Page 149 of On Brutal Thrones

One by one, the other gods give the same promise.

Each vow carries weight. I feel it move through the air like a pulse, warm and heavy, sinking beneath my skin. The final promise settles. And something inside me unclenches.

No god can take Lyra from me again. No one can punish the men I love because they’re angry with us. No one can curse our home. No one can drag us back into this.

We’re free.

I look at Thorian.

His eyes are already on me.

Soryn smiles.

“Go home, Lady Nyx.”

My throat tightens.

“Your sister is waiting.”

21

Nyx

Four months after the Trials, I can hardly recognize the great hall of my family’s manor. We’ve transformed it to celebrate our family’s good fortune. Long banquet tables stretch nearly from one end of the enormous room to the other, filling a space that once seemed impossibly vast whenever I walked through it as a child. Every seat is taken, and still more chairs have been squeezed in wherever they'll fit. Farmers sit beside craftsmen and merchants, entire families gathered together beneath the soaring ceiling. Children weave between tables, friends call greetings across the room, and conversation rises in a warm hum punctuated by bursts of laughter.

I move slowly through it all with a glass of wine in my hand, trying to take in what we've created. Golden summer light streams through the towering windows and the doors thrown open to the lawn. Crystal chandeliers glitter overhead, fresh flowers and greenery wind around the stone pillars, and our banners hang proudly from the high walls. Young servants in cream-and-gold uniforms weave through the crowd with silver pitchers and trays of wine, while musicians near the open doors play something light enough that a few children have started dancing.

Everywhere I look, there's abundance. Platters arrive from the kitchens faster than anyone can empty them, carrying butter-basted pheasant, beef tenderloin crusted with herbs, honey-glazed ribs, and venison covered in dark berry sauce. The air is rich with browned butter, fresh bread, rosemary, roasting meat, summer flowers, and the sweet pastries waiting for later.

But it's the people I keep looking at.

Full plates. Full glasses. Healthy faces warmed by good food and wine. No one is carefully dividing portions or wondering whether there will be enough left tomorrow. No one is talking about failed crops or another accident on our cursed lands.

They're eating.

They're laughing.

They're safe.

I don't think any amount of gold could ever look as beautiful as this.

I spot Fenric near the main table with a plate piled so high that I have no idea how he intends to finish it.

I stop beside him. “If you eat any faster, you're going to choke.”

Fenric looks up from his plate, utterly unrepentant. “Worth the risk.”

I laugh into my wine as he cuts another piece from the butter-basted pheasant. The skin is crisp and golden, the meat tender enough to fall away beneath his fork, and the scent of rosemary and browned butter mingles with a dozen other delicious smells filling the dining room.

“You should've seen him when the first course came out,” Talon says. “I thought he was going to cry.”

“I was not.”

“Your eyes got shiny.”

Fenric points his fork at him. “That was the steam.”

“From across the table?”