Page 55 of Trial of Thorns
Caelynn
“You see now why I can’tbe your ally?” Tyadin says as Brielle enters the orb of terrors.
I nod. “I already knew. I get it.”
He purses his lips.
“I wouldn’t align with me either,” I admit.
He narrows his eyes at me but then turns his attention to the orb. We watch Brielle stand still as stone inside.
“Is she facing the same thing as you?” he asks.
“Probably,” I whisper.
“It took you a long time, even before the dagger came,” he says, a question implied.
“I had to face the monster first. That might have been the harder task.” Killing Reahgan, in some ways, felt good. I hated seeing Rev’s love for his brother and how I’d destroyed him. But killing his brother after what he’d done to me had always felt good. Sometimes, that’s what makes me hate myself the most.
I enjoyed killing him.
“Monster?” Tyadin asks.
I don’t respond. That is my secret to know. I realize now that my task had two parts. The voice took on the sound of the one from my nightmares, but it wasn’t really him. No, if it had been him, he wouldn’t have let me go so easily.
He is real and alive. And waiting for another chance to destroy lives. He is my real nightmare.
Brielle is shaking and crying. “I’m going to kill her,” she says clear as day. “We’re going to kill her for you,” she tells the vision, visible to only her. She falls to the ground, her feet folding beneath her. She rocks back and forth, sobbing. “We’ll kill her. We’ll kill her. I swear it.”
I swallow. How many others can hear what she’s saying?
She continues chanting between sobs, but then it suddenly stops. She looks up at some invisible vision and gasps. “No,” she says. “No!”
She’s standing in an instant, a dagger in her hand—a dagger identical to mine. The one I used to kill Reahgan a decade ago.
She stomps forward but then stops, her muscles freezing, her face crumpling. “HOW DARE YOU!” she screams at no one. She drops the dagger to the ground and moments later she marches from the orb with a look that could kill.
This time there is no pause. The cheers erupt immediately for Brielle.
