Page 95 of On Brutal Thrones

I approach slowly, my dagger shaking enough that the tip jostles back and forth. I try to take a deep breath to steady myself, but it doesn’t help. Every nerve in my body is wound so tightly I feel like the slightest sound might make me jump out of my skin.

A few feet from the shore, I stop again. Something is wrong with the water. It takes me a moment to understand what. It isn’t moving.

Not even a little.

No ripples touch the shore. No insects skate across the surface. No breeze disturbs it. I don’t hear the gentle lap of water against earth or rock.

Nothing.

I think of the creeks, small lakes, and little ponds near the manor. Of the pond where I caught my first glimpse of naked bodies, a memory that still makes me embarrassed despite everything. And of the large lake my family visited once when we spent part of a summer with another family at their lakeside residence. That water had been alive, glittering beneath the sunlight, tiny geometric waves shifting endlessly across its surface.

This water looks dead.

Pastel colors sit stagnant beneath the surface, making it look more like an enormous puddle than a living part of the world.

I take one cautious step closer. Then stop. What would Thorian do?

The answer comes immediately. He wouldn’t walk straight into it. And he definitely wouldn’t touch it. He’d observe. He’d look for the danger before the danger found him.

So I do the same.

I watch.

Seconds pass, then minutes, and nothing moves.

My breathing slowly steadies. My grip on the dagger loosens enough that my fingers begin to ache as blood returns to them.

Maybe there’s nothing wrong with it. The thought makes me immediately suspicious.

Still, the water is strangely lovely. Soft pinks and blues shimmer across its surface, almost pearlescent beneath the pale light. I edge closer, careful not to let my boots touch it, and lean forward.

I want to see what’s underneath. But I can’t. The surface reflects everything too perfectly. Including me.

My own face stares back at me. Since entering the Trials, I’ve seen my reflection while bathing and distorted in the crystals of the cave, but little else.

I’m fascinated by what I see. I look different. Of course I do. I’m exhausted. Filthy. My hair has long since escaped my braid in too many places, and there are shadows beneath my eyes that certainly weren’t there when I left home.

But that isn’t what bothers me.

I lean closer. There’s something about the woman staring back at me that feels… wrong. Not different.

Wrong.

Like someone tried to paint my likeness from memory but did so with the worst possible intentions.

My curiosity overwhelms my caution. I crouch. And my stomach drops.

The face staring back reminds me of a story my father once told me about a man who had a painting made of himself. The man remained handsome and young while the portrait aged in his place, taking on every physical manifestation of his sins.

The Nyx in the water looks like that portrait.

Her skin is too pale, almost gray. Her hair hangs lank around her face. Her cheeks are hollow. And her eyes…

I stop breathing.

They’re black. Not dark brown. Not shadowed. Black. Her pupils have swallowed her irises completely.

I suck in a sharp breath and jerk backward. The reflection moves too, but not with me.