by Kyla Stone
Theseus sighs heavily. He lowers his voice further, as if he fears being overheard, though I haven’t heard the other tributes for a while. Their breathing is deep and even, someone snoring softly. They’ve all slipped into exhausted sleep. “It’s not an easy task. I must earn their respect and love. I have Gallus, Kalliope, and Charis. The others…I’m still winning over. Even with those loyal to me, I must take care with what I do and say. They would not take kindly to the news that I’m taking a foreign wife—especially a Cretan.”
“So, you haven’t told them what you promised me? Not even Gallus?”
He shifts uncomfortably. “I will. I’ve sworn to you, and I’m nothing if I lose my honor. But this isn’t the time. If I’m…harsh, it’s to keep the peace. It’s unwise to stoke their hatred of you further—especially Gallus and Kalliope. Not down here.”
I’m surprised at his frankness, his honesty. I expected a gilded pack of lies. I don’t like it, but I understand it. He is a prince winning his crown, a leader juggling the needs of his people, a hero earning his name. I’m only a burden, a promise owed. A pang strikes my gut.
Theseus is arrogant, dismissive, and vain, but he is also brave, strong, and noble, tenacious and resolved.
For the first time, I taste the true bitterness of the task set before me.
It is a black and poisonous thing.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I awake gasping. It’s as if a great choking hand clenches my throat, a howling terror opening inside me. Even here in the dark, the same dream plagues me. The memories are vague, broken shapes—the boy with the splintered skull, mouth gaping wide; the dry, thirsty ground drinking in his blood; blood everywhere, staining my clothes, smearing my skin, dripping from my hands. I blink back the terrible images.
“Does the monster stalk your dreams?” Theseus’s voice comes out of the darkness beside me.
“It’s nothing.” I clench my hands into fists, nails digging into my palms, willing myself to stop trembling.
Theseus strikes the flint, and the last torch flares to life.
I squint, shielding my eyes. How quickly our eyes forget how bright light is. I don’t know how much time has passed. A short while or an entire day? It wasn’t long. My eyes still burn with exhaustion. My limbs are heavy, my muscles aching. The oppressive blackness presses down on me like a great weight. “I was supposed to be on watch.”
“You needed sleep more,” Theseus says with a wave of his hand. “Wake up, Kalliope, Charis.”
The tributes awaken with groans and tired, frightened murmurs. No one argues with Theseus. They stumbled to their feet and shuffle around the chamber, gathering their satchels. Those who need to do so move a little apart to relieve themselves. The rest of us pretend ignorance.
Theseus glances at me. Shadows bruise the skin beneath his fierce blue eyes, but he is still strong and formidable, his shoulders squared, his jaw set. “Are you ready?”
I force a smile and pull the ball of thread from my tunic. “Do I have a choice?”
“You don’t.” He manages a wry grin, raises the torch, and heads for the far archway. “Ariadne is up front with me.”
“Why should she always be in the lead?” Gallus asks.
“She has the thread.” Charis points at the ball of thread in my hand.
Kalliope moves beside Theseus. She fists her hands on her hips. “There’s no reason only Ariadne must hold the thread. Anyone can place it in a tunnel and see how it rolls.”
“That’s true,” says Zephyra uncertainly. Her gaze flashes from Theseus to Kalliope, seeking approval.
“Ariadne is doing everything we’ve asked of her,” Eryx argues gently in my favor.
“We’re the ones stuck stumbling in the darkness, and she’s right next to the torch.” Gallus rubs his neck with a scowl. “How is that fair?”
The others just watch, their faces drawn with fatigue. They look too tired and numb to care.
I bite back my frustration. Gallus and Kalliope are both acting petty when we have more serious concerns, like attempting to stay alive. But I must be agreeable. I need to make things easier for Theseus, not harder. “You may take a turn, as long as you’re careful.”
“Excellent.” Kalliope rips the ball of thread out of my hand. “I’ll go first.”
“Why should you have it?” Gallus asks sharply. “I’m the king’s companion.”
“He’s not a king yet,” Leda says.
