Labyrinth of Shadows

by Kyla Stone

  Hopelessness sweeps over me. This isn’t how I imagined the end. This isn’t what I planned. I’ve lost everything I’ve fought for, risked my life for.

  Without Theseus’s lifeblood, I can’t save my brother. By protecting my brother, I’ve lost Theseus.

  You’ve failed, just like you always do.

  “Theseus!” Leda’s voice is hard as iron. “Let her go!”

  Theseus exhales in sharp surprise, shaking his head as if coming out of a daze. He releases me. I slump against the wall, the rain drenching me, soaking my skin, my tunic, plastering my hair to my scalp.

  Leda wraps her arm around Charis’s trembling shoulders and sets her jaw. “No more death.”

  Theseus’s shoulders are tense, his back rigid, his expression grieved. Beneath his anger flares a bewildered anguish. I’ve betrayed him, and he doesn’t understand why. His pain strikes me worse than a blow. “Why did you do this?” he asks, his voice raw.

  “I didn’t want to. But he’s my brother. I didn’t have a choice!”

  Fresh blood leaks from his slashed chest, mingling with the rain dripping down his torso. “Weren’t you the one who claimed we could make our own choices?”

  “She deserves to die,” Gallus says. “Anyone who betrays a king deserves death.”

  “I didn’t betray you!” I stammer. It is half-lie, half-truth. “I led you here! You’d all be dead without me!”

  I lower my head in shame as my gaze falls on Kalliope’s limp form, the growing puddle of water next to her body stained red. She did nothing wrong. She was proud and strong and brave. She loved Theseus enough to die for him.

  What can I say for myself? There is nothing.

  “Do you wish for me to do it?” Gallus asks softly. “I promise, I’ll make it swift.”

  “No!” Charis gasps.

  “She should die!” Gallus snarls.

  “She did what she promised she would.” Leda gazes at me, her expression inscrutable. “Whatever else she’s done, we’re alive because of her.” She looks at Gallus. “You’re alive because of her.”

  Charis pulls out of Leda’s embrace and steps forward, resting her hand on Theseus’s arm and peering up at him, beseeching. “This isn’t who you are.”

  I keep my head bowed. Hot tears slip down my cheeks to mingle with the rain. I don’t deserve their grace. I don’t deserve their mercy. But they’ve given it to me anyway.

  “You have betrayed me, Ariadne of Crete,” Theseus says coldly. “Kalliope is dead because of you. Nicolaus is dead. Demetrios, Selene, and Zephyra.”

  “Please, I’m—”

  “Go!” Theseus snarls between gritted teeth. I look up. He works his jaw as a thousand competing emotions flash across his face. Lightning pulses, turning his eyes to dark caverns.

  He gestures with the dagger toward the second archway. “You have made your choice. You are no longer one of us. Go to your precious brother. Maybe he’ll kill you. Maybe he won’t. But I will kill him. I swear by my father Poseidon that I’ll end this, once and for all.”

  “I’m sorry,” I gasp. “I’m so sorry.” I look at him, pleading, begging for him to at least understand why. “Theseus—"

  But Theseus’s jaw is set, sharp as an axe-blade. He turns away from me.

  The others stand in the rain, slack-jawed and staring, silent.

  “Run!” Theseus shouts.

  I run.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Darkness envelopes me. I sheathe my dagger and stretch my hands in front of me, flailing blindly. I stumble blindly over loose stones, staggering into sharp corners. I fall, jerk myself to my feet, and flee deeper into the Labyrinth.

  I can see nothing but darkness, a darkness so complete it’s a thing unto itself—all-consuming. A part of me yearns to give in, to give up, to curl on the cold hard ground and let the darkness take me. To disappear, put an end to the shame and fear, the regret choking my throat.

  But I don’t. I can’t. I don’t give up. I don’t know how.

  The sounds of the storm dim. I hear only the slap of my wet feet against stone, my own frantic, ragged breathing, my pulse pounding against my skull. Sobs tear from my chest, bitterness and sorrow and shame knotting in my gut.

  I am a fool. How could I have thought this would possibly end differently? I am a stupid, foolish girl to think I could change anything. To think I would ever be anything but cursed.

  My foot snags on a jutting stone and I stagger, my ankle twisting painfully, my face smacking against the closest wall. Pain explodes against my nose and mouth, knifes up my leg. Wet warmth drips down my chin. I wipe it away furiously and keep going.

