Labyrinth of Shadows

by Kyla Stone

  Hope springs to life inside me. I glance from the brazier to the battle to the tapestry at the rear of the chamber back to the brazier. It’s dangerous, but it’s the only option that may give us a chance. A small chance is better than none.

  Now isn’t the time to fear. Now is the time to act.

  Against all instinct, I run toward the raging fight.

  “Ariadne!” Leda cries after me.

  But I can’t waste a moment. I leap in front of Nikolaos’s fallen body, less than a pace from the Minotaur. He looms over me, enormous, monstrous. Not my brother but a beast, a creature of darkness, of the deep.

  Heart in my throat, weaponless—I don’t draw my dagger, it’s useless against his horns, his hooves, his bloodlust—and raise both hands as if I’m about to spring into the Leap of Faith. “Asterion!” I shout, finding my voice. “NO!”

  The Minotaur freezes mid-lunge. His great head rears back, gaze fixing on me. For a heartbeat, the red haze in his eyes clears. I glimpse brown, something softening, almost…human.

  He takes an uncertain step backward, then another. He gives a sharp shake of his head, snorting in confusion.

  I can’t tear my gaze from my monstrous brother. If I break eye contact, whatever it is connecting us will shatter into a thousand pieces. Somehow, I know this with a bone-deep certainty.

  I’m still here to save him, but not now, not like this. I’ll figure the rest out later, but right now, I have to make him leave, have to keep him from harming any of the others.

  “Eryx,” I cry, hoping he’ll understand. “The torch! Fire!”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I catch the flash of Eryx’s movement. He grasps the brazier in the center of the room and gives a great wrench, tipping it over as I spring out of the way. “Theseus!” I shout as Eryx hurls the torch into the oil spilling across the floor. “Watch out!”

  A great whoosh of fire roars between the crouched Minotaur blocking the exit and the rest of us. Theseus and Gallus fall back, raising their arms and shielding their faces, leaping over the fire even as it flares to life, licking hungrily at their legs.

  Heat blasts me as I stand my ground, still in the center of the chamber, the flames between me and my brother. Behind me, Kalliope and Leda lunge in, grasp Nikolaos’s lifeless body, and drag him back against the wall.

  A tongue of fire leaps onto the beast’s arm, singeing fur and flesh. The Minotaur rears, swatting the flames with his crooked fist, bellowing in pained disbelief. The flickering flames reflect in my brother’s red, crazed eyes. For a moment, I think he is mad enough to leap the fire.

  “Asterion!” I scream again. “Don’t do this!”

  The blaze flares up between us. The stench of burning flesh stings my nostrils. The monster stills, his gaze fixed on me.

  “Leave now!”

  I see anger, hatred, but also a flash of recognition. He shakes his head as if bewildered—like he doesn’t remember the where or how, but he knows.

  My brother knows me.

  “Go!” I cry.

  He makes a sound deep in his throat, a ragged, wounded whimper. Then he gives a final stone-trembling roar and bolts from the burning chamber.

  Chapter Thirty

  The fire burns brighter and stronger, blazing up as if infused with some dark, malevolent force. Flames surge across the floor in front of the archway and snake up the walls. Smoke boils across the ceiling, thick and heavy.

  I cough, eyes watering.

  “It’s the fumes,” Eryx says. “It’s turning the fire into an inferno.”

  “We’re trapped!” Zephyra moans.

  “What good is escaping the monster if we’re just going to burn to death!” Gallus tries unsuccessfully to beat at the flames with a large cushion. The cushion catches fire, and he drops it with a curse, leaping back.

  “Death by mauling would have been faster,” Leda says grimly, gazing up at the flames as they rise higher and higher. Charis groans, slumping against Leda’s shoulder. Blood streaks Charis’s face, her expression still dazed. Gallus’s arm is scraped and bloody. Welts and bruises mar Theseus’s shoulder and neck. But everyone is alive. Everyone but Nikolaos.

  Nikolaos’s limp body lays on the floor at our feet. Kalliope kneels over him, covering her mouth with her hands, her shoulders trembling.

  Kalliope lets out a low moan. I understand her grief. She was the closest to him. My heart aches for her, for all of us.

