Page 114 of On Brutal Thrones

“Oh, trust me,” Valtor says softly.

My blood turns to ice.

“I intend to make certain Thorian doesn’t have the opportunity to disappoint me again. So don’t worry about that. Just focus on removing Thorian from your team.”

I stop breathing.

Valtor smiles, and then he’s gone. The pressure vanishes with him, and my knees buckle.

I catch myself against the rocks, sucking in a breath so violently it hurts. The river rushes normally beside me. Birds call from the trees. Somewhere above, I hear one of the men moving around camp.

Everything is exactly as it was.

Except for me.

Because I know exactly what Valtor meant. He isn’t planning to stop Thorian from entering the Trials again. He’s planning to make sure Thorian never gets the chance.

And his offer? It wasn’t really an offer. It was an order.

16

Fenric

“There you are,” I say when Nyx comes up the hill from the river.

She’d made it very clear before going to bathe that we were not to follow her down to the river. Apparently, I’d like to bathe without three men staring at me is a reasonable request, even if the idea of Nyx naked in the water made all three of us considerably less reasonable. We’d only been okay with it because we could see nearly the whole river area, save for a small space by the rocks.

The river is just far enough below camp to give her privacy but close enough that one scream would have us there in seconds. Or Thorian and Talon, anyway. Without going berserk, I’m definitely slower than those assholes.

“We were starting to think you drowned,” Talon calls jokingly, even though she hadn’t been gone long.

I’ve been cooking dinner while Thorian and Talon finish setting everything up. We’ve gotten good at this after so much time together. Everyone knows what needs to be done without discussing it, and for a little while the crackle of the fire, the smell of roasting meat, and the sound of Thorian and Talon laughing almost made this feel normal.

Then Nyx comes close enough for the firelight to touch her face.

Something’s wrong.

Her damp hair hangs in loose waves around her shoulders, but there’s a tightness around her mouth and a deep crease between her brows. Any teasing comment I might have made dies before reaching my lips.

“What’s wrong?” Thorian asks.

He’s on his feet with his hand on his sword before she can answer, staring past her toward the river as though whatever frightened her might come strolling into camp. “Was something down there?”

“Yes.”

The single word sends a chill down my spine.

Nyx reaches out and puts a hand on his shoulder. “But it’s fine.”

That does absolutely nothing to convince any of us that it’s fine.

“I think you should sit down,” Talon says.

He guides her toward the fire, shooting Thorian a look. Reluctantly, Thorian releases his sword and sits across from her.

Nyx settles beside Talon, rubbing her hands over her arms. The sun is setting, taking most of the day's warmth with it, and goosebumps rise over her damp skin. The fire pops between us, sending a spray of sparks toward the darkening sky.

I watch her. My fiancée. Our fiancée.