  But my ankle no longer wishes to hold my weight. Only a few heartbeats later, I slip and fall. My knees crack hard against the stone floor, my palms stinging. I try to rise, but my trembling legs give out beneath me. A thousand tiny knives stab my ankle.

  Even my body has betrayed me.

  I slump against the wall and wrap my arms around myself, shivering. The cold stone seeps through the fabric of my tunic, through my skin all the way to the core of me. Darkness crouches all around me. The complete absence of light feels like the absence of everything—warmth, color, happiness, life.

  I let out a low moan. The sound echoes down the serpentine, spiraling corridors and passageways, an endless maze of shadow and stone. Will I starve here? Or is Theseus right? Will my own brother gore me to death or tear me to pieces with his bare hands? Or will some other monstrous predator find me in the dark?

  All my plans have wasted away to nothing. Theseus will slay Asterion, and everything I’ve sacrificed for will be undone. I’ve failed. I’ll die here, deep in the bowels of the earth, utterly alone.

  Theseus despises me. The tributes hate me. Charis and Leda may have argued for my life, but I’ve still lost them. They will live, but they won’t be mine. I don’t deserve them.

  In my own way, I am as much a monster as the Minotaur.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  I don’t know how much time passes. My tears dry into salty streaks on my cheeks. The chilling blackness leaches all warmth from my skin. I can’t stop shaking.

  I only wanted to save my brother. I only wanted to please my mother, to earn the respect and honor of my parents, my people, the mother goddess. But somehow, things got twisted and ugly. Because I couldn’t save him without a sacrifice.

  And I didn’t understand how great a sacrifice my mother would demand.

  A life for a life.

  My mother’s words run through me, cold and cruel as the first time she spoke them, her snake slithering along her arm, glittering like a black jewel, fangs bared.

  The cost is great. Lifeblood is required, but only from those with an immortal bloodline, descended from the gods. We are not gods, though we dare to wield their magic.

  My mother sent me in here, knowing the cost.

  I think of Kalliope, her father shoving her forward, volunteering her for death in her brother’s place. Did my mother do the same to me?

  Charis’s words echo darkly through my mind. If one wishes to offer their life, it should be their choice, shouldn’t it? Not their father’s or mother’s or anyone else’s.

  Was it love that sent me into the Labyrinth, or something else? Did my mother even love me? Hers is a twisted love, the kind that grows roots, gnarled, pale and worming, seeding into a thing almost love, but not—bitterness, maybe. Resentment, even hatred. It’s strange how closely love and its opposite are intertwined, all tangled up in fear and need and wanting.

  But strange isn’t the right word. The right word is closer to something like pain.

  I don’t think I believe in her love any longer. I think maybe her love is something destructive and poisonous.

  And all this time, I was too blind to see it.

  What do I even know of love?

  Tarina loves me. This, I know, is true. Tarina never risked my life. She offered hers freely for mine.

  And Kalliope…even proud
, haughty Kalliope proved her love when she gave her life for Theseus’s.

  That is love. I know it is.

  Love, above all, is a choice.

  Love isn’t always what you think it will be. And it doesn’t always come from whom you expect. But when you find it, even in the darkest of places, you hold on and never let go.

  The realization is a soft breath on my neck, a whisper in the dark.

  I lift my head. Something inside me stills. There is another way.

  It doesn’t have to be his life.

  I came here to kill the hero and save a monster. But nothing is as it’s supposed to be. The monster isn’t as evil as I once believed. The hero is flawed, but worth saving.

  And me? I came here to prove I am fearless. Deserving. Worthy.

  But it isn’t my mother or my father or even the goddess who decides my worth. I know what I can be. What I can do. I know who I am now.

  Theseus can live to seek glory in another place, another life. Not with me, but that’s of little consequence. He can live.

  But so can my brother.

  I know how to save them both.

  Asterion roars. Not close, but not far, either.

  The darkness slithers around me, thick as a fog, shifting like a living thing. Slowly, carefully, I pull myself to my feet, hissing between clenched teeth at the pain in my ankle. I wipe the tears from my face, the dried blood from my mouth. I lean against the wall and touch my fingers to the vial hanging from my neck. Still there, still safe.

  I breathe, slow, soft, and steady, listening for the next roar. The sound that will lead me to where I need to go.

  It doesn’t have to be his life.

  A sacrifice is required. But it doesn’t have to be Theseus. It doesn’t have to be his life.

  It can be mine.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  I stumble in the dark, one hand against the wall to hold my weight, my muscles aching, my bones weary, my ankle burning.

