by Kyla Stone
But this isn’t the palace of Knossos. My mother isn’t here. No matter its beauty, this is a gilded prison.
As I promised Theseus, more torches light up the chamber. I blink and shield my eyes. After so much darkness and nothing but gray stone, it’s almost painful to take in. Eryx drops the used torch and lifts a new one from the wall. Gallus takes another torch as well.
There are more frescos dazzling the walls, and three tapestries depicting the mother goddess entwined with snakes drape from ceiling to floor next to an enormous cot nestled in the far corner. The silk coverings were once a sumptuous indigo, but now they’re threadbare and filmed with a mat of chestnut hairs. Pillows and cushions both large and small scatter across the polished floor. A second burning brazier offers warmth, and an ornate, gold-carved marble tub holds blackened, brackish water. The room smells of damp fur and oily hide, like the cattle stalls beneath the arena.
Though the Minotaur’s lair stinks, it’s tidy. The floors are clean, the pillows straightened. I recall suddenly that my brother was always fastidious. Another memory strikes me—Asterion sweeping up the clumps of fur in his own chambers because the slaves feared to enter. Me helping him change his night pot, giggling with the illicit amusement of doing a servant’s work.
I gaze around the chamber, startled. Where did that memory come from? Is it real? I remember so little of my childhood, of the time before my brother was imprisoned.
“We should take those down.” Gallus points to a set of bronze axes hung above the archway we just entered.
Theseus nods as he turns slowly, scanning the room. There are no other passageways in or out of the chamber.
“Guard the entrance,” Theseus orders Gallus. His face tightens, but he quickly obeys, a thigh bone in one hand, torch in the other. He glares at me from his position beside the archway.
Theseus looks up at the axes longingly. “Everyone else, be quiet and alert.”
“We shouldn’t stay here,” Charis says, shivering.
“We’ll stay as long as Theseus needs us to,” Kalliope says.
Theseus’s eyes gentle as he looks at Charis. “We’ll get the axes, and then I’ll lead us somewhere safe. I’ll return myself and slay the monster once and for all. I’ll hide there, just behind that tapestry,” he points to the indigo and saffron tapestry nearest the Minotaur’s cot, “lie in wait for the beast, and charge him when he least expects it.” He allows himself a tight smile. “And then we’ll escape with Ariadne’s map!”
My heart plummets. Somehow, I will have to follow Theseus. I can’t allow him to kill my brother.
“How will you find us again if we separate?” Kalliope asks.
“Use the thread,” I say quickly. “Leave one end with Gallus and take the thread, unraveling it as you go. When you’ve accomplished your task, wind the thread to bring you back to where we’ll be waiting.” I’ll use the thread to follow Theseus when he goes after the Minotaur. The plan is still in place.
Theseus nods. “I’ll come for all of you when the beast is slain.”
“I’m staying with you,” Gallus insists from the archway. “I’m your companion. Your brother-in-arms. Your honor guard.”
Theseus smiles grimly. “I promised to bring you all back to your mothers, and I intend to keep that promise.”
“You need me,” Gallus says, puffing out his chest.
“This is a task meant for me. The hero always enters the underworld alone. It’s a burden I must bear, my friend.”
“The story will be spun into myth at the hearth of every household in Crete and beyond!” Gallus crows, though his brow is still furrowed unhappily. “Our hero-king will rival even Heracles!”
Theseus smiles.
The others nod, still stunned and glassy-eyed. Kalliope is tight-lipped, her fear evident on her face but her will to remain at Theseus’s side is stronger. Leda wraps an arm around Charis, comforting her. Zephyra and Nikolaos shudder in terrified silence. Eryx’s eyes are huge with curiosity—he keeps craning his neck, trying to take everything in. He’d examine every nook and cranny if there weren’t a monster to worry about.
Leda frowns. “Let’s save the stories for later and get out of this place.”
“The axes. Then we go.” Theseus reaches for the double axe over the doorway, stretching as high as he can, but even he isn’t tall enough. He glances around, eyes narrowing.
“Try that table,” Eryx suggests.
