Labyrinth of Shadows

by Kyla Stone

  I can’t breathe. My frozen ribs are tightening, tightening, cutting off my air. My brother’s shade is right…I’m going to die here. Maybe I should die here—

  An image of Cadmus and the other frozen bodies sears my mind. This is what happened to them. If I don’t do something, we’re doomed to the same horrifying death.

  He smiles that awful smile again, the darkness behind his teeth seething. “No one loves you. And you? You aren’t capable of anything, especially love.”

  With a tremendous effort, I raise my head. Some of what he says may be true, but not all, not everything. There are falsehoods slipped in like wolves among the sheep, lies meant to destroy.

  Because despite everything, despite how my mother may or may not hate me, despite why I’m here, I know that I am loved. Once, Asterion loved me. Tarina loves me. And I love them.

  His words are not real. He is real enough, but he’s not Androgeus. He is not your brother, not anymore. He is something else, a creation of this wretched place. “You’re lying,” I force out. “You’re trying to trick me.”

  The shade hisses like a snake and recoils. Just as swiftly, he reaches for me, long transparent fingers like creeping, needle-sharp icicles…

  I refuse to die like this. I won’t give up. I cannot give in. I’ve come too far, sacrificed too much. I must stop it. I must stop listening or it will kill me.

  The cold chills me, my body so stiff I can barely move. Gritting my teeth from the effort, I manage to lower the glow-worm jar to the ground and lift my quivering arms to cup my hands on either side of my head. I press against my ears, blocking out sound.

  Androgeus is still speaking, but the words are distant, as if they’re coming from underwater. The claws of despair retract from my mind, the sense of utter desolation receding like the tide.

  I blink, shivering, released as if from a deep, frigid sleep. Slowly, gradually as melting ice, my body becomes my own. I can move again. I stumble to my feet and back away, careful not to slip on the ice-slicked ground.

  Theseus. The others. I must get to them before it’s too late.

  “Cover your ears!” I croak.

  Kalliope is closest to me. She cowers on her knees, eyes squeezed shut, tears leaking down her cheeks and freezing midstream. “I’m sorry,” she whimpers over and over.

  Lowering my shoulder, I shove into her hard. She stumbles, eyes flying open, jarred from her stupor. She sees me, sees my hands. Recognition alights in her dull eyes. She wrestles her own hands over her ears.

  “Help the others!” I shout. She nods, reading my lips.

  I turn to Theseus. He’s locked in frozen battle with his unseen assailant, face twisted in torment.

  Hands still clenched over my ears, Androgeus slinking after me, I ram against Theseus. It feels like slamming into a mountain. He barely flinches. I cannot push him or grab his arm; I can’t risk removing my hands from my ears. I kick him as hard as I can in the shin.

  Sluggishly, his head turns toward me.

  “Theseus!” I force through chattering teeth. “Hurry! Cover your ears!”

  He doesn’t listen, not to me. He turns back to whatever shade is whispering poison into his ears.

  I groan in frustration. He’s stubborn even beneath the spell of wraiths. I ram into Theseus again; he barely notices me. I am too weak; he is too far gone.

  All around me, the tributes are cowering, sinking to their knees, curling up on the ground in anguished defeat. I am running out of time. With their slithering, deadly whispers and creeping, frigid fingers, these things will overcome even mighty Theseus.

  No. I will not give in. I will not let my friends die. In this moment, my quest doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. I will not let Theseus die.

  With a blood-curdling scream, I release my ears and hurl myself at Theseus, grabbing his left arm, forcing the jar from his fingers—it crashes to the ground and shatters—and lift his stiff arm toward his left ear.

  Androgeus grows louder, but so does my own screaming. I shriek so loud it fills up all the space inside my head, until my skull is ringing. Icy breath kisses the back of my neck. I have only a few moments before I will be overpowered again.

  “Cover your ears!” I scream as loud as I can.

  This time, Theseus hears me.

  With his right hand, he forces himself to sheath his dagger—grimacing from the effort, cords popping in his neck, muscles straining—and slaps both hands against the sides of his head. As soon as his ears are safely covered, I drop my hands from him and protect my own ears, my screams still echoing inside my head.

