Page 27 of On Brutal Thrones

The ground opened beneath her.

It swallowed Nyx whole.

“Nyx!”

I barely get her name out before dust fills my mouth and lungs. I double over coughing, my eyes burning as I stumble toward where I last saw her. I can’t see anything. Dirt hangs so thick in the air that the morning disappears behind it, and another low rumble beneath my boots sends panic tearing through me.

I drop to my hands and knees and start forward anyway.

Someone grabs my shoulder.

“Wait,” Talon chokes out.

I try to shake him off.

“Fenric, wait. The ground.”

That gets through to me.

Barely.

We stay where we are as the dust slowly thins, both of us coughing and squinting through the haze. The clearing emerges piece by piece, and my stomach drops when I see what’s left of the earth in front of us.

A massive crevice splits the ground where Nyx was standing.

Thorian lies flat on his stomach at its edge, his legs spread wide for balance. His head and shoulders are over the opening, both arms reaching down into darkness. Loose dirt trickles past him in thin streams, disappearing into a hole deep enough that I never hear it land.

Nyx is nowhere in sight.

“Nyx?” I whisper.

Nothing.

Talon has gone completely still beside me.

I glance at him, and the expression on his face makes my fear worse. He’s staring at the hole like he already knows what we’re going to find at the bottom of it.

Talon always expects the worst. I’ve started to understand why.

But right now, I can’t stand the sight of it.

“Stay back!” Thorian shouts.

His voice echoes strangely from inside the crevice.

“Did you get her?” Talon demands. “Thorian, did you get her?”

No answer. My heart pounds so hard it hurts. Then I hear a cough.

Faint. Frightened. But alive.

“Thorian...”

Every muscle in my body seems to give out at once.

“I’ve got you,” Thorian says immediately. “Nyx, I’ve got you.”

She makes a terrified sound from somewhere below us, and Talon grabs my arm at the exact moment I grab his. For a second, we’re practically holding each other upright.