Labyrinth of Shadows

by Kyla Stone

  This love I know well. A love with a price. A love based on accomplishment, beauty, and duty. The only love I’ve ever had.

  No, that’s not true. Tarina loves me for who I am. Leda and Charis love each other that way. Once, Asterion loved me for who I was, simply because I was his sister.

  Theseus untucks something from the rope belt of his tunic. A moonflower he must have plucked earlier. He twirls it between his fingers, offering it to me with a sweet, almost shy grin. “I will prove myself worthy, my bride.”

  I cup the flower in my hands, white and delicate, its skin almost translucent. It looks so much like the lilies my mother keeps in a vase in her chambers, the ones Asterion loved.

  A memory strikes me—Asterion bringing lilies to our mother, but always saving one for me, me returning to my bedchambers after a long day of tutoring, minding my nurse, or attending my father’s feasts, to find crushed petals spread delicately across my cot bedding. Even after my father demanded his constant imprisonment, Asterion would find ways to escape, just to bring me my lily.

  My stomach twists. Darkness rears up inside me, black and ugly.

  I yearn for things to be different, for a different fate, another choice. But no number of prayers or wishes can undo what must be done, the paths we each must take. I vowed to put things right, no matter the sacrifice. No matter how much it costs me.

  I see no way through this. One must die at the hands of the other.

  Asterion is still my brother, my blood. He is a monster, but he is the monster who loved me.

  Theseus tucks the moonflower behind my ear, stroking my hair as he gazes at me intently. I pull him to me with trembling fingers and kiss him for the last time, smashing my mouth against his, biting back bitter tears.

  Theseus made the choice for us both. He is strong where I am weak.

  He will not be dissuaded from his quest. And neither can I.

  The next time I see him in the Labyrinth, it will be to kill him.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  “We’re ready,” Kalliope says, a little too sharply.

  Theseus breaks away from me. I feel his absence like a wound.

  Kalliope’s gaze jumps from Theseus to me. Her eyes soften when she looks at him. When she looks at me, her eyes are full of loss. The wind whips her hair, streaming like ribbons behind her. Even gaunt and weary, she’s strong and beautiful.

  She gestures for us to follow her. “The ladder is ready.”

  “Thank you,” I say, shoving down my own grief and heartache.

  She pauses a little behind Theseus. “I don’t hate you,” she says quietly. “I did. But now I don’t.”

  I stare at her, startled, unsure what to say.

  “You saved Theseus from the wraiths. And did what you said you would. You found us a way out.” She raises her chin, defiant in the face of her own pain. “You—you deserve to be happy.”

  Kalliope is full of surprises and contradictions. It makes me wish we were friends. Maybe someday, we can be.

  “Thank you,” I say again. “I mean that.”

  She nods and walks ahead of me to the wall. Eryx knots the thread around the width of the jutting column less than a pace from the hidden door. The others stand in a circle around the opening, jostling nervously, their hands clasped, faces taut with barely restrained elation.

  “Well done, princess.” Leda touches my arm, a wry smile twitching her lips. “You did this. You got us here.”

  “You saved us!” Charis fairly leaps at me, throwing her arms around my chest and hugging me tightly. Her body thrums with anticipation, her eyes sparkling with delight as she pulls back and grins wholeheartedly at me. I see it in her open, affectionate expression, the way she winds her arm around my waist with easy familiarity, like I am her friend. A real friend. A true friend.

  Finally, I’m one of them. A part of something like I’ve never been before.

  I long to go with them more than anything I’ve ever wanted.

  Thunder rumbles in the distance. Thick black clouds shroud the moon; the silvery light bathing the courtyard fades to shadow.

  “How will you do this alone?” Kalliope asks Theseus. Her eyes are deep, anxious wells, her face tight with worry. “What if something happens to you?”

  He smiles tightly. “Nothing will happen to me. This is my fate, Kalliope. The mighty Poseidon is with me! He shall guide my hand.”

  “I can still go with you,” I say. “Use me as bait—”

  He only shakes his head, jaw set. “I’d never put you at risk like that, Ariadne.” He touches my shoulder, so gently I feel I will shatter. “Never. Go with the others. Be safe.”