  A few paces from us, the cot, the benches, the rugs, and the velvet cushions are burning. Flames race along the walls and lick at the ceiling, coming at us from every side.

  Theseus whirls on me, anger mixed with horror filling his face. “What have you done?”

  “I’m saving us.”

  “I was about to slay the monster!”

  “Or he was about to slay you,” I choke out. “I didn’t know the fire was going to be like this. I thought it would just scare him away…”

  It’s as if the fire is fed by some invisible force we can’t see, nourishing its growth. The smoke rolls black and thick above us, everything a burning gray haze of smoke and ash.

  The acrid air is boiling hot, blistering my lungs. It feels like I’m burning up from the inside. Fire singes my hair. I gasp and slap it out.

  Zephyra stifles a sob. “We’re going to die. We’re going to die. We’re going to die.”

  “That’s not helpful!” Leda snaps.

  “We’re not going to die.”

  “You truly are mad, aren’t you?” Gallus says incredulously. “You’re cursed by the gods, just like they said.”

  “What’s your plan?” Leda says. “Tell us before our skin melts.”

  “We go through the second entrance.”

  “There is no other entrance!”

  “Yes, there is.” I move to the furthest tapestry, where something tiny and bright pokes out beneath it. I can barely see it now through the smoke clouding my vision. Heat throbs against my back. My throat burns. Behind me, the fire devours everything in its path. If I am wrong—

  I pray to the goddess for whatever blessing will help me. But it’s Daedalus I put my faith in now. Please be here, please be here.

  I grasp the heavy weave with both hands and pull with all my strength. The tapestry rips from its hanging and ripples to the floor. Cool air stirs against our faces.

  The green sliver I glimpsed in the cracks in the stone is a vine. Vibrant and bristling with closed buds, it clings to the damp stone wall, digging its roots into every crevice, winding around the corner of the hidden passageway.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  We rush into the hidden passageway, half-running, half-stumbling, desperate to escape the flames. Theseus takes the lead. Eryx and Kalliope lift Nikolaos’s body and bring him with us, while Leda helps Charis hobble along.

  The fire roars bright and fierce from the archway, but it doesn’t pursue us. My tongue tastes like ash. My eyes feel singed. I cough violently, clearing the smoke from my lungs.

  “You knew this was here?” Gallus asks once we’ve stumbled a safe distance from the fire. Orange light still flickers dimly along the stone tunnel behind us.

  I keep my hand on the wall, tracing the tiny vine with my fingers. “I had an idea.”

  Kalliope’s eyebrows shoot up. “You started a fire that nearly killed us because you had an idea?”

  “It seemed less dangerous than the monster.”

  “She has a point,” Leda says wryly. She wipes ash from her forehead with the back of her arm.

  “How did you know?” Theseus asks me with a frown.

  My throat is raw, my voice cracked, but I force the words out. “In the palace, the king and queen and the royal household all have separate exits to their bedchambers hidden by tapestries. It tunnels through the old palaces and the mountain in case we need to escape.”

  Another memory rises—Asterion and I using the tunnels to escape the palace, to flee to the rocky cliffs beside the sea, where no one would scream in fear at As
terion’s misshapen form, where no guards would clamp chains on him and drag him, howling, back to the guarded prison of his chambers.

  I clench my jaw to clear my head. “The maze-maker imitated every part of Asterion’s chambers. I hoped that included the tunnel behind the tapestry.”

  “A lot to ride on a hope,” Theseus says darkly. I may be imagining it, but I think I hear a grudging respect threading his voice.

  Gallus whirls on me, accusation flashing in his eyes. “The monster recognized you!”

  “He’s my brother. We once lived side by side!” I respond hotly, though shock shudders through me.

  Because he is right. I saw the same flash of recognition as Gallus did. The Minotaur knew me. He hesitated. In that frozen moment, he could’ve gored me. He could’ve leapt the fire and trampled me in a heartbeat. But he didn’t.

  I’m not sure what this means. My mind is still dizzy and confused. I need more time. I need to think.

  Gallus looks at Theseus, gaze bright. “We can use that. That’s how we can kill him!”