A gilded table on spindly legs holds gold cups and dishes, but the malleable metal is crumpled, crushed by giant, meaty fists. I pick up a mangled bowl and trace my fingers over the embossed images of the sun god Helios reaching down from his chariot in the sky to pluck lilies waving in a field.
Did my brother crush these beautiful, mangled creations in rage? In sorrow and grief? Could he even feel those things anymore?
He did, once. I am suddenly sure of it.
A memory pricks the back of my mind. Too dim and murky to make out clearly—the feel of warm, coarse fur against my shoulder, sun on my face, a raspy, guttural laugh echoing in my ears. There’s no fear in this memory; my scar does not itch or burn like it does in my nightmares. I frown down at the mangled bowl, confused.
Eryx drags the table across the floor. He cups his hands and Theseus steps up, but he still can’t reach. He and Eryx both try running and leaping for the axes, to no avail.
I push the fragment of memory from my mind and turn my attention to the rest of the chamber. Across the room, a second slim table before the center tapestry holds several ornate jars and urns. I walk over to examine them. There are large jars of oil for the torches and the brazier, with several smaller, bright blue and gold jars clustered together. A single moonflower floats in each jar, the fragile white petals half-opened. They’re vases.
It’s strange to see a green, living thing in this place of darkness and death. Where did they come from? The guards would never give him flowers.
Daedalus’s voice returns to me: The moonflower blooms in darkness. But that is not entirely true. The moonflower needs moonlight to flourish. Wherever these flowers have their source, there must be moonlight, an open sky. A way out.
This is what Daedalus meant with his cryptic message: a light in the dark.
I’m leading the tributes in the right direction. We’re close. We must be close.
I scan the chamber, searching for another clue. Something in the wall to the right of the center tapestry catches my eye. A tiny sliver of green winds through the cracks in the limestone wall.
It takes several moments for my sluggish, exhausted brain to translate what my eyes have just seen.
“Water!” I whisper hoarsely.
The others crowd around the table, jostling each other. Nikolaos bumps the table in his eagerness, and the jars tremble, precious water sloshing over the lip of several vases.
“Be careful!” Zephyra says.
“Stand back!” Theseus counts the vases. “There are five jars, but eight of us. Each of you pick a partner and take turns drinking.”
“They’re different sizes.” Zephyra frowns, sullen. “Who decides who gets the most?”
“I do.” Theseus grabs the smallest vase and thrusts it at her. “I suggest you cease complaining before I give it all to whichever partner you choose.”
Leda snorts.
No one else complains. Theseus hands out the rest and brings Gallus’s share to him, as he’s still standing by the archway, guarding our backs. Charis and Leda pair up, along with Kalliope and Nikolaos. Only Charis, Theseus, and loyal Gallus pour out a few drops in libation. The rest gulp down their share, draining their vases, their thirst drowning out their fear of godly retribution.
Zephyra turns to me and smiles, flashing her perfect white teeth. Miraculously, her tunic is still clean and unsmudged, her wild coils carefully finger-combed and bound at the base of her neck. “Do you want the first sip? You found them.”
I smile back gratefully. Maybe I’ve finally won her over, t
oo. I take one swallow and hand it back to her. The water tastes like the ambrosia of the gods, soothing my parched throat like a cool mountain stream.
Zephyra takes a sip, plucks the moonflower out of the vase, and tucks it behind her ear. I stare at the blossom. A memory surges through me—long summers spent picking lilies in my mother’s gardens. A comforting presence is beside me, an enormous, blurred shape I can’t quite make out in my mind’s eye.
“What?” Zephyra asks.
I shake my head. “It’s nothing.”
We take turns until the precious water is gone. I tip the jar over my opened mouth, waiting for the last drop, wasting nothing. Our food is low, but we can last days without food. Without water, we’ll be dead even before the Minotaur finds us. Who knows when—or if—we’ll find more? I’m still thirsty, but it’s enough to keep us alive, for now.
A sound echoes from somewhere deeper in the Labyrinth, a soft scuffling. We all go still, my heart leaping into my throat. Gallus twists, peering into shadows through the archway. “Just a rat.”