  He bends and picks up the excess ball of thread sitting at the base of the marble column. The ladder made of unbreakable thread and gleaming white bones lies at his feet. “I’ll carry the other end of Ariadne’s thread with me into the Labyrinth, slay the monster, and follow the thread to find my way back here. Wait for me on the beach. I’ll return by morning.”

  I touch the vial hanging around my neck, dread like a stone in my stomach. I must wait for him to enter, then secretly follow him back into the Labyrinth. It’s the only way. The others will notice my absence, but not until I’m already gone.

  Maybe once my brother has taken human form and we flee this dark place, I’ll finally know it was worth it. Maybe I can forget everything it took to get here, the harm done and the friends betrayed. Maybe I can forget the life I am about to steal.

  What a fool I am. But I cling to the foolish dream anyway—it’s the only thing holding me together. “Quickly now,” I say numbly to Eryx, “lower the ladder so we can begin descending. The ship could pass by at any moment. It may not come again. We must be ready.”

  Storm clouds cover the moon as Eryx and Gallus straighten the ladder and prepare to lower it. The courtyard is cast in deep, quivering shadows. Thunder crashes above us, the first fat drops of rain striking my skin. We all lift our faces to drink the precious water.

  A soft, scrabbling sound rattles somewhere behind me.

  I whip around, heart in my throat.

  Charis gasps, squeezing closer to Leda. “What was that—?”

  Asterion bursts into the courtyard in a blur of hooves, bristling fur, and gleaming horns.

  He rears up on his haunches, his matted chest heaving, great head swinging in rage, eyes red and wild, not my brother but the terrible beast of my nightmares, the monster, like three-headed Cerberus himself lunging up from the underworld to seize his prey.

  The monster comes seeking death, and here, he will find it.

  Chapter Fifty

  Time slows.

  My every sense sharpens. I feel the cold, spitting rain and the wind gusting through the gully of the courtyard. I inhale the salt of the sea, the earthy scent of the moonflowers, the singed stench of Asterion’s burnt fur. I see my friends’ terror-stricken faces, their mouths dark ovals of shock and fear, my brother roaring in the center of the courtyard.

  Gallus lunges for a thigh bone, but they’re knotted and tangled in the ladder, which we haven’t yet lowered over the cliff. Kalliope and Eryx shrink back against the outer wall, making themselves small and still. Together, Leda and Charis flee for the closest passageway.

  Asterion plunges in front of them, roaring, spewing his rancid breath in their faces. They skid to a halt, terrified, Leda’s arm thrown out protectively in front of Charis.

  Theseus dashes forward to protect them, brandishing the dagger. Asterion roars and slaps the blade away. It tears from Theseus’s grasp and skitters across the wet rock.

  “No!” Panic spears through me. This isn’t how it’s supposed to happen. The Athenians are supposed to escape first, then I take out Theseus and gather his lifeblood before he and Asterion ever battle. “Stop this!”

  But Asterion can’t hear me. His crazed eyes blaze with that blood-red mist. He charges Theseus, seizes his throat with two clawed fists and thrusts him in the air. He slams Theseus against the wall ne
xt to the first archway.

  Theseus’s legs dangle, his feet scrambling for purchase and finding none. His hands clutch at Asterion’s gnarled fists, his face growing red, eyes bulging. With his free hand, Theseus stretches desperately for the dagger on the ground at his feet. He’ll never reach it.

  I want to run for the dagger. I want to rescue Theseus. But I can’t.

  My hand closes around the vial at my throat; with my other hand, I seize my dagger from its sheath at my thigh, squeezing the hilt so hard my fingers go numb. This is it. This is the moment.

  Asterion will grievously wound Theseus, and then I can dart in, collect his lifeblood, and offer it to Asterion. Horror wells up within me at the thought.

  In only a few desperate moments, this will all be over.

  Before I can make myself move, a dark shape hurtles out of nowhere—Kalliope. In the silver-tinged shadows, in the rain and thunder and slashing lightning, she looks fierce as an avenging goddess. She dives, snatches the dagger, and thrusts it into Theseus’s reaching hand.

  With one fluid motion, Theseus raises the dagger and stabs Asterion in the upper chest, below his collarbone.

