Page 23 of On Brutal Thrones

She’ll like Nyx. I know that with a certainty that makes my throat tighten.

“It’s only for now,” I say, running my thumb carefully over one uneven edge. “When this is over, we’ll get her a real one.”

“That is a real one,” Thorian says.

I glance at him.

His attention remains on the ring. “You made it for her. All three of us had a hand in it. I doubt anything we could buy would mean more.”

For once, Talon doesn’t immediately make a joke.

I close my fingers carefully around the ring.

Last night, we talked about a future as though we might actually have one. Nyx told us about her home, about the empty rooms and the celebrations her family used to have. She told me there could be a place there for my family when I free them. She spoke about all of us filling those rooms together, and somewhere between falling asleep beside her and waking before dawn, the idea stopped feeling like a fantasy.

I woke with my arm around her, my body seeking hers even in sleep. For a while, I simply lay there watching her. She was curled beneath the blankets, hair everywhere, her face peaceful in a way I rarely get to see. No fear. No gods. No Trials. Just Nyx.

I couldn't wake her.

Apparently, neither could the others.

Thorian was the next to rise, followed shortly by Talon, and somehow the three of us ended up outside while she slept. At first, we talked quietly about food and how soon we should leave.

While we talked, I found a straight length of hardwood among the fallen branches near the cabin and set to work stripping away the smaller limbs. After everything we’d faced yesterday, leaving without a weapon of my own seemed foolish. Talon handed me his dagger to sharpen one end, and by the time I was finished, I had a rough spear nearly as tall as I was. It wasn’t much to look at, but I tested the weight in my hands and decided it would do.

I was holding the point over the remains of our fire to harden it when Talon glanced back toward the cabin and said what all three of us had apparently been thinking.

We should ask her.

Not after the Trials. Not when we reach the Spire. Not when everything is safe, because nothing in our lives has ever been safe.

Now.

The thought still terrifies me.

“We’re probably making history,” Talon says, breaking into my thoughts. “I doubt anyone else has proposed during the Trials.”

“People are generally preoccupied with not dying,” I point out.

“Exactly. No sense of romance.”

Thorian gives him a long look.

Talon turns toward him. “You’ve watched a considerable number of these things. Surely you’d know.”

“I didn't keep records of the competitors' marriage proposals.”

“A serious oversight.”

“I’ll mention it to Valtor.”

Talon stares at him for half a second before a laugh bursts out of him. “Was that a joke?”

The corner of Thorian’s mouth lifts. “No.”

“It was. Fenric, did you hear that? Thorian made a joke.”

“A terrible one.”