Labyrinth of Shadows

by Kyla Stone

  “What price would you have him demand for the life of a prince?” The words feel heavy on my tongue even as I speak them. “My father would say you should be grateful he didn’t burn Athens to the ground.”

  “What do you say?” Theseus asks, turning to me. His storm-blue eyes narrow. “Do you really think anything is worth this? Killing innocent children?”

  My throat closes in shame. He’s right. I know he’s right. I hear Demetrios’s panicked cries as a monster dragged him to his death. No child deserved such a fate. Not even a savage.

  What had my people thought of the tributes when they first arrived in their black-sailed ship? Were they disgusted and horrified? Whatever they felt, they’d gotten used to it. To most of the citizens of Crete, the sacrifice was simply another ritual to worship the mother goddess and appease Earth-Shaker.

  The youths and maidens were like beautiful works of art or a shimmering sunset—not human. They were as the king-bull, honored to be sacrificed for the good of our people. I also watched them enter the Labyrinth, and I did nothing.

  But now? Now I know better. I feel their fear, smell their terror, see the panic in their eyes.

  “Demetrios is dead.” His body is taut and rigid, cords bulging in his neck. “Your brother killed him.”

  “My brother is going to kill everyone.” My scar throbs dully. “It’s what he does. Who he is. I’m sorry for Demetrios, I truly am. But…” I cannot bring myself to speak the words aloud. This is only the beginning.

  Theseus’s mouth tightens. “You shouldn’t have fallen behind. If you’d stayed with me, I would have protected you. I would have saved him.”

  The realization sinks in slowly. He feels responsible for the tributes, for Demetrios. “He twisted his ankle. He couldn’t run. We tried to help him.”

  Theseus slants his gaze down at me, then looks swiftly away. The torchlight trembles along the jagged stone walls. A muscle in his jaw jerks. “How did your brother come to be this…this creature? The poets tell many tales, but I don’t know which one is true.”

  He doesn’t deserve to know. Why should I tell him the shame of my family? But it’s no secret. And I need him on my side. I need him to trust me. So, I tell the story I know so well it is imprinted on my soul. “None of them. Before my father was king, he warred with his two brothers over the Cretan crown. All three brothers desired the throne. They all believed they deserved it more than the others. The people were torn and did not know who to follow. The threat of war grew, shadowing all of Crete.

  “My father went to the gods for help. Instead of seeking the mother goddess, he knelt in the waters of the sea and prayed to her son, Earth-Shaker, or Poseidon. My father swore he would sacrifice the greatest bull in all of Crete if the god blessed him and gave him the throne. Earth-Shaker took pity and agreed to help him.

  “Minos called a great gathering of the people in the same spot, on the beach below the cliffs leading to the palace of Knossos. His brothers thought he was going to throw his backing behind one of them. Greedy, they came. So did thousands of the people, the priests, advisers, nobles, and princes throughout Crete.

  “In front of everyone, a great bull rose from the waves, water streaming off its magnificent white hide. No one had ever seen anything like it. They were silent with awe and amazement. My father called to the bull, and it obeyed, lumbering right up to my father, docile as a calf.

  “The people knew my father had been chosen. The priests declared him king, then and there. His brothers could say nothing against him.” I was five summers then, and I still remember that mountain of a bull, my father’s triumphant face as the people chanted his name.

  “King Minos should have sacrificed the great white bull. It was the gift he promised Earth-Shaker, after all. But my father is dazzled by beautiful things,” I say bitterly. “He loves to boast of the precious, rare, and marvelous things he owns—all the gold in his magnificent palace, his pet phoenix and the blue monkeys, the griffins he keeps in cages, and his many stallions bred from the flesh-eating mares of Thrace, the fastest in the known world.

  “And so, he kept the bull for himself. He sacrificed a lesser bull from his herd to appease Earth-Shaker, thinking he could deceive a god.” The words are ash on my tongue, but I force them out anyway. “In revenge, Earth-Shaker cursed not only the king, but his family. My family.”

