Page 143 of On Brutal Thrones

And he can't reach me. He can't fight his father. He can't stop what's coming.

“No.” The word is barely audible. Thorian's hands curl into fists. “No.”

The mountain trembles.

Initially, I think another quake has begun. Then Talon stumbles sideways. Fenric catches himself against a slab of black rock, staring at Thorian.

The shaking isn't coming from the mountain.

It's coming from him.

“Thorian?” Fenric says.

Thorian doesn't seem to hear him. He's looking at me.

Another charge builds in the air above me. I feel it crawling over my skin. Thorian feels it too, and his gaze lifts toward the sky. I see something inside him break. Not his heart. Whatever has been holding him back.

Thorian screams. The sound rips across the mountain, and power answers. The black rock beneath his boots fractures. Fenric stumbles backward. Talon throws an arm over his face as wind explodes outward from Thorian in a violent wave.

Then everything stops. The lightning. The thunder. All of it.

Silence drops over the mountain so completely that the sudden absence of sound hurts. Pressure fills my ears. I swallow and open my jaw, trying to relieve it.

Thorian stands perfectly still. For one heartbeat. Two. Then fire erupts from his body.

Terror streaks through me. “Thorian!”

Flames race over his shoulders and down his arms. They pour across his chest, wrap around his legs, climb into his dark hair.

I scream his name in terror, but he doesn't burn. His clothes don't catch. His skin doesn't blacken. He slowly raises one hand and looks at the flames curling around his fingers. His expression changes. Not surprise, but recognition. As if this power has been buried inside him all along.

The silence breaks with a violent pop.

Sound crashes back into the world. Thunder. Wind. Fire. And lightning.

Valtor strikes again, and Thorian looks up. The bolt comes straight for him. He raises his hand. Fire explodes upward. Lightning and flame collide, and the sky turns white.

I throw an arm over my eyes, screaming as heat rolls across the mountainside. But when I look again, the lightning is gone.

And Thorian is still standing.

“Holy shit,” Fenric whispers.

Thorian looks at me, then Valtor hurls another bolt. Fire tears from Thorian's body and catches it. The lightning disappearing uselessly.

Another bolt strikes him. Then another. Each strike disappears into the inferno surrounding Thorian.

He keeps walking toward me, and the flames around him spread across the mountain, but they don't burn the grass now. They move with purpose, racing ahead of him, surrounding me.

I flinch when they touch my boots, but there's no pain. Warmth curls around my ankles. It climbs my legs and wraps around my body, soft despite the impossible heat blazing from the flames. It feels alive. Protective. Like Thorian’s touch.

Thorian reaches me, and for a second, neither of us speaks. His face is different. Not physically, but there is power in him now that wasn't there before. It fills the air around him so completely that I can barely breathe through it.

“You were supposed to go,” I whisper.

His jaw tightens. “Never.”

Then he lifts me, and I wrap my arms around his neck as another bolt comes down. But Thorian doesn't even look at it. Fire rises from his back and swallows the lightning before it reaches us.