Page 28 of On Brutal Thrones

I start toward them.

“Don’t.” Talon tightens his grip. “Look.”

I force myself to stop long enough to actually see the ground.

The earth surrounding the crevice is fractured and unstable. Cracks spread outward from the opening, and every time Thorian shifts his weight, another section crumbles away beneath him. He knows it too. His entire body is rigid as he inches backward, dragging Nyx up a little at a time.

I hate standing here.

Every instinct I have is screaming at me to go to her, to grab Thorian, to do anything other than watch. But Talon is right. Another body near that edge might send both of them down.

So I wait.

It might be the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

First Nyx’s fingers appear, locked desperately around Thorian’s forearm. Then her other hand. Her head rises above the edge, hair coated in dirt, her face pale beneath the dust. Thorian keeps moving until he can catch her beneath the arms and drag her the rest of the way onto solid ground.

The instant she’s clear, I’m moving.

I reach her before she’s even fully on her feet and pull her against me. She’s shaking so badly I can feel it through both our clothes. My hands move over her almost frantically, smoothing her hair, touching her shoulders, her back, needing to reassure myself that she’s here and whole.

“It’s okay,” I murmur.

The words taste like a lie.

None of this is okay.

“What the hell was that?” Talon demands.

He throws a hand toward the crevice, but all four of us go still when another clump of dirt breaks loose and tumbles into the darkness.

For several breaths, no one speaks.

It’s ridiculous, but it feels as though even raising our voices might provoke the earth into opening again.

The clearing looks completely different now. The sun has climbed above the trees, burning away the last of the early morning haze. The fireflies are gone, frightened off by the violent shaking or simply lost to the daylight. Flowers that surrounded us minutes ago lie crushed beneath dirt and broken earth. Others are coated in gray dust, their bright colors muted beneath it.

Just minutes ago, we were kneeling among those flowers asking Nyx to marry us. Now I’m holding her because she nearly disappeared into the earth. The Trials have a cruel talent for reminding us how quickly happiness can be taken away.

Nyx presses closer to me, and I brush the dirt from her cheek. My hand is still shaking.

“Are you hurt?”

“I’m alive.”

That isn’t what I asked.

But right now, it’s enough.

“That,” Thorian says, his voice dangerously low, “was my father.”

Silence settles over us.

Somewhere beyond the clearing, a bird calls. The sound is so ordinary that it feels wrong.

I look at the crevice again. Valtor has made these Trials harder for us from the beginning. He’s interfered. He’s punished us. He’s bent every rule he could without pushing the other gods far enough to stop him.

But this feels different. This wasn’t an obstacle placed in our path. The ground opened directly beneath Nyx.