  Asterion howls in pain. He drops Theseus, staggering back.

  Kalliope is too close. She’s right behind them, turning to flee, but she isn’t fast enough. Asterion stumbles on the rain-slicked stone, crashing into her. She falls beneath his churning hooves.

  “No!” I scream.

  Bellowing in pain and rage, he stomps her body again and again, kicking her in the stomach, chest and head. Her neck snaps back.

  He snatches Kalliope up and shakes her. There’s no spark of humanity in his crazed, reddened eyes. No Asterion in him now. I see only a monster, mad with hate and fury.

  He hurls her body at Theseus.

  Theseus catches her and lowers her gently to the ground, his features contorting in anguish, in desperate hope. But it’s too late.

  I know from the way she lies, floppy and boneless, her neck bent at an unnatural angle.

  A swift kick from a normal bull can crack a man’s skull open. I’ve seen it a dozen times in the arena. There’s no physician who can help her, no mending of her broken body. Not even my mother’s healing elixir could bring her back from this.

  Charis falls to her knees, groaning deep in her throat.

  No, no, no…I never wanted her dead, no matter what tension lay between us, not proud, brave Kalliope, who loved Theseus enough to lay down her life for his.

  Thunder crashes. The rain falls harder. Lightning slashes the sky.

  Gallus growls and lunges at Asterion from the left, barreling into his side. Asterion stumbles in the rain, thrust off-balance.

  “Go!” Theseus grunts at Gallus. “Protect them!”

  Gallus backs away obediently as Theseus charges again, screaming, and leaps upon Asterion, driving him to his back, the ground shaking with the force of his fall as Theseus plunges the knife toward Asterion’s chest. My brother jerks to the side at the last moment, and the blade scrapes across his upper shoulder.

  He roars in agony. He tries to buck, to twist from beneath Theseus. But on his back, he’s weak, his powerful hooves, hindquarters, and muscled torso rendered nearly useless.

  Theseus presses down on him, his forearm jammed against Asterion’s throat to keep him from thrusting his horns. He readjusts his grip on the handle, now slick with my brother’s blood.

  Lightning pulses, cold and brutal, lighting Theseus’s blood-splattered face, his expression hardened with resolve. He raises the blade for the death blow, aimed at the center of my brother’s monstrous heart.

  No!

  Asterion is about to die. Without a chance, without hope, without redemption. This is what I came for, why the goddess spared me, why my mother sent me—but more than that, he’s my brother, whom I love.

  “Theseus!” I scream.

  Theseus hears my voice. He hesitates, the blade raised, dripping blood. He turns, his gaze flashing to me, fear in his eyes—fear for me.

  It is a mistake.

  Asterion shakes him off with a roar. He twists and jerks his massive head forward, horns gleaming sharp and deadly. I see it coming, see the flicker of his reddened, crazed eyes.

  Theseus senses danger and rears back, but not swiftly enough. Asterion swipes Theseus across the chest, his lethal horns arcing, sharpened points tearing into flesh.

  Theseus flies back, crumpling to the ground, blood blooming across his tunic.

  “No!” Charis shrieks.

  The wind lashes my face, rain pelting me like stones. Thunder cracks the sky. Asterion hunches like a great furred mountain, clutching at his wounded shoulder, his matted chest heaving. Theseus’s prone body and the huddled tributes are gray blurs in the slashing rain.

  I clutch the vial at my throat with wet, slippery fingers. With my other hand, I grip the dagger. My heart is a twisted, tortured knot.

  Now is the time. Now is the end.

  I must take my dagger and finish it, take his lifeblood, mix it with the vial and give it to my brother.

  But I don’t move. It’s not fear that stays my hand, but something else.

  I entered the Labyrinth to make things right, to free my brother and my family from the curse, to earn my mother’s approval and my rightful place as princess of Crete.

  But things have changed. Everything has changed.

  I love Theseus. I love him and suddenly I know that I cannot, I will not kill him.

  Theseus moans and struggles to sit. He lurches to his feet. His tunic is torn, his shoulder drenched in blood. Red rain drips from his fingertips. I can’t tell the depth or gravity of his wound. But he is alive.