  “The others!” I cry.

  He nods stiffly.

  With agonizing slowness, we shuffle toward Charis and Leda, with Gallus and Eryx cowering just beyond their contorted, writhing forms.

  “Get up!” I shout to the tributes.

  Theseus shoves against Gallus’s shoulder hard. “Come on! Go! Go!”

  Working together, Theseus and I reach them all. They rise slowly, stumbling, confused, shaking off their lethargy. Charis’s tears are frozen on her cheeks. Eryx’s long, dark eyelashes are matted with frost. We were almost too late. Almost, but not.

  I move toward the opposite passageway. “Go!”

  Androgeus’s angry whispers slither after me, hissing and spitting. But the sound is too distant; his voice has lost its power, along with the wraiths that accosted the others. They cover their ears and follow me and Theseus.

  Without my hands free, I must leave the glow-worm jar behind. But I’m free. We are free.

  We run from the deadly cold, from the skulking ghosts of despair, and flee into the darkness.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  We walk in silence, Theseus and I in the lead, Kalliope, Leda, Charis, and Eryx right behind us, Gallus guarding the rear with two of his bone clubs. Charis shuffles to my left, murmuring prayers to the gods, begging them to hear her. Eryx and Charis managed to place their glow-worm jars in their empty satchels before covering their ears, so we have the faintest hint of blue light to see by, though I can hardly make out the ground before my feet.

  The air is damp and sour, the walls leaking moisture, but it’s no longer freezing. We’re free of whatever trap was set for us—whether it was Hades, jealous for souls, or maybe Hecate, the Athenian goddess of witchcraft and necromancy. Or maybe the Labyrinth itself conjured its own wicked wraiths.

  It doesn’t matter now.

  I keep my hand always on the vines, thick and lush and spined with tight moonflower buds, some vines the width of my wrist. We must be close to the source of the moonflower vines and the light that feeds them. We have to be close.

  Theseus stays near me, but we speak little. His presence is both a comfort and a curse.

  “You were brave,” he finally says, so the others won’t overhear. “I guess I should no longer be surprised.”

  I try to smile, but it takes too much effort. “No, you shouldn’t.”

  “If you hadn’t come to my aid…” He takes a shuddering breath. His face is still ashen, like he’s seen his own death. Maybe he has. “I think we all would’ve become like Cadmus and the others.”

  I squeeze his hand, then quickly let go. “But we didn’t.”

  A lingering sense of dread and despair clings to me. I can’t shake it off. I don’t ask Theseus who he saw, what terrible things they whispered to him. I know I have no desire to speak of the things my brother’s shade hissed at me.

  My brother’s words eat at my insides like rot. Some were lies.

  But some, I fear, were truth. Your mother sent you in here to die, the voice whispers inside my head.

  I close my eyes. My mother loves me. She sent me because she believes in me, because the goddess chose me…

  But the words feel hollow in my own ears.

  All my life, I longed for my mother’s touch like sunlight on my skin. I yearned for my father’s approval like a crown of flowers in my hair. Once, I knew them both, but it has been so long that sometimes
I feel like a brittle thing about to crack wide open.

  She chose your brother’s life over your own, to risk your life for his…

  I ball my hands into fists, my fingers grazing the half-moon cuts that are scabs now. For the first time, my mother’s love feels like an immense burden—if it is even love.

  I limp, one hand against the wall. My sandal squelches. I bend down, blinking away sweat and grime. My feet are bloody from a half-dozen burst blisters. We are all limping now, breathing heavily, battling weariness and hunger. Thirst claws at my throat, each swallow scraping it raw.

  Every step I take, my body begs me to stop, to rest, to give up. Death must be better than this. Easier than this. Every step brings pain and weakness. But with every step, I find I can take one more. And one more. And then one more.

  We shuffle around another corner. Abruptly, Theseus halts. Several tributes bump into him.

  “Look up!” Eryx cries, excitement thrumming through his voice.

  But I don’t need to look up to know what I’ll see.

