made it.
Deep and pitch-black, the Chasm seems to steal the surrounding light and pull it into its jagged maw. It stretches from east to west, a wound cut into the earth.
Amalia gasps when she spots it. Her hand flutters next to mine as if she’s looking for comfort—comfort I can’t give her in front of my men.
“Don’t look down,” I tell her when we pause at the true boundary between Renove and Draegan.
“How deep is it?” the princess whispers.
“No one knows.”
Then she asks the question I’ve been dreading since I realized I would have to somehow take trouble-prone Amalia across the boundary. “How do we get across?”
“This way,” Lewis says, gesturing toward the right.
We follow him, all of us hushed. Though there is no wind to sing through the rock, a howl rises from the depths of the Chasm, sounding like a wailing woman.
I stretch my neck, preparing myself for an unknown attack.
“What is that?” Amalia asks.
“Nothing,” I tell her. “Keep walking.”
Eventually, we find our crossing point. The split log lies across the narrow canyon, a makeshift bridge over the deepest, darkest depths of the earth.
“It’s still here,” Braith whispers, relieved.
I can feel Amalia tense next to me, and I know what she’s thinking—she’ll never get across.
“I’ll go first,” Morgan offers. He’s not acquainted with fear—or the common sense that often accompanies it.
“Harness,” I command when he begins toward the log.
He rolls his eyes. “Seriously, Rhys?”
“Do you want to scout the bottom of the Chasm?” I ask. “Wear the harness—that’s an order.”
The knight mutters under his breath but does as I command.
“What does the harness do?” Amalia asks, though it sounds as if she doesn’t actually want to know.
I nod to another hook affixed to the rock near the edge of the cliff. “It’s a safety precaution,” I explain. “If someone loses their footing, the rope will catch them, and we can pull them up.”
“Has anyone ever fallen?” she asks.
“Let’s get moving,” Tryndon says, cutting the conversation short. He shoves past me, waiting for his turn.
I grin at my brother’s back. “Tryndon.”
“Ah,” she says, letting out a nervous laugh.
Morgan walks over the log quickly and without fanfare, and then he heaves the harness back over the rift. Tryndon goes next, putting on more of a show than we have time for, followed by Braith, who doesn’t have the best balance. The large knight crawls on all fours, resembling a bear on a too-narrow bridge.
Halfway across, he breaks into a cold sweat.
“You can do it, Braith,” Cabe calls.
Braith growls at his younger brother to be quiet, and then he continues forward, eventually making it to the other side.
The others follow, and in just a few minutes, Amalia and I are the only ones left in Renove.
“You go first,” I tell her.
She trembles like a dry leaf as she steps into the harness.
“You’ll be fine, just like last time,” I assure her as I tighten the straps, trying not to think of how my fingers press against her body as I work. “Even if you fall, I’ll pull you up.”
“I shouldn’t have signed up for this,” she says with a ragged laugh. “I have no idea what I was thinking.”
“You were thinking you were going to save your brother,” I say softly.
Amalia meets my eyes, nodding once. Then she takes a deep, bolstering breath. “I am.”
“You are.”
“I can do this.”
I offer her a smile, one that makes her face light. “You can.”
Squaring her shoulders, she turns to the rift. She holds out her arms for balance and extends her leg, testing the log.
“Don’t try to walk,” Braith calls. “Crawling is easier.”
Ignoring him, Amalia takes her first step, then another. And now she’s over the Chasm, and I’m not sure I can watch—but I can’t look away either. A weight settles on my chest, making it hard to breathe.
Morgan says something to Braith that I don’t catch, likely mocking him. Braith punches him in the shoulder.
They’re being too distracting.
“Enough,” I say, my eyes trained on Amalia in the darkening twilight mist. She’s halfway across now, but she’s stopped. It looks like she’s trying to catch her balance.
My men and I take a collective gasp as Amalia’s arms begin to pinwheel.
She’s going to fall.
25
I was fine until I looked down. Walking across the log isn’t that different from the balancing games I played as a child.
But when I was a child, I wasn’t teetering over a depthless, black canyon that wails.
My arms begin to circle as I try to keep myself steady. For several