Labyrinth of Shadows

by Kyla Stone

  “Do you want my wound to fester and become infected?” I ask in the same coldly displeased tone as my mother. “Do you wish to answer to Queen Pasiphae for this?”

  Finally, the guard nods in resignation.

  I turn away from him. “Fetch the physician and wait outside the door until I am ready.”

  “Do not keep King Minos waiting,” the guard says curtly and leaves the training room.

  I sag against Tarina’s cot. I’ll pay for displeasing my father, for dishonoring him by my refusal to obey, but I cannot leave my friend. I clutch her hand as she writhes in agony, her face colorless, her eyes rolling wildly. Far too much blood stains her stomach and loincloth. I can hardly see the wound for all the blood.

  “Don’t die,” I whisper over and over.

  It takes only moments for a royal physician to arrive. He’s an aged man, with a dour face and lines bracketing his mouth and tired eyes. “Let me see your arm.”

  “My arm is nothing! I’m fine. Tend to Tarina.”

  “My orders are to tend only to the princess.”

  “She’s about to die! I’m unhurt.”

  He shakes his head. “She’s only a slave.”

  Fresh anger boils through me. “Shall I report to my father that you have disobeyed my wishes?”

  He stares at me, suddenly uncertain.

  “Delay a moment further, and I will see you dismissed from your post.” I harden my voice, my eyes. If the physician doesn’t see a formidable opponent he’d be unwise to cross, Tarina will bleed out in front of me. “Or would you rather my father threw you into the Labyrinth to take your chances with the monster?”

  He does not. A muscle in his jaw jumps, but he moves to Tarina’s cot.

  In truth, only the worst criminals and murderers are sentenced to death in the Labyrinth—and only those my father particularly loathes and most desires to die a violent, brutal death. Occasionally, my family’s ruthless reputation works in my favor.

  I move aside as the physician leans over Tarina, dabbing at her stomach with a wet linen cloth. He cleans the gash and presses a poultice to the wound. The flesh over her ribs gapes open. I see white flecks of bone.

  Sickness lurches up my throat. I swallow and refuse to look away.

  The physician wraps Tarina’s ribs and stomach in clean linens and turns to his tray of medicines. He searches among small bottles of herbs and ointments—a garlic-honey salve to prevent infection, poppy seeds to ease pain, a drought of willow bark for headaches and sleeping sickness.

  I recognize some from my mother’s own herbal collection. But my mother has potions and elixirs that do things no mere physician or healer can imitate.

  The physician picks two jars, mixes and mashes their contents, and drips the medicine between Tarina’s dry, cracked lips. “She’ll sleep now.”

  I squeeze Tarina’s fingers more tightly. She moans. “Can’t you give her something to ease her pain?”

  “I’ve given her what herbal remedies I have. But—she is gravely wounded. The king-bull’s horn cracked two ribs and pierced several of her internal organs. There’s too much bleeding. I’m sorry, Princess Ariadne.”

  “It should have been me,” I whisper, guilt clogging my throat.

  His gaze gentles. “Dancing with the king-bull is dangerous. The gods are fickle. It’s not difficult to displease them.”

  The goddess is punishing me. In my desperation to prove my worth, I may have killed my dearest friend.

  Tarina moans again. I stroke her hair, brush the sand from her forehead. A single streak of dark red mars her cheek. I stare at it until my eyes blur. “Why did you save me, you stupid, stupid girl?”

  The physician unwinds a clean linen bandage. “There’s nothing you can do for her. Let me finish tending your wounds.”

  I push away from him and stumble to my feet. “There must be something you can do.”

  The physician shakes his head. “She’s beyond any of the healers’ abilities…” He frowns, gives a barely perceptible shake of his head.

  “What?”

  “Only—”

  I fix my gaze on his. “Tell me.”

  He licks his lips nervously, clears his throat. “I wouldn’t dare to suggest such a thing for any other patient, but since you are close to the throne...”

  “Speak your mind.”

  “There are...rumors. Queen Pasiphae may be able to do something.”

