Page 33 of On Brutal Thrones

“I’m sorry.”

Three expressions immediately turn toward me.

Talon actually looks offended. “Why are you apologizing?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s a terrible reason.”

A small laugh escapes me.

“There,” Talon says. “Much better.”

Thorian’s thumb moves once across my knuckles before he releases my hand. “Stay between us for a while.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Is that an order?”

“Yes.”

“Of course it is.”

Fenric smiles beside me. “For once, I agree with him.”

Talon steps to my other side. “And if the ground attempts to eat you again, we’ll simply refuse.”

I glance at him. “That’s your plan?”

“Very firmly.”

Another laugh slips out of me, more real this time.

It doesn’t erase the fear. My attention still drops every few steps, and when a stone rolls beneath my boot, my heart still jumps. But now Fenric is holding one of my hands, Talon walks close enough that his shoulder occasionally brushes mine, and Thorian stays several paces ahead, inspecting the trail as though he intends to personally threaten the earth into behaving.

I feel safer, although not safe. I’m beginning to think there’s an important difference.

My thumb brushes the ring on my finger. I’ve barely stopped touching it since Fenric slid it into place. Even while I was hanging over that crevice, I remember seeing it on my hand for one absurd instant and thinking that I couldn’t lose it.

Now I turn it slowly around my finger, tracing the tiny grooves in the woven birch. There are places where the strips overlap and one little ridge that catches beneath my thumb every time it circles my finger.

“You’re going to wear a hole through it,” Fenric says.

I look up. “I like touching it.”

His expression immediately softens.

“It isn’t very good,” he says.

I stop walking.

“What?”

“The weaving.”

I stare at him.

Fenric gestures toward my hand. “There are a few places I could’ve done better.”

I lift my hand toward the morning light, turning the ring to admire its tiny imperfections. My throat tightens.