A shadow crosses Theseus’s face, his eyes growing dark and hard as he glances one last time toward the axes high above our heads. “Still, it’s time to go. Quickly, before the beast returns.”
Everyone quietly places the vases back on the table and turns for the exit. We’re almost to the archway when Theseus stiffens.
“Did you hear that?” Charis whispers.
Something skitters in the second chamber behind Gallus.
He whirls, opening his mouth, but no one hears him speak. A ferocious roar explodes around us. The deafening thunder reverberates through the chamber, trembling the floor beneath our feet.
The Minotaur appears in the archway as if he’s been conjured out of thin air: a raging, bellowing beast of slashing horns and reddened eyes. In the light, he’s even more terrible than any fiendish creature the mind could conjure, a monster lunging from the depths of the underworld, escaping into the Labyrinth to devour and destroy any living thing within its path.
The Minotaur plunges into the chamber, blocking our only exit. We fall back, stumbling, scrambling over each other, fleeing to the rear of the chamber, throwing ourselves against the wall, searching frantically for an escape.
But there’s no escape. There’s nowhere to run.
We’re trapped in the heart of the Labyrinth.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The Minotaur rears back on his hind legs, towering head and shoulders above even Theseus. He stands like a man, but his legs are thickly muscled, his haunches tapering into deadly-sharp hooves. His furred body is heavily matted over his broad chest and hulking shoulders. His arms bulge, his hands barely human, with gnarled fingers curved inward, the nails long and jagged.
His neck is thick with a mane of shaggy brown fur, his head shaped vaguely like a bull’s. The features marring his face are both human and animal, but mangled—a muzzle where the nose should be, and savage eyes that burn red with fury and destruction. Twisting, vicious horns longer than my forearms protrude from his misshapen skull.
My pulse thunders in my ears so loud I can barely think. Theseus and Gallus look like children next to the Minotaur. He’s so much larger and more terrible than my nightmares. How can this be my brother?
This isn’t happening as I planned, as I imagined. The monster is too strong, too powerful, too terrible. He won’t just kill Theseus. He’ll kill us all here and now, tearing each tribute limb from limb in front of my horrified eyes.
The beast bellows, snorting rancid breaths, thrashing his great head, his horns plunging like bronze-tipped spears. He snorts and paws the floor, crushing bones to dust beneath his hooves, eyes misted red with madness.
He turns toward Nikolaos and Charis.
They did not run to the rear of the chamber with the rest of us, but stand rooted to the floor in the center of the chamber, both of them shaking, faces bone-white.
“Run!” Leda cries.
But the Minotaur is on Charis in a heartbeat. He growls as he seizes her by the throat, lifting her until she dangles high in the air, roaring into her stricken face, spittle flying from his muzzle.
And then suddenly there’s Theseus, lunging in with the dagger, swiping the blade in a wide arc that narrowly misses the monster’s chest. The beast drops Charis, hurling her aside like a pile of rags, turning to face the greater threat. She falls, her head striking the stone floor, Nikolaos still frozen in place beside her.
“Go away, you ugly ox!” Leda screams.
From the left side, Gallus leaps at the Minotaur and pummels his flank with the thigh bone. The Minotaur seizes the bone and rips it away from him, snarling as he snaps it into pieces between his crooked fists.
Gallus blanches. He staggers back, hands up to protect his vulnerable face and neck.
Theseus darts in, quick as a snake, the dagger a blur. The blade bites deep into the Minotaur’s forearm as he bellows, whips around, and strikes Theseus a glancing blow across the shoulder. Theseus rears back, the Minotaur swinging again, this time aiming for Theseus’s head.
Theseus dives to the ground and rolls, narrowly avoiding the blow. The Minotaur takes a lumbering step back toward Charis, but Theseus leaps to his feet and charges again, shouting and waving his arms. “I’m right here! Come and get me!”
My heart wrenches in my chest. He’s putting himself in danger, trying to lead the Minotaur from Charis and Nikolaos. The Minotaur lurches toward Theseus, lowering his head.