  “Of course.” I know the rumors. Half-whispers and half-truths. That she can renew youth. That she holds the power of the gods. That she can bring a person back from the brink of death. And that her bargains always demand more than they give, suppositions for the daring and the desperate.

  But I am desperate. “I’ll go to her immediately.”

  Two royal guards burst into the training room. “The king will wait no longer. Come now.”

  One seizes my arm, polite but insistent. I twist around as the guards hustle me out the door. “Keep her alive until I return.”

  I cast one last glance at Tarina’s still form on the cot, then turn my attention to the task before me. I will endure this. Then I’ll find my mother and demand her help. My courage failed me in the arena, but I can’t allow it to fail me now.

  Chapter Four

  I find my mother in her elaborate chambers, reclining on a large velvet cushion dyed the rich black of midnight sky. “May I enter?”

  She looks at me, her face in shadow, her expression closed. “What did the king say to you?”

  Only moments ago, I stood in the throne room with its arched ceiling, tapered red columns, and high walls lined with bronze shields and faced the king, his advisors, and the high priestess.

  I see again the disgust twisting my father’s lips as his harsh words echo in my mind. Do you think me cruel? Have I been unfair to you? You’ve shamed the entire kingdom…you disgraced the goddess…you are no longer a priestess.

  I care little for the priestesshood—their rules and rituals and ancient rites, but the priestesses ordain the bull-dancing. It’s the arena I love—the black sand squishing between my toes, the screaming crowds, the thrill of tumbling and spinning through the air.

  It’s beautiful and terrible and exhilarating and dangerous all at once, an ode to both life and death.

  My breath hitches in my throat. “I will participate in the tribute sacrifice tomorrow evening at dusk as my last act as a priestess. I—I’ll never set foot in the arena again.”

  The faintest frown ghosts her lips. She takes a long swallow from a goblet of spiced wine. Her little black snake coils around her wrist. A second snake, a long brown viper, drapes across her shoulders, its arrow-shaped head resting drowsily on her shoulder, tongue flickering.

  There are two paths to become priestess—the way of the bull or the way of the snake. My mother chose the way of the snake. Even as a child, she drank weakened venom and submitted to the bites of adders, vipers, and cobras imported from Egypt and the mainland to strengthen her blood.

  Now I fear she is as cold-blooded as the vipers she loves.

  A part of me longs to run to her, to weep upon her knee and release my shame and fear and pain, to beg her to intervene on my behalf, to somehow allow me to dance with the bulls again.

  But I know she can’t help me even if she wished. And I doubt that she wishes.

  I am the one who lived. She would love me if I were dead. Or if I were a monster.

  My hands clench into fists, my nails digging into my stinging flesh. I was a fool to think a dance could earn back my mother’s love. I lost it long ago.

  The only thing that matters now is Tarina. “Mother, I need an important favor.”

  Her gaze travels slowly over my face. “You ask a favor, so soon after shaming the goddess?”

  Another mother might hug me and weep grateful tears into my hair. Another mother might berate me for my foolishness with fierce love shining in her eyes. But I do not have another mother.

  I take a breath and plunge ahead
. “Your herbal potions and remedies. I need one.”

  “A love potion?” Her lip curls in scorn. “A boy you wish to love you?”

  Heat blooms in my cheeks. “No.”

  “Something to prevent or cause a pregnancy?”

  “No! A healing potion for my slave. The one wounded in the arena today. She…she saved me.”

  My mother plucks one of her favorite white lilies she keeps fresh in a vase. The gardens by the stables are bursting with them. It was my favorite flower as a child, because it is hers. She brings the flower to her nose and inhales deeply. “She interfered in the holy rites. She defied the will of the goddess.”

  “She will die if we don’t help her!”

  “What do you wish from me, Ariadne?” my mother asks coolly.

  My mother’s skills in the herbal arts have no rival. I think again of the rumors, the dark whispers that she holds the power over life and death. That for the right price, she can mix an elixir to sicken a rival or destroy their crops or make a husband’s mistress suddenly hideous.