  I lose track of time. Without a torch or even a hint of light, it feels like I might pitch forward into a black nothingness, that the next step won’t be solid ground but a gaping pit.

  I press on, my heart in my throat, determination and sheer force of will compelling one foot in front of the other. I strain my ears for Asterion’s roar. When I hear it, I follow the direction it seems to originate from. But the Labyrinth is disorienting, bewildering, the bellows and roars echoing off the stone walls. The winding pathways blur into one another, splitting and converging, spiraling and twisting.

  I hit dead ends. I double back, searching for a passage that leads me closer to my brother. A stone door in one of the archways begins to close the moment I touch it. I hobble quickly past the moving stone, hoping I’m headed the right way, even as it grinds closed behind me with a shuddering finality.

  If only I had light. If only I had the thread.

  I think of praying to the mother goddess for help, but I know the truth now. The goddess won’t find Asterion for me.

  I will find him.

  And then I’ll give him my life so he can be free. For I am Ariadne, daughter of Pasiphae, granddaughter of the god Helios. The blood of the gods runs through my veins, too.

  Which means my lifeblood will work in place of Theseus’s.

  A deafening bellow shudders the rock beneath my fingers. He is close.I feel for the next archway and hurry through it. I stumble, pull myself up, and keep going, gritting my teeth against the pain.

  The blackness stirs around me, thick and heavy and alive. It seems to hiss, resentful at being disturbed. I don’t pause to contemplate what creatures may be crouched in that darkness, preparing to spring at me. I don’t stop for anything.

  I push forward, nearly slamming into a sharp corner. I grip my aching side as a wave of dizziness washes over me. I push off the wall and keep moving, slower now, shuffling down the passageway.

  The faintest blue glimmers off the stone far ahead of me. I blink and look again. It’s still there, the slightest shimmering haze. I follow it, making as little sound as possible. Asterion roars again, so close, followed by a scraping, banging sound, an echoing grunt and a growl.

  I shudder. What if I can’t reach him? What if he no longer recognizes me, gripped in his vicious madness, a blood-red haze of violence? He could gore me with one thrust of his head. He could rip me into pieces, trample my bones to dust.

  I will not let my fear control me. I’ll find a way. I need to think of him like a bull, like any other, like the dozens I’ve faced and bested on the hot sands of the arena. I’ll make him hear my voice and bring him back to himself. It’s possible. I’ve done it before. I can do it again.

  I creep around the last bend and gasp, taking in the scene before me. The narrow passage empties into an immense cavern, rising at least the span of thirty or forty men above me. Thousands of glow-worms cling to the vast ceiling, their stringy, transparent bodies bathing everything in a dazzling bluish glow.

  The ruins of a great palace loom over me. One of the ancient palaces of Knossos—leveled long before by Earth-Shaker, buried hundreds of seasons ago deep beneath the mountain. Astonished, my gaze roams over the collapsed pillars and rotting terraces, interspersed with great slabs of shining stone, the frescos somehow still vivid with the rich purple of pomegranates, the yellow of saffron, the azure blue of the sea. Impossibly verdant moss carpets the crumbling stone, enormous spiderwebs lacing the cracked and fissured walls.

  The skeleton of the once-resplendent palace casts its forsaken shadow over a large courtyard at its base, the marble floor buckled in places and littered with shards of crushed pottery and bronze and gold bowls, pitchers, basins, cups and ladles—some bent and smashed, others still as perfectly shaped as the day they were last used. At the center of the courtyard stands a great gilded fountain, the golden statue toppled, moss creeping over the lapis and ivory tiles.

  The faint blue light of the glow-worms emanates from the ceiling, highlighting the two figures squared off before the grand staircase in front of the courtyard.

  Theseus and Asterion face each other about five strides apart—Theseus backed against the stairs, Asterion lumbering toward him, snorting, head lowered, eyes blazing. Theseus clenches his dagger in his right hand, every muscle tensed and ready, his gaze never flinching, never straying from his adversary.

  Both are wounded. Asterion’s left side is burned, the fur scorched off his left arm. Blood matts his right shoulder and chest. His right arm hangs at a strange angle. A large cut scores Theseus’s bicep; another slashes across his waist and chest. Even from this distance, I can see torn flesh through the shreds of his tunic. An ugly purple bruise swells his right thigh above the knee. His forehead is bloodied.

  I step out of the archway, putting my full weight on my ankle. It groans in protest, but it holds. I limp toward the battle, my fingers closