Page 106 of On Brutal Thrones

I take it gratefully, my hands shaking as I lift it to my mouth. The water is warm and tastes faintly metallic, but right now it might be the best thing I’ve ever tasted. It cools my raw throat enough that I nearly groan in relief.

“Huh,” Fenric says at last, glancing at the wet sand where Fake Talon disappeared. “I thought it would feel more gratifying to stab you.”

“Thought about it a lot, huh?” Talon asks, raising an eyebrow.

The words are right, but something about them isn’t.

They’re missing his usual spark.

I study him as I lower the canteen. His shoulders sag slightly, and there’s a hollowness in his expression that disappears almost as soon as I notice it.

I don’t even want to imagine what his copy said to him.

A crueler Talon with access to everything inside his head would know exactly where to strike. Every regret. Every insecurity. Every memory Talon buries beneath a smirk and a cutting remark.

I reach over and squeeze his arm.

He glances down at my hand, then at me.

Neither of us says anything.

All I want is to sit in the sand. My legs are trembling, my throat is on fire, and every muscle in my body feels wrung dry. I want to finish all the water, lie flat on my back, and refuse to move until I can feel my feet again.

Instead, a strange shimmer passes across the lake. All four of us turn.

“Great,” I rasp. “I saw the Vultures using magic earlier. I thought they were fighting their own copies, but what if they finished their Trial and this is them coming for us?”

Thorian shakes his head. “It isn’t them. I can sense their magic. Whatever’s happening out there, it’s not the Vultures.”

I’m not sure if that makes me feel better.

Fenric reaches down and offers me his hand. For half a heartbeat, I stare at it. I don’t want to get up.

The thought is so simple and so powerful that it almost frightens me. I want to stay right here, where all four of us are alive and together. We won. We figured out the Trial, and no one was taken from me.

But this place has never cared what I want.

I slide my hand into Fenric’s and let him pull me to my feet. My knees wobble before locking beneath me, and I force myself upright despite the ache running through every part of my body.

The lake shimmers again. My hand drifts to my dagger. Of course it does.

I stare at the water, trying to imagine what fresh horror is about to crawl from it. Sirens, perhaps, singing sweetly until we walk willingly into their gaping, toothy mouths. Or another fleet of ghosts, because tormenting the dead isn't enough for the divines if they can use them to torment us too.

My exhausted mind supplies increasingly ridiculous possibilities. Giant sea creatures. Poisonous tentacles. Enormous turtles rising from the water to squash us beneath their shells.

Then I remember a fish I once saw while staying at a lake house with my family, one that shot water from its mouth to knock insects down and eat them.

Knowing the divines, they’d replace the water with acid. I tighten my grip on my dagger. Come on, then.

The thought surprises me.

Not because I’m unafraid. I’m fucking terrified. My pulse is racing, and every instinct I possess is warning me that we survived one nightmare only to be delivered directly into another.

But I’m still standing.

The three men shift slightly in front of me, weapons ready. I almost smile despite myself. If the lake turns into a tidal wave, apparently they intend to stop it through sheer stubbornness.

But no wave comes. No monsters crawl from the depths. No dead rise. No enormous acid-spitting fish appear. Instead, the surface of the lake begins to glow.