  It’s said that she causes scorpions and spiders to grow in the wombs of my father’s concubines, so that no other male heir will lay claim over her own children. It’s even rumored that she can change form, taking on the appearance of an eagle or a mare or even another human.

  Some whisper that she’s a witch-queen, a sorceress like her sister, Circe. It’s magic, the power of the gods wielded in human hands. She may be cursed by Poseidon, but she’s blessed with the art of plants, herbs, and potions. And it’s that magic that I need. “I will not accept her death.”

  My mother turns her penetrating gaze on me. Her words part the air, sharp as a blade. “There is much we don’t wish to accept, daughter. But we are strong, and we accept what we must.”

  To the left, a columned veranda overlooks lush, colorful gardens redolent with the scent of jasmine, verbena, and lemon. A strong breeze blows through the archway, nearly snuffing out the beeswax candles stacked on a marble side table beside her.

  I watch the candle flames dance and waver, nearly going out, then springing back to life. “I will do anything.”

  My mother’s face hardens. She strokes the viper winding its tail around her upper arm. It lifts its arrow-shaped head and hisses at me. “‘Anything’ is a large word. It encompasses much.”

  “I stand by what I said.”

  She pins me with her gaze, searching for something I don’t understand. A shadow crosses her face. For several long breaths, she says nothing. Then she rises stiffly and goes to the far wall, her shoulders hunched as if she’s in pain.

  The frescos on the walls depict the gods of the sea and sky, with leaping waves and diving birds. Her luxurious chambers are adorned with imported furniture of dark-polished wood and delicately spun rugs of madder red and saffron yellow.

  She pauses before a tapestry dyed deep Tyrian purple and shimmering gold, depicting the birth of the sea nymph Thetis. She pushes upon a small, almost inextinguishable indentation in the stone, then pulls aside the tapestry and steps into the narrow crack that shifts open in the wall.

  I follow her into her secret antechamber where she keeps her cabinets of herbs, spices, plants, and other ingredients. It’s a small, windowless room, with a wooden door on one wall that opens to a set of narrow stairs leading down to the secret tunnels deep below the palace.

  The tunnels are the collapsed corridors of the old palaces, the ones destroyed a hundred summers ago by Earth-Shaker, built upon the skeleton of a second palace destroyed three hundred summers before that. Of the glories of those ancient kingdoms, only stones and old bones remain.

  My mother presses her lips together as she rummages among her remedies and elixirs, her potions and treatments. The room is sumptuous with silks and tapestries. The wood shelves are lined with scrolls, jars of dried leaves and colored powders, yellowed animal skulls, and bunches of herbs; some dried and twiggy, others a fresh, pungent green.

  I glance down the narrow, winding staircase washed in deep shadow. Echoes of laughter seem to drift up from the ancient stones.

  A memory bubbles up, fuzzy and half-formed. I remember using this tunnel to escape the palace, bypassing the entire sprawling court, the merchant square, the olive groves, the royal stables and fields to the sea. I remember climbing the cliffs, exploring secret clefts and outcroppings, whiling away afternoons to watch the flesh-eating mares frolic along the beach far below and the billowing sails of ships in the distance.

  But I was not alone. There was someone with me, a dark shape hovering just outside my consciousness.

  “Here it is.” My mother pushes aside several tinctures, a bowl of dried berries, and assorted vials of venom, bitter roots, and hemlock. She retrieves two small glass vials: one the size of my pinkie, the other a bit larger. The first is filled with a dark sludgy substance; the second contains a clear liquid.

  For a moment, she looks at me as if she truly sees me. She holds out the dark elixir. “When you wish to restore life, give only a few drops from this vial. A soul close to entering the underworld may need more to pull them back. You’ll know how much to give.”

  I reach for the vial.

  She closes her fingers over it, jerking it back. “You said you would do anything to save your slave, daughter.”

  I do not hesitate. “Yes.”

  “The world was torn asunder the day your father locked your brother within the Labyrinth. It hasn’t been right since. But you can fix it.”

  I shake my head, confused. “What do you mean?”