  The air has changed. The sensation above me is not of a mountain grinding down upon my head. Instead, there is emptiness. Open space.

  I blink against the cool white light spilling over us.

  With trembling fingers, I pluck a moonflower bud and hold it up to the moonlight. The fragile petals open like a pale, delicate hand cupped around a precious jewel.

  My breath catches in my throat.

  Where there is light, there is hope.

  We’ve reached the edge of the Labyrinth.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  I blink hard against the moonlight—bright and painful after so long in the darkness—astonished, hardly able to believe we’ve made it. Tears of relief leak down my cheeks.

  The passage opens into a wide courtyard. A breeze filters down to us, fragrant with the tangy scent of salt, sweet and fresh. The walls shoot up to impossible heights. Beyond them shines a rectangle of sky as black and rich as velvet, inlaid with thousands of stars like flecks of crystal.

  It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

  The tributes crowd into the courtyard behind me. Everyone stares up, gaping.

  “There’s the sky!” Eryx gasps and lifts his face in wonder. “I hear the sea!”

  Charis sinks to her knees and prays, her expression rapt. “Give thanks to the gods! They’re still with us!”

  Theseus grabs my hand and squeezes, admiration bright in his eyes. “Well done, Princess.”

  Kalliope turns to me, her face filled with something like grudging respect. “You saved us.”

  “We’re not saved,” Gallus rasps. “How’re we going to climb these walls? It’s impossible!”

  Theseus sets his jaw. “The maze-maker told Ariadne to come here. This is the way. We’ve found it.”

  Everyone looks at me expectantly. Though they’re squinting against the moonlight, their eyes shine with rekindled hope.

  “Tell us, then,” Kalliope says, not unkindly. “What does the map in your head say?”

  I inhale a sharp breath. Daedalus didn’t have the chance to explain the last of the Labyrinth’s secrets. I close my eyes, desperate to remember every word of our conversation. I smell the beeswax candles, the sawdust, the oily stink of metal.

  I see his hands clasped in front of him, his sad, troubled eyes. I wish I could give you more.

  Daedalus has no more answers. There’s no map in my head. The rest is up to us, up to me. Daedalus believed King Minos would imprison him and Icarus in the very Labyrinth he designed. He built this courtyard for a reason.

  There is a way out. He gave me that much.

  I open my eyes and rotate slowly, taking in everything. The large courtyard is the length and width of the palace’s throne room. The rough rock floor is littered with dirt, small pebbles, and brown, curled moonflower leaves. In each corner, aged marble columns jut the height of two men. One is broken halfway up, white rubble all around it.

  On our left, the steep side of the mountain towers higher than the eye can see, its peak swathed in dark clouds. On the right, the courtyard outer wall abuts the seaward side, at least the height of six men stacked shoulder upon shoulder.

  I run my hands over the outer wall carpeted with moonflower vines, ragged leaves with white starbursts of flowers erupting from the riot of green, the delicate white petals blooming eagerly beneath the light of the moon.

  The rock is rough-hewn, carved out of the mountain, instead of the limestone slabs used in other parts of the Labyrinth. I feel ridges and shallow fissures beneath the wet, shining leaves.

  When I try to find a hand or foothold on the slick rock, I slip and fall. I try again. Again, I fall. Theseus joins me. Then Leda and Kalliope. Soon everyone is grunting and cursing.

  It’s impossible. No one can climb it.

  I wind a handful of vines around my hands and pull, testing my weight. The ivy rips from the wall and swirls into a tangle at my feet. It won’t hold me. It won’t hold any of us.

  Something dark and cold slithers into my gut.

  “What does the map in your head say?” Kalliope repeats, tension in her voice.

  Gallus shakes his head and grins scornfully. “You don’t know, do you?”

  I turn to look at them, hardly able to breathe. My chest burns, my throat closing like a fist. “There’s a way.”

  “What is it?” Theseus is haggard and drawn, the planes of his face sharp from the days with little to no food and the unforgiving light of the moon. He takes a step toward me. “You’ve kept your secrets long enough. You know you can trust me now. Tell me so I can save us.”

