Page 24 of On Brutal Thrones

“Still counts.”

I’m smiling when Talon suddenly goes quiet.

His head turns toward the cabin.

A moment later, I hear it too. The soft creak of the door opening.

“Guys?”

Every trace of amusement leaves me, and I turn. Nyx stands in the doorway, blinking into the morning light, and my heart does a strange, painful thing inside my chest.

There she is.

The woman I want to marry.

Until this moment, some small part of me has wondered if we're moving too quickly. We haven't known one another long enough by any reasonable measure. We're trapped in a competition designed to kill us. Gods are watching us. Enemies are hunting us. We don't even know whether we'll be alive tomorrow.

But nothing about what I feel for her seems rushed.

If anything, it feels like I've spent my entire life trying to find my way here.

She’s wearing her leathers. The ties along the back are loose. Although she is capable of doing them herself, lately she’s gotten into the habit of asking one of us to help. A tiny intimacy that shouldn't mean nearly as much to me as it does.

Her dark hair is loose too, still a little unruly from sleeping. She'll probably braid it before we leave, but for now it falls around her shoulders, catching the early light.

I like seeing her like this.

Not because she looks beautiful, although she does. She always does. I like it because this Nyx belongs to the quiet hours. The Nyx who isn't fighting for her life or trying to save someone she loves. The woman who wakes with tangled hair and half-tied clothing and calls for us because she expects us to be there.

I want thousands of mornings like this one.

The realization settles any doubt I have left.

“Over here,” I call.

Nyx lifts a hand over her eyes and searches until she spots us. Her face brightens, and she starts across the clearing.

The sight makes my chest ache.

Fireflies still linger in the cool morning air, blinking among flowers that seem to have bloomed overnight. Yesterday, this clearing was mostly green. Now blossoms cover it in pinks, yellows, whites, and purples, as though the earth itself decided to give us something beautiful after everything we survived beneath it.

Nyx slows as she approaches, her gaze moving from me to Talon to Thorian.

“Why do you all look guilty?”

Talon places a hand over his chest. “Guilty?”

“Yes.”

“I’m wounded.”

“You look the guiltiest.”

“That’s just my face.”

She laughs, wrapping her arms around herself against the chilly morning air. “So, what’s going on?”

Her attention wanders across the clearing, taking in the flowers, the lingering fireflies, the morning light filtering through the trees. Then she looks back at us, and I see the first hint of suspicion enter her expression.