“He might as well be.” Gallus glares at her. “The strongest should be up front, anyway.”
“Give Gallus the thread, Kalliope,” Theseus says.
Kalliope hesitates, a shadow flickering across her haughty face. I expect her to argue, to try and wheedle her way with him. Instead, she smiles demurely, peering up at Theseus through her lashes. “As you wish.”
She glances back at me, eyes sharp, like she’s laid a claim on him and she has no desire to relinquish that claim. But Theseus is not hers, and he is certainly not mine. It doesn’t matter how kind and charming he is in the dark. It doesn’t matter how much talking with him has made this horrible place more bearable. Marriage pact or no, there’s only one way things will end between us.
I push that thought from my mind and meet Kalliope’s hard gaze with a smile. She shakes her head, frowns, and looks away.
A roar echoes through the chamber.
Everyone tenses.
“That was closer!” Charis’s face goes white with fear. “It must be nearly on top of us!”
“Where is it?” Zephyra cries, looking around wildly.
Theseus stiffens and tilts his head. “Sounds like it came from behind us.”
Several people rush forward, crashing into the tributes in front of them.
“I thought it was from the left,” Eryx says in that calm, steady way of his.
“The stone walls play tricks on our ears,” I say. “The same thing happens in the palace.”
“How far away is it?” Theseus demands.
“It’s impossible to tell. He’s closer, but not close enough to accurately determine his direction.”
“You’re so helpful, girl with the map in her head,” Leda says, arching her brows. Her words are wry, but not cruel.
Zephyra laughs—a high, hysterical sound laced with barely-contained terror.
“We’ve been here too long.” Theseus lifts the torch. “Follow me. And stay close.”
He sets off through the far entrance of the chamber. Gallus strides next to him, the thigh bone grasped in one hand, my ball of thread in the other. Kalliope presses in on Theseus’s other side, so close that her shoulder brushes his arm.
Nikolaos, Eryx, and Zephyra follow close behind. Leda and Charis fall into step on either side of me. They could’ve shouldered me out of the way, but they don’t. Theseus’s head bobs above the others, his hair burnished gold in the torchlight. I tell myself I’m not disappointed he chose Gallus and Kalliope instead of me. I tell myself it doesn’t matter.
The tributes crowd in close. Our sandals stub the ankles of the people ahead of us. Our arms and shoulders jostle against each other. Someone grunts. Someone else stifles a cough. The stench of sweat and fear permeate my nostrils.
Darkness creeps in. The emptiness crouches at my back, a living, breathing thing. That same scrabbling sound comes again. Like claws on stone. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
I spin around, searching for movement, for a pair of glowing eyes, for something to lunge out of the dark. The worms. The Minotaur. Some other fiendish creature.
“Do you see something?” Leda asks.
I shake my head. “There is nothing.”
“For now,” Leda says darkly.
“Would you like a drink?” Charis asks.
I glance up, startled. “What?”
Charis holds out her clay jar. “Wine?”
“Thank you.”
She shrugs her frail shoulders. “You’ve shared with others. You must be getting low.”
&nb
sp; In truth, my supply is nearly gone. I hoped the wine would last longer, but the jars are small; there aren’t enough of them. I have enough food for a few more days…then my satchel will be empty. I take a grateful sip. The wine soothes my dry tongue and trickles down my throat. Though my body cries for more, I hand it back. Hers is nearly empty as well.
We pause while Gallus balances the ball of thread and chooses a new path. We turn into a narrower passage. The torchlight hardly reaches us at all.
The Minotaur bellows. The sound is louder, closer. I still can’t be sure which direction it is. The tributes muffle their cries of fear.
Ahead of us, Nikolaos weeps quietly.
Charis lifts her chin. “How much farther, do you think?”
“We’ll reach his lair before the third torch goes out.” I keep my voice even, confident. “There will be more torches there.”
I force my aching legs to lengthen my stride as I glance at Leda. “May I ask you a question?”
“Anything to distract me,” Leda says.
