Page 32 of On Brutal Thrones

Thorian ignores him and looks at me. “If anything changes, I’ll know.”

I believe him. Or at least I believe that if the earth tries to swallow me again, Thorian will throw himself after me just as quickly as he did the first time.

The thought should be comforting.

Instead, it makes my chest hurt.

“I was more afraid when you went over the edge than when I did,” I tell him quietly.

His expression changes.

“Nyx.”

“I mean it. I didn’t even know you’d jumped until you were already holding me. Then I realized you were hanging over that hole too.”

“I wasn’t going to let you fall.”

“I know.”

I hesitate before adding, “And then afterward…”

Thorian’s jaw tightens.

He knows what I mean.

Talon and Fenric both go quiet too.

I almost let it go. Thorian probably wishes we would. But I can still see him pacing beside the crevice, shouting into it at Valtor before punching the tree. Worse than that was seeing him crouched in the dirt afterward, his hands buried in his hair as he admitted he didn’t know what to do.

Thorian never wants anyone to see him uncertain.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

That catches me completely off guard. “For what?”

“For losing control.”

“You don’t need to apologize for that.”

His gaze drops.

I step closer, still holding Fenric’s hand, and reach for Thorian with my free one. “You thought your father had just killed me.”

His fingers close around mine.

“I thought he had too,” Talon says.

There’s none of his usual humor in the words.

I look at him.

He shrugs, but the movement is stiff. “For a few seconds, anyway.”

Fenric squeezes my hand. “We all did.”

A chill passes through me.

I hadn’t thought about what those few seconds must have been like for them. I’d been falling, terrified and confused, but they had been standing above the hole with no idea whether Thorian had reached me in time.