  “I am not bait!” I snarl.

  “You are if we say you are!”

  I expect Theseus to agree with Gallus, expect to battle them both. Instead, Theseus wheels on his brother-in-arms. “I make the decisions,” he says sharply. “Do not make me remind you of your place again.”

  Gallus steps back, stunned and hurt. Quickly, his expression hardens, hiding the flash of pain. He opens his mouth, thinks better of it, and closes it, but not before shooting me a look of lethal hatred.

  Leda turns to Charis, changing the subject. “How badly are you hurt?”

  Charis pulls away from Leda and stands on her own feet, a little unsteadily, but still standing. She wipes a trail of blood off her forehead. One side of her white-blonde head is caked with red. “My head hurts, but I think I’m all right.”

  Leda nods. “Good.”

  “We should be grateful to Ariadne,” Charis says. “We’re still alive.”

  I smile at her, thankful she’s still here with us.

  “Not all of us are,” Kalliope whispers, cradling Nikolaos’s small body.

  “What now?” Gallus asks. “Which way?”

  “Ariadne knows,” Theseus says.

  I close my finger over the vine, pluck a leaf, and hold it out on my hand. “This vine must have some nourishment at its source.”

  Zephyra scrunches her delicate brows. A single smudge of dirt mars her brown cheeks, a few tendrils of hair escaping the knot at the back of her neck. “What does that mean?”

  “Soil and light,” Eryx answers for me. “Fresh air.”

  Kalliope’s head snaps up. “Fresh air? Down here?”

  I keep my voice steady. “There’s a section of the Labyrinth open to the sky. This is what we must find. This is how we’ll escape.”

  The tributes rustle and murmur to each other.

  Escape.

  What a sweet, precious word. One I scarcely believe myself.

  I glance at Theseus. I half-expect him to insist we head straight back to the inferno so he can finish his quest and attack the Minotaur, dragging us with him. But he doesn’t. His gaze flicks to Nikolaos’s body, his eyes bleak, as if he alone carries the burden—and the guilt—of the boy’s death. “How close are we?”

  I almost say I don’t know, forgetting for a moment my claim to contain the map in my head. I rub the cut on my arm. It’s scabbed over, well on its way to forming a scar. How many days have passed? Five? Six? I reach for the vine veining the wall, pluck a tiny, tight bud, and roll it between my fingers. Daedalus offered me this clue. I know it means we’re getting closer, but how close, I can’t be certain. I take a guess, forcing confidence into my voice. “Two days, maybe three, if the walls don’t change on us again and nothing else slows us down.”

  “What about the Minotaur?” Eryx asks.

  “He’s going to dismember us piece by piece for destroying his lair,” Zephyra says, fear lacing her voice.

  “Like he wasn’t going to anyway?” Leda snaps.

  Eryx grunts as he shifts his hold on Nikolaos’s body. “I mean, what is Theseus going to do? What happens now?”

  “What’re you thinking?” Kalliope asks Theseus softly.

  He’s silent for several heartbeats, his jaw clenched. “I’ve no doubt it will come for us again. If we can make it to Ariadne’s escape, I will lead everyone out of the Labyrinth, to safety first, then I will come back for the monster.”

  Charis and Zephyra sigh in relief. Kalliope nods heavily. Eryx says nothing, quiet and thoughtful. I don’t say this should’ve been Theseus’s plan from the first. That Selene and Nikolaos are dead in part because of the decision to bring everyone to the monster’s lair. Theseus already judges himself enough for the both of us.

  In the firelight, Theseus’s features are pinched, his eyes old. His silence is heavy with self-reproach. He knows what he’s done, the mistakes he’s made. His pride won’t allow him to admit it, but at least he’s determined to save the others now, putting their welfare over his own quest.

  My heart aches for him, but I carry blame for my own role.

  He glances again at Nikolaos’s body. “We must go. Kalliope, we have to leave him.”

  She shakes her head fiercely. “I’m not leaving him behind.”

  “Carrying him will only weaken us,” Leda argues. Her mouth twists, as if she hates the words she’s saying as much as the others. But it’s the truth, and Leda is nothing if not practical.