  Theseus tilts his head, studying me. His eyes are sharp. “In the tales I heard, your mother fell in love with the bull and wished to consummate her love, and so she asked the maze-maker to build her a wooden cow to seduce the bull, which she hid inside. It was this twisted, unnatural love with a beast that created the monster—”

  “That is a cruel rumor my own father spread in spiteful revenge and to hide his own folly,” I snap. “It is not the truth.”

  His handsome brow furrows. “How do you know?”

  “I saw it myself.”

  For a long time, I believed it a dream—the beautiful, shimmering horned creature finding my mother in the moonlight of the beach, where she had brought seven-year-old Androgeus, my five-year-old self, and baby Phaedra to watch the sun sink into the sea and the stars wheel across the sky.

  My father won his kingdom that summer. We were all happy then, even my mother.

  She was dancing on the beach, her arms outstretched toward the heavens, when the bull rose from the sea, pure blue and glistening in the moonlight, almost incandescent. It strode onto the beach, streaming water, and went to my mother. Androgeus and little Phaedra slept beside me. I lay blinking, half-asleep, sand in my hair, salt on my lips, a dream unfurling before me.

  I remember feeling awe, but not fear. I had watched the great white bull emerge from these same waters before my father on the day he was declared king. That something so strange and wondrous would occur again, and so soon, never entered my head. I was a child, and I believed in everything then.

  I sat up, about to call out, but I didn’t.

  The beautiful blue bull stopped before my mother. She stroked its head between its great white horns. A cloud unraveled across the moon. In the shadows, the form of the bull rippled, changed, and elongated into hairless legs and arms, a strong, muscled torso, and a face like lightning.

  His image shimmered in my vision. I couldn’t make out the edges of where he began and the sea ended. In my memory, it seemed he was the sea.

  To me, it was a beautiful, marvelous thing. The magic of the gods, of Earth-Shaker, of the mother goddess.

  Until my mother’s belly swelled, and the issue that came forth wasn’t beautiful or marvelous. My mother gave birth to a monster, a hideous creature half-bull and half-man, shunned by all. Only my mother and I loved him.

  “My father wished to strike the deformed creature down in his cot,” I explain to Theseus, “but the Oracle at Delphi warned against it. This punishment for my father’s sin of arrogance was his to bear.”

  Also, Asterion’s, who had done no wrong. And my mother’s, who could only be said to have succumbed to the enchantment of the sea god, Earth-Shaker himself. And mine, shunned and scorned simply for being his sister, for being the one who survived.

  My hand rises instinctively to touch the old wound. The real reason they hated me, feared me—the jagged scar scything across my chest, always reminding them of the beast prowling below their feet, the fear that lurked in the hidden corners of their own hearts—fear of the monster, fear for themselves.

  “It will be over soon.” Theseus’s voice gentles. He steps closer, his arm brushing against mine. I feel his strength, his coiled power. “Ending the reign of this monster will save you, too.”

  My breath catches in my throat. I can think of nothing to say.

  We come to another split in the tunnel.

  Theseus squeezes my shoulder. His fingers feel like sparks of fire along my skin. “Choose a path, Princess.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  I quickly move away from Theseus, bending to test the thread with trembling fingers. It r
olls gently down the new passageway, which is narrower than the last one, with a high ceiling that bleeds into the darkness.

  I pick up the ball of thread and close my fist around it, trying not to think about his skin pressed against mine, the way my stomach flutters.

  He is an Athenian. A means to an end. Nothing more. Still, I feel his presence, his gaze on me like heat.

  I need a distraction, to get him talking again. I ask the question I’ve been wondering from the moment I saw him leap from the black-sailed Athenian ship. “Why did you volunteer?”

  “Athens must be free.” His voice goes low and hard. “I will not stand by and allow the best and brightest of the noble houses to be slaughtered spring after spring. I will not allow youths like—like Demetrios to die for nothing. If my father will not do it, then it’s up to me.”

  “But why not send someone else? You’re the prince of Athens, the only son of King Aegeus. You aren’t expendable, like I am. You’ll be king.”