  Leda, Charis, and Eryx cluster against the wall, Gallus standing guard beside them. They watch, frozen, faces slack in horror.

  Asterion staggers up, his hooves skittering on the slick stone. He bends, heaving for breath, one great paw still clenched over his bloodied shoulder. He bellows, but it comes out as an agonized moan.

  Rain pours from the sky. The wind shrieks. Black clouds boil above us, veiling the courtyard in shadows. My brother stalks in even deeper shadow, an immense outline of dense black but for the red of his eyes and the glint of his horns.

  The two face each other in the center of the storm, drenched and battered, man and beast, hero and monster.

  Theseus raises himself to his full height. He shudders, gasping as he holds out the dagger. “Come, beast. Let us kill each other like men.”

  Only one will walk away from this battle. Of that I am certain. And I am not ready for either of them to die. I couldn’t let Theseus kill my brother, but I won’t let my brother kill Theseus either. I have no plan, no solution, but I cannot stand by and do nothing.

  I take one trembling step toward them, then another, blinking rain from my eyes. “Go!” I shout at my brother. “Get out of here!”

  Asterion turns his head, snorting heavy, groaning breaths. His gaze finds mine, his eyes a red, swirling haze. His fur is soaked with rain and blood, the ground beneath his hooves stained crimson.

  I take another step toward them, and another, until I am standing between the monster and Theseus.

  “Ariadne! Move out of the way!” Theseus cries.

  I yank the moonflower from behind my ear and hurl it at my brother’s hooves. All I can see is Kalliope’s limp body. Dead. Dead because of my brother. Tears burn the back of my throat. “You’ve done enough harm!”

  “Ariadne!” someone shouts. I barely hear them.

  Asterion stares down at the crumpled flower.

  I take another step toward him, dagger still in my hand, keeping myself between him and the others, between him and Theseus. I love him, but I will not allow him to hurt anyone else.

  We’re only a stride away from each other now. He could kill me with one swipe of his crooked fist, but he won’t. I see it in the slump of his enormous shoulders as he looks down at the bruised petals of the moonflower, then at Kalliope’s limp form,
suddenly so small, like she never was in life. The shock of his wound has lessened the madness in him, at least for a moment.

  He gives a pained snort and shuffles a step backward.

  “Go now!” I shout again.

  Asterion gives a thunderous roar, the awful sound shaking the stones, ringing in my ears. He whirls and plunges into the second passageway, back into the darkness of the Labyrinth.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Theseus is on me in three lurching steps. I back up against the wall, but he looms over me, pinning me with his furious gaze, his mouth taut, the cords of his neck standing out like ropes. “This is what you have been hiding? This has been your plan all along? To protect the monster?”

  “No!” I cry, desperate to try to explain the unexplainable. “He’s my brother!”

  “He’s a monster!”

  “You don’t understand! There’s humanity left in him. I saw it! I can find it! I can save him!”

  “I should kill you.” Theseus seizes my arm, the dagger gripped in his other hand. Even now, after all I’ve done, his grasp is tight but not painful. He’s careful not to hurt me. But he is a warrior, a hero. Killing is what he does. “I am honor-bound to enact justice. I have every right.”

  Thunder rumbles. Lightning splits the sky. The others drift closer, staring at me in shocked disbelief. All but Gallus, who hunches slump-shouldered over Kalliope’s body, stroking her hair gently back from her face.

  “Theseus,” Charis says. Sorrow laces her voice. “You don’t have to do this.”

  Theseus’s face darkens. “She betrayed me.”

  “No! I just needed a chance to—”

  “Kalliope is dead.” His words spit fury. “I nearly died, too, because of you!”

  Grief pierces my heart. “I—I didn’t wish for that. I was only trying to—”

  “Don’t let her speak,” Gallus growls. Rain drips down his grief-stricken face, his eyes shiny with pain—and loathing. Whatever his faults, he cared for Kalliope. “Every word she speaks is honeyed poison. See what that poison has done? Our friends are dead because of her. You would’ve killed the Minotaur. Right now, the glory of a hundred wars would be yours, a kingdom and a crown and a thousand songs and legends chanting your name. Instead, Kalliope is dead!”