtor tipping the scales against us that I see his hand in everything now. But after the power they somehow had left to attack our camp this morning, then fight their own copies at the lake, I don’t believe in coincidences anymore.

Lightning flashes again, and they’re already farther ahead. Panic gives me a sudden urge to run after them. We could not even lose to the Vultures’ magic or the gods’ cruelty. We could lose just because we don’t reach the top first.

“Come on.” Thorian steps into my line of sight, forcing me to look at him instead. “Don’t watch them.”

“But they’re already ahead.”

“We can’t control what they do,” Thorian says. “We control what we do. Let’s go.”

He turns away, and I force myself to do the same.

The terrain at the base of the mountain is brutal in its own way. The trail winds through jagged shelves of black stone and patches of loose rock that shift beneath our boots. Sometimes we have to squeeze between boulders. Other times the ground rises sharply enough that we have to use our hands to scramble up before the trail levels out again.

Within minutes, my calves are burning and my lungs ache from dragging cold air into them. Sweat gathers beneath my clothes despite the wind, and my injured arm hurts for the first time in a while, throbbing in time with my heartbeat.

No one complains, which might be the clearest sign of how tired we are. Talon doesn’t make jokes. Fenric doesn’t try to fill the silence. Even Thorian’s occasional instructions are clipped down to a word or two.

“Left.”