  Theseus stiffens. He hesitates, as if weighing how much to say. “It has to be me. There are those—including the fathers of some in this chamber, even a few of the tributes themselves, like Cadmus—who don’t believe I should be king.”

  “Why?”

  “I am a prince, but I wasn’t raised a prince.”

  “That makes little sense.”

  He laughs bitterly. “I guess you wouldn’t understand without an explanation. Before I was born, King Aegeus stole the throne of Athens by subterfuge and violence from his cousin, King Sicyon. Aegeus gained access to the palace by bringing great gifts in King Sicyon’s honor. In gratitude, Sicyon declared a feast in celebration. Guest honor is sacred among my people, but my father chose to betray that honor.” Theseus’s golden brow wrinkles, as if such a betrayal is a personal stain upon his character. Maybe it is.

  “Aegeus took care to drink little, while plying the king with wine. When Aegeus signaled his warriors, they slaughtered every noble and soldier within the palace walls. By taking possession of the palace, Aegeus took the power of the entire kingdom and declared himself king.”

  I’ve heard some of this, relayed by messengers in my father’s throne room, but it was long ago. “The name Sicyon sounds familiar to me.”

  “Sicyon was brother to Daedalus, your famous maze-builder.”

  I raise my brows. “No wonder Daedalus had to flee Athens.”

  “As brother to a slain king, he posed a threat to my father’s claim to the kingship, so he sought refuge in Crete. Many other relatives of the old king were slain, but there were—and are still—those who remember how King Aegeus usurped the throne, those who pledge loyalty in words but not in heart, those who would weaken or even destroy the king if given the opportunity.

  “Which brings me to my part in this. Though King Aegeus married, he bore no heirs. The seasons passed, and still, he had no sons. Aegeus traveled to the Delphi Oracle winter after winter, begging to know whether he would ever have an heir.

  “My mother, Aethra, was daughter to a lord in Troizena. When King Aegeus saw her on his travels, he was taken with her beauty. They spent a night together. Later that same night, after he had left, my mother went to the sacred groves to worship and was visited by Poseidon. As is sometimes the way of things, she became pregnant by both man and god.”

  I wouldn’t have believed such a thing before I laid eyes upon Theseus. He burns bright with vitality, strength, and purpose, his every movement imbued with elegance and grace. My mother believes divine blood runs in his veins. So do I.

  Theseus straightens his broad shoulders. “Before he returned to his palace in Athens, Aegeus hid his sandals and sword beneath a boulder, and told my mother, ‘If I have a son, keep him hidden here until he is of age; then show him the boulder and have him return the sandals and sword to me.’”

  We reach another branching tunnel. I check the ball of thread in one corridor, then the next. The thread begins to roll. I grab it and we continue our journey, picking our way carefully in the flickering dark. “Your father was afraid you would be killed.”

  Theseus nods curtly. “I believe so, yes. I didn’t understand why for a long time, but now I do. He was protecting me until I was old enough to protect myself. Any son he named as his own was a target.”

  That explains Theseus’s rough peasant hands. “You had no idea who your father was?”

  “None. I was raised riding horses and working my grandfather’s farms. I knew nothing of my lineage. Not until the day my mother deemed me old enough and finally told me the truth.”

  “So you went to Athens and declared yourself as the long-lost prince.”

  “In a way, yes. It was—difficult. My stepmother tried to poison me.” I glance at him sharply. He flashes a wry smile. “But that’s a different story. Once my father knew who I was, he took me in with open arms. But many of the noble families whisper that I am a just a poor farmer, nothing special. Some even say the king is so desperate for an heir that he paid me to impersonate his son. If I wish to be king someday, it cannot be on my father’s word alone. I must earn it.”

  His voice hardens. He speaks with a fierce will, an iron resolve. “And I will. When I slay the monster and free Athens from the curse of the Minotaur, no one will doubt my lineage.”

  “You look every part the prince to me,” I say lightly, but my gut tightens. His threatening words echo in my mind. If you betray us, I will kill you myself.