I need my own distraction from the hunger eating at my empty belly, the burn of thirst, the pain in my feet and legs and side. I need a distraction from the fear and the dark, from the even darker thoughts lurking in the corners of my mind. “How were you chosen? How is it decided who will go into the Labyrinth?”
“King Aegeus made a decree,” Leda says in a flat voice. “When your king demanded the best tributes Athens had to offer. At the time, King Aegeus did not have a son. Of course, the king’s bloodline was exempted, but none other.
“To make it fair—” Leda spits the word, “—all the children of the royal houses enter their names in a lottery when they turn ten summers. The girls must be maidens. There are many marriages before the day of selection. It’s rumored the more powerful families offer gifts to the treasury. They claim their children are included, but their names are rarely chosen.”
Leda pauses to draw in a ragged breath. “Every spring on selection day, we go to the Acropolis. Names are written on shards of clay in two large jars—one for the youths, one for the girls. The girls stand on one side, the boys on the other. A line of Cretan guards holds back the people, the mothers and fathers and uncles and cousins and sisters, while a priest reads the names, the Cretan captain hovering over him to make sure the rules are followed.”
Her voice is sharp with pain. “This time, King Aegeus presided over it all, with Theseus beside him, silent with fury but as helpless as the rest of us.”
“Selene was called first,” Charis breaks in, her voice so soft that I must strain to hear her over our footfalls and ragged breathing. “Her father cried out and tried to rush the guards. They had to beat him back. Then it was Zephyra. Her mother fell to the flagstone, weeping. Eryx’s older sister begged the gods to take her instead, but she is no longer a maiden, and could take no one’s place.
“Before each name is called, the entire Acropolis goes silent, until you can only hear your own breathing and the weeping of the families who have gone before. The people on either side of me were pale and trembling. One fainted when the girl ahead of her was chosen. Even among the youths, some were crying, though they tried to be brave for their family’s honor.”
Her voice is hard but brittle, as if it might crack. “Then they called Pallos, only ten summers and slight, with his crown of fair hair and his gentle eyes. Not only his family wept, but all the people. The sky darkened, a black cloud covering the sun, as if it were a portent of the gods’ displeasure. But there was nothing anyone could do. Pallos was so frightened he couldn’t move. A guard came to lead him to the dais to wait with the other tributes.”
“But the Cretan guard never even touched him,” Leda says. “Theseus leapt between the boy and the guard and said, ‘I will take this lottery. I shall go myself and face this beast that torments my people.’ He took his great sword and laid it in King Aegeus’s arms. The king was like a man haunted, as if he’d aged several summers in a single breath. He couldn’t refuse his son, not in front of all the citizens of Athens. Theseus swore that he would return victorious to claim the sword.”
“Theseus is nothing if not brave.”
We walk in silence for a moment.
“He isn’t the only one who volunteered,” Charis says. “Kalliope did as well. Though not by choice.”
“What do you mean?”
Charis frowns. “Her younger brother was selected. But instead of accepting the certain death of his only heir, her father shoved her forward. He shouted that she loved her brother so much she volunteered in his stead, that the daughter he’d sired was as brave as Prince Theseus.”
My gut tightens. “Her father chose her brother over her.”
Leda nods.
“Couldn’t she have said no?”
“You don’t know her father,” Leda says. “He would have beaten her, or worse. He is a hard man. I’ve never seen him smile at any of his daughters, and her mother is a weak, cowering woman who always appears as if she’s half-expecting a blow. Kalliope’s father used her love for her brother against her. Once he said it, she was trapped.”
“If one wishes to offer their life, it should be their choice,” Charis says firmly. “Not their father’s or mother’s or anyone else’s.”
I glance at Kalliope ahead of us, at the proud set of her shoulders, the determination in her long stride. Whatever I think of her, Kalliope is tough because she has to be. She shouldn’t be here. None of them should be here.
Kalliope’s father isn’t a good man, but my own is far worse.
A deep, wrenching anger at my father swells within me. I loved Androgeus more than anyone, but surely his blood has been paid for many times over. And still, spring after spring, King Minos derives savage pleasure from watching the sons and daughters of his adversary suffer and die.