  She holds up the clear vial. Her eyes glint. “This is an elixir of great power. It was a gift given to ease the suffering I’ve unjustly endured. It only works on those with a divine, immortal bloodline. I’ve waited long for this day. For a worthy tribute descended of immortal blood. Don’t you see? This will change everything.”

  “What is it?”

  “This elixir contains a drop of ambrosia, among other things. Ambrosia is the consistency of honey, and it’s not only the food of the gods. It’s also used for transformation, a power the gods hold jealously.”

  My eyes widen.

  “This isn’t enough to grant immortality,” my mother says tersely. “But enough for our needs. It’s with ambrosia that the gods change shape so readily. The goddess’s son Zeus transforms into a swan, Athena into a bird, Demeter to a horse.” Her voice hardens. For a fleeting moment, her eyes burn with bitterness. “Poseidon the Earth-Shaker transformed into a bull to exact his revenge upon your father. But for such a transformation, lifeblood is required.”

  My breath sticks in my throat. “Lifeblood?”

  “No other blood will do anything but destroy the potency of the entire vial. It must be lifeblood. Power such as this always comes at a steep cost. We are not gods, though we dare to wield their magic. A life for a life—that is the price.” The snake at her wrist curls tighter, its scales like gleaming black jewels. “Do you understand?”

  “A life for a life,” I repeat. Something cold and dark slithers inside me. I stare at the vial in her hand as if it’s filled with poison. Maybe it is. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Enter the Labyrinth. Find your brother. When the time is right, mix a drop of lifeblood into the elixir and give it to Asterion to drink. It will allow him to shed the husk of his monstrous form and take on the shape of another—a human form.” Her voice rises, thick with emotion, with longing and anticipation. “Asterion will return to us, will return to Crete as the prince that he is, to rule in his father’s stead.”

  I stare at her, gaping. The words won’t fit together inside my head. I hear her speaking as if from a great distance. “The Labyrinth. The place no man has ever escaped from, not even the workers who built it. Only the maze-maker himself has ever made it out alive—”

  “You are no man,” she says coldly. “You are my daughter. The granddaughter of Helios, god of the sun.”

  I lean against the stone wall, shaken. The air is stale and stu
ffy. It’s difficult to breathe. “Whose lifeblood is required?”

  My mother gives me a withering stare. The viper curls around her neck like a sleek, muscled necklace. Its tongue flicks, tasting the air. “Have you not been listening? You are smarter than this, girl.”

  “The Athenian prince,” I say softly, my stomach clenching. “The son of both the Athenian king and Poseidon.”

  She nods curtly and strides out from her antechamber into the lavish chamber. I follow her to the veranda, where the salty scent of the sea fills my nostrils. The candle flames drift with unseen breath.

  My mother turns to me. “Get close to the one called Theseus. When the time comes, you will kill him.”

  I cannot nod. I can barely speak. I am frozen in place. Barbarian or no, the thought of killing another person makes me ill.

  “Why do you hesitate? Do you not want your brother returned? Do you not want to put right the wrong that is destroying Crete? This is your chance to redeem yourself. You failed in the arena. But you are not weak.” She takes a step toward me, her eyes sharp and wild. For a moment, I think she’s about to enfold me in her arms, to embrace me like she hasn’t since I was a small child. My heart nearly flies out of my chest.

  But she doesn’t embrace me. She stabs one pointed finger at my chest. Her snake rears up, hissing. “You have floundered, searching for a purpose. This is your purpose. To go into the Labyrinth. To slay the son of Poseidon. To save your brother.”

  “But he’s a monster,” I say hoarsely.

  She tilts my chin up with one slim finger. “Only until he receives the elixir. Then he will return to us.”

  “But there are creatures down there, spawned by darkness and death—”

  “Do you love me?”

  The question is so unexpected that I falter, stunned. I’ve never heard the word from my mother’s lips.

  A memory strikes me. When I was very young, she used to envelop me in a warm embrace. Her skin smelled like herbs and spices, thyme and honey. Her thick black hair would fall over me like a curtain, sheltering me from the outside world. Every evening as the sun went down, she would sing soft lullabies and holy hymns to us—to me, little Phaedra, and even…