  My gaze flits around the courtyard, searching desperately. I’ve done everything I can. We’ve made it this far, gotten this close. I want to save them as much as Theseus does, but I don’t know how.

  Maybe I’ve failed them after all.

  I’ve lied to them so many times, but now there are no more lies to tell. My stomach roils bitterly. I brace myself for their anger, their contempt. “I don’t know.”

  Theseus’s gaze narrows. “What do you mean?”

  “The guards burst in before Daedalus could finish. He didn’t tell me the rest.”

  “You told us you knew how to escape!” Kalliope cries.

  “Traitor!” Gallus scowls, tapping his thigh bone against his open palm. “We should’ve known never to trust the likes of you. We would’ve been better off on our own.”

  Kalliope crosses her arms over her chest. Instead of the outrage I expect, her eyes are stricken, her face pale. Her mouth works, as if she’s trying to say something important, but the words won’t come.

  Leda and Charis say nothing, which is almost worse. I dare not look at them. I can’t bear to see their faces, to know if they, too, have turned against me.

  “You told me you knew how to escape,” Theseus says in a low voice. “You deceived me.”

  “You would’ve let them kill me!” I blurt.

  Theseus turns to me, incredulous. His eyes are bright as a flame, burning with righteous indignation—and something else, a shadow of disappointment, of sadness. “Do you still think so little of me?”

  My tongue swells against my clenched teeth. I shake my head, chagrined. I can say nothing on my own behalf. The truth is, I believed him a savage. The truth is, my own betrayal weighs so heavily upon my soul, I expect his—I deserve his—at every turn.

  For several long breaths, no one speaks.

  A look of eager hunger crosses Gallus’s face. “If we don’t need her, can we kill her?”

  “No one is killing anyone,” Theseus says wearily.

  “There is a way,” I choke out. “I know there is. We can find it.”

  But Gallus isn’t satisfied. “How many times must she betray us?”

  “I haven’t betrayed you!” Even as I speak, I can’t meet Theseus’s gaze, my shame nearly choking my throat. I feel every beat of my own duplicitous heart. “I led you this far, haven’t I?”


  “With more than half of us dead!” Gallus snorts. “Is that part of your fiendish plot? To weaken us until we can’t fight back? So your brother can pick us off with ease?”

  “No! I—”

  Enough!” Theseus cuts me off, a fierce edge in his voice, his eyes flashing. But his gaze is directed at Gallus. “Despite this…setback…Ariadne has proved herself again and again. I’ll hear no more words spoken against her.”

  “King Theseus,” Gallus tries again, a hard whine in his voice. “She’s blinded you with her wiles. She’s put a curse upon you like her witch mother—”

  “Did you not hear me?” In one fluid movement, Theseus reaches for me with his free hand and draws me against him, his arm wrapping around my shoulder. His eyes blaze, his jaw set, daring anyone to challenge him. “Ariadne is my bride. We are to be married. She is princess of Athens now.”

  There is a stunned silence.

  I stiffen, as shocked as they are. Theseus has claimed me publicly. He’s unashamed, no longer more concerned with the opinions of his people. The memory of his hungry kisses burns my lips. Despite myself, warmth floods through me, heating my cheeks, my stomach dropping in both elation and dismay. Part of me longs to sink into his strong embrace; the other part wishes to flee, desperate to escape my own terrible shame. What have I done?

  Gallus’s face goes blotchy with anger, cords standing out on his thick neck. Eryx squints at me, not with malice, but perplexed, as if I’m a puzzle he is trying to solve.

  Kalliope’s lips press together like the red slash of a wound. Her face drains of color, a brokenness shadowing her strong, beautiful features. She looks suddenly small and forlorn. She’s heartbroken, I realize with a start. She truly loves Theseus.

  As quickly as the shadow crossed her face, it passes. Her chin lifts in pained determination. She won’t show it. As much as she dislikes me, I can’t help but feel a twinge of sadness for her—and guilt. I didn’t set out to hurt her. I never wished to hurt any of them.

  “Welcome, Princess Ariadne.” Charis gives me a smile to rival the warmth of the sun. “You’ll make an excellent Athenian queen.”