How could my people have allowed it? How could I? “I—I’m sorry.”
“You’re not your father.” Charis shakes her head, her eyes downcast. “You came down here to destroy that monster and save us.”
Leda grunts. “I would not have been so brave—or foolish.”
I would smile if guilt didn’t puncture my chest. I didn’t come to kill the monster. And I didn’t come to save them.
“Why did you do it?” Leda asks. There is no anger or resentment in her voice, only frank curiosity. “You’re a princess. If it were me, I might feel bad, but I would never abandon the comfort of a palace for an underground tomb. Not by choice.”
“I guess we can thank the gods our fate doesn’t lie in your hands,” Charis says wryly.
Leda laughs out loud. It’s the first time I’ve heard her laugh. It’s loud and boisterous, like Tarina’s. She reminds me of Tarina—loyal and brusque, brave and goodhearted.
Longing thrums through me. I miss my dearest friend; I miss my little sister. I miss the delicious tastes of roasted pig and smoked fish, salty olives and warm honey; the hot, gritty sand of the arena and the thrill of the bull-dance; the glittering azure of the sea; sunlight, the feel of wind in my hair; the comfort of my mother’s arms and the merry spark of Androgeus’s brown eyes—both things I lost long ago.
“I still wish to know,” Leda says.
I push my hair behind my ears. I can’t tell the whole truth, but I can tell a part of it. If not their affection, maybe I can win Charis and Leda’s tolerance. “Princesses can be trapped in their own way. In Knossos, I may be a princess, but the people believe I’m cursed because of my brother. I tried to do everything I could to honor the goddess, but I failed. My parents, they don’t…I’m not needed or wanted. The only thing I love is dancing with the bulls—”
I swallow. I don’t want to speak of that. I can’t bear it. Grief and bitter disappointment still tangle in my belly. “And I failed even at that. If I help Theseus with the Minotaur, maybe the goddess will forgive me.”
Charis nods as if maybe she understands.
“You enjoy hurling yourself at enormous horned beasts, then,” Leda s
ays darkly. “You must be mad.”
“I love the bulls.” I mean it with my whole heart. Mostly, I didn’t fear them, except for the king-bull. After training, I often made my way to the stalls to rub them down and whisper in their soft, twitching ears. They’re strong and brave and noble.
And up close, when they were calm, when I stroked their velvet muzzles and oiled their horns, their eyes would soften, their low, snorting breaths peaceful in the hay-filled stalls. They reminded me of something I couldn’t quite recall, something I’ve lost.
A small pebble shakes loose somewhere behind us. Charis tenses.
I whirl, heart in my throat, hand already reaching beneath my tunic for my hidden dagger.
Chapter Twenty-Five
In the dim shadows, one black shape scurries along the edge of the wall, then another, larger than the first. Bristling and hump-backed, with narrow snouts and beady eyes.
My whole body rigid, I watch them for a long, breathless moment, but they don’t charge aggressively or bare their teeth. There are no hidden heads or venomous fangs.
I stomp my foot. They scuttle into a hole at the base of the wall.
I sigh. “It’s only rats.”
“Likely killer rats,” Leda mutters.
We walk for a time in silence, straining our ears for eerie, unnatural sounds: the shuffle of a footfall, the slither of creatures slinking in the dark. But there’s nothing.
Charis deliberately slows her pace until we walk a few steps behind the others. “Theseus is a handsome prince,” she says suddenly.
I blink, startled. “I suppose.”
“Particularly handsome. And you’re particularly taken with him.”
I look at her sharply, but she is only a dim outline in the shadows. “I think not.”
“You lie worse than you dance,” Leda says in a bemused tone.
I make a choking sound in the back of my throat. Unbidden, the image sears my brain—silken bedsheets, sweaty, tangled limbs, Theseus leaning over me, his golden hair falling over his eyes, his mouth parted, lips pink and kiss-swollen. The vision brings an unnerving flush of heat to my cheeks.