I can save them. I can dart in and out in a flash, in a blink of an eye. I’m trained for it. I know how to dodge trampling hooves, how to anticipate a charge and deflect slashing horns. I’ve spun somersaults over the backs of charging bulls and whirled out of harm’s way a hundred times.
This is different—this is my brother, the monster who tried to kill me, the red eyes and gleaming horns of my nightmares flashing before my eyes. I blink back images of horror. The scent of hot coppery blood fills my nostrils.
You’ll only fail, just like in the ring.
Fear clutches me. My muscles freeze. I cannot move.
With the Minotaur distracted by Theseus, Leda dodges in and grasps Charis beneath her arms.
Move, another voice whispers through my fear. Do something!
I don’t want Charis to die. Or Nikolaos, Leda, or any of them. I won’t let them die.
“Help me!” Leda screams, twisting around to stare straight at me.
Her words unlock something inside me. With incredible effort, I force myself to move. I race forward and seize Charis’s feet. Together, Leda and I drag her deeper into the chamber, out of the way of the fighting. “Nikolaos, run!” I rasp.
But Nikolaos quails helplessly, cringing, hands over his eyes. He won’t move. I’ll have to go back for him. I’ll have to haul him over my shoulder, and—
The Minotaur sees us. With a bellow, he knocks Theseus against the far wall. Theseus falls to his hands and knees, winded and gasping. Horror-stricken, Leda and I manage to scramble backward to the wall, yanking Charis with us. I drop Charis and turn to rush back for Nikolaos.
But it’s too late. Before anyone can move, the monster whirls and charges. He covers five strides in a heartbeat, and strikes Nikolaos across the side of the head with his powerful fist. The boy crumples to the floor at his feet.
The beast roars, hunching over Nikolaos, pawing the ground and tossing his head, eyes rolling madly in their sockets.
“Asterion,” I croak. “Stop this!” I’m desperate for him to see me, to know me, but my raw voice is only a whisper. He cannot hear me.
The Minotaur swings his head and plunges his horns into Nikolaos’s chest.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Minotaur rears his head, flinging the boy into the air.
Bright red blooms across Nikolaos’s tunic. He doesn’t make a sound as he collapses, his body thudding to the floor. His limbs splay awkwardly, broken. His neck is twisted at a grotesque angle. A blonde curl falls into his gray
eyes, still open, staring at nothing.
Something shatters inside me.
A silent scream fills my head. He was so young. Just a child.
I didn’t act fast enough. This is my fault.
Beside me, Charis moans, staring at Nikolaos’s crumpled body, one hand pressed against her head as she struggles to pull herself to her feet. Leda and I help her up. “Ariadne,” Charis gasps. “The monster.”
He’s staring straight at us, pawing the ground. My heart constricts. I know that look. I’ve seen it a thousand times in the arena. The Minotaur is about to charge.
Near the entrance, Theseus clambers to his feet as he picks up one of the human skulls and hurls it at the Minotaur’s head. It bounces harmlessly off his horn. “Leave them alone!”
The monster whirls with a hideous roar, searching for the source of the blow, his attention diverted. He rears back and swings toward Theseus just as Theseus attacks him, his horn meeting the blade of the dagger with a resounding clang. Theseus stabs at the Minotaur, grazing his furred chest and drawing a thin streak of blood.
The beast howls and plunges his horns hard and high, giving a mighty thrust. Theseus ducks, stumbling, the horns arcing through the air just above his head.
From the other side, Gallus comes at him with another club made of bone. He slams it against the creature’s ribs again and again, but the Minotaur barely seems to feel it. He’ll kill them both, and then he’ll come for the rest of us.
I close my eyes for a heartbeat, shutting out the chaos and terror. I am Ariadne, princess of Crete. I am a bull-dancer. I gather every ounce of my strength, forcing myself to think, because if I don’t do something, if I don’t figure out a way to escape, we’re all going to die, just like Nikolaos.
I empty myself, pushing out all thoughts and feelings like Suma trained me. I must trust my instincts. Just like in the arena. I open my eyes and gaze wildly around the room, desperate for an idea. There’s the cot, tables, chairs, silk rugs, labrys axes too high to reach, the tapestries. My gaze lands on the brazier.