  “Just until we find a place—somewhere more suitable than this…” Kalliope’s voice trails off.

  “Please,” Charis says. “His spirit won’t rest unless we follow the proper rites.”

  “I’ll help carry him,” Eryx says.

  Kalliope flashes him a grateful look.

  “So be it,” Theseus says evenly. “Ariadne, you’re with me. Lead the way, Princess.”

  Eryx hands Theseus the last torch.It’s already dimming as we make our way further into the narrow passage. The walls are damp to the touch. A dripping sound comes from somewhere above us. We round another corner, and the faint red glow from the fire fades completely.

  Behind us, Eryx and Kalliope carry Nikolaos’s body between them. Leda helps Charis, Gallus still cradling his left arm. No one complains, not even Zephyra. Hunger knots in my belly, but I’m rationing what little food I have left. We’re more exhausted than before we found the lair, tired and wounded, our spirits heavy with the weight of the death of one our own. I blush, realizing I’ve been thinking of myself as one of them.

  The darkness crouches just outside the veil of flickering torchlight, thick and impenetrable. I keep expecting to hear the shuddering roar of the Minotaur. But it doesn’t come.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Theseus walks close to me, so close I can hear his steady breathing, can feel the brush of his muscled arm against my shoulder. The warmth of his skin raises the hairs on my arms.

  “Once we find the exit to the Labyrinth, are you really going back in?” I ask quietly after a time. “You wouldn’t escape with the others?”

  Theseus looks at me, shadows flickering across the planes of his cheekbones. His eyes are like caverns—I can’t see the blue; only the darkness. “I told you, the enslavement and murder of my people will only continue. Fleeing now won’t change that. There’s only one thing that will stop this. I must slay the Minotaur.”

  My heart sticks in my throat. “Even if he kills you?”

  His voice is resolute. The arrogance is gone, replaced with a stony, solemn determination. He knows now what he’s up against. “Even if it kills me.”

  Gone is the boasting, the hubris. Theseus’s shoulders slump, his expression weary, a brokenness in his eyes. He feels the weight of every lost life as an immense burden. He truly believed he would sweep into the Labyrinth like an avenging hero and save them all. He wanted it so fiercely, he believed he could make it so.

  For a moment, something inside me longs to
touch him, to offer comfort, to wrap my arms around his broad torso and bury my face in his chest and…

  No. I bite my lip hard enough to draw blood. Guilt spears through me. I can’t allow myself to think such things.

  “It’s a good thing to save the others first,” I say, and I mean it. I don’t think I can bear another death.

  They are only tributes, my father’s voice whispers in my ear. Each spring, my people watched fourteen children doomed to die and said nothing. Did nothing. Only fourteen, my father said dismissively when a counselor or adviser dared to question him. Only twenty-eight. Only forty-two. They were Athenian barbarians. What did they matter?

  But they did. They do. Down here in the darkness, they mean everything. My father was wrong. About this, about so many things. They are not offerings. They are human beings—selfish and brave and generous and cruel and kind.

  I came here intending to manipulate their affections, but my own have changed. I care deeply for them. I don’t want any of them to die. Not sweet and generous Charis. Not vain but softhearted Zephyra. Not Leda, sharp-tongued but tough. Or Eryx, smart and clever and thoughtful. Even Kalliope, who loathes me, is brave and strong. And Theseus—but I shove that thought out of my mind.

  No one else has to die. I’ll do everything I can to save the remaining tributes. It’s little enough compared to the abhorrent thing I must do, but it’s all I have, so I cling to it.

  I can lead them out of this dark pit like I promised.

  Then, and only then, will I go back for my brother.

  I swallow. “You don’t need them. You only need me.”

  Theseus tilts his head, considering me. “What are you saying, Princess?”

  “I will be your bait.”

  The smile he offers me is tight but genuine. “What kind of prince would I be if I endangered the life of my bride? What kind of king?”

  “Now isn’t the time for honor.”

  “It’s always the time for honor.”

  I tell myself he’s a savage. The enemy. But the words ring hollow in my head. “Even Gallus thinks you should.”