  Theseus is a formidable opponent. One I do not wish to cross.

  But I will have to.

  Theseus is determined to slay the monster. But I’m not here to kill the Minotaur. I’m here to save him.

  But am I too late? Growing dread gnaws at me. Just who is the creature who stalks and hunts us? Other than the shadowy glimpse in the Labyrinth, I haven’t laid eyes on him in seven summers. Will I recognize him? Will he recognize me? Or will he butcher me like all the others? Is there anything human remaining inside him, anything even left to save?

  My scar itches. I rub it absently. Seven summers ago, I watched the guards take him away and lock him in this awful place. He wasn’t always a monster.

  But those memories are a dark blur. When I try to remember, I see only glowing red eyes, hear only a monstrous roar thundering in my ears, feel only splintering pain and hot red blood.

  Once, he was my brother.

  But what is he now?

  Chapter Sixteen

  The path splits off and narrows, shrinking into a cramped tunnel we must pass through one at a time. After a while, it widens again to a tunnel large enough for five to walk abreast.

  The air smells dank and slightly sour. My eyes strain to discern shapes in the oily shadows. The hairs on the back of my neck prickle. I keep thinking something is following, slinking after us. But when I whirl, there is nothing, only the taut, huddled faces of the tributes, only the darkness.

  Always, the darkness.

  I have the vague sense that we’re traveling deeper, wending the twisted, serpentine passageways down into the wet, fetid bowels of the mountain. The stones above us seem to grow heavier, sinking lower and lower. Without the sun and moon to guide me, there’s no way to tell how much time has passed.

  “I’m tired,” Selene whines after what feels like a day of walking.

  “Be quiet,” Kalliope snaps.

  “You can’t expect us to walk for days,” Selene says, a scowl in her words. “We need to rest!”

  “We must press on.” Theseus slows his pace, but barely.

  My own legs are sore, my sandals rubbing blisters into my toes. I’m accustomed to physical activity, but every muscle aches from the tremendous exertion I expended in the arena. The cut on my arm stings, and my bruised ribs pulse with pain. But I voice no complaints.

  “I think we’re all tired,” Charis says quietly. “And thirsty.”

  “I would like to eat now,” says Nikolaos, the boy with the musical voice. He is the same one from the wharf, with the pale gray eyes like a rain-sla
ked sky.

  Kalliope comes up on Theseus’s other side, her hips swaying. She rests her hand on his forearm and leans in, whispering something in his ear. He bends his head toward her—frowning, but not in anger.

  Theseus sighs. “We will rest and eat. But not for long.”

  “Thank you,” Nikolaos says gratefully.

  Kalliope squeezes Theseus’s arm and offers him a sweet, alluring smile, a softness in her eyes when she looks at him. I watch them carefully, storing the information in my mind. Everything is useful down here. Whatever is between them, Theseus cares for her, and she, for him. I should try to get Kalliope on my side, but a sinking sensation in my gut tells me that battle is unlikely to be won.

  The Athenians crowd into a tight circle, sit down, and open their satchels. I move to sit beside Theseus. Kalliope barges between us. Her nose wrinkles in disgust, and she makes a contemptuous noise deep in her throat. “Rats and worms do not share space beside a future king.”

  Only moments ago, Theseus spoke to me almost as an equal, but now he grunts and turns away. “Find a spot over there,” he says with a dismissive wave of his hand.

  Kalliope shoots me a triumphant smile as she and Gallus take the spots on either side of Theseus. He hands the torch to Gallus and remains standing, knife unsheathed, always on guard.

  “Eat only a few bites,” Theseus instructs the others. “We need to conserve our supplies.”

  I look around the tight circle of tributes in the flickering torchlight. They stare back at me with hard, exhausted expressions. They eat and drink with hands trembling from fear. The hours of silent terror weigh heavily on them, I can see it in the bruised shadows beneath their eyes and the taut lines bracketing their mouths. They murmur to each other softly, as if the comfort of companionship, a few bites of dried goat meat and barley bread might somehow alter their doomed fate.