Page 38 of On Brutal Thrones

The smell is coming from it. The realization turns my stomach.

“Oh, Gods,” I whisper.

Fenric steps up beside me. “What the fuck is that?”

I don’t know. None of us do.

Then the surface moves.

At first, it’s subtle enough that I think the sunlight is playing tricks on me. One of the dark sections seems to swell slightly before settling again. Another follows. Then another.

My skin prickles.

The movement spreads across the field in a slow ripple. The pale lines constrict, drawing inward, while the wet red sections between them rise. Then everything relaxes.

A few seconds pass.

It happens again. Rise. Fall. A slow, steady rhythm.

My stomach twists as my mind makes a comparison I desperately don’t want it to make.

“It looks like it’s breathing.”

Fenric stares at it. “I really wish you hadn’t said that.”

“So do I.”

Farther out, something bubbles beneath the surface. A rounded bulge forms, growing slowly until the red membrane over it stretches thin and glossy.

Then it bursts.

The wet popping sound carries all the way to us, and a wave of stench follows. I gag and slap a hand over my mouth. Fenric turns away, coughing into his shirt.

The smell is almost unbearable now that there are no trees or hills between us and its source. Sweetness and copper and something rotten combine into a stench so thick I feel as though I’m breathing it into my lungs.

I stare at the red field again. At the wet shine. At the darker patches around the edges and the brilliant ruby color farther toward the middle. And suddenly my mind stops trying to convince me that I’m looking at mud. Because I know that color. I know that smell. I’ve seen enough of both during these Trials.

“It’s blood, right?” Fenric asks.

His voice sounds thin.

I swallow, but the taste of copper seems to have coated my tongue.

The field gives another slow pulse.

Looking at it now, I can’t stop seeing flesh. The dark maroon edges look bruised, while the brighter center seems raw and exposed. Those pale lines remind me of tissue beneath torn skin.

A wound. Except a wound has to be part of a body. And I have absolutely no desire to discover what could possibly be large enough to bear one this size.

I grip Fenric’s arm. “Please tell me we aren’t actually going in there.”

“I would love to tell you that.”

“But?”

His expression twists. “I’d be lying.”

I groan and look toward Thorian, hoping he might have found some brilliant alternative in the last few minutes. Instead, he’s staring across the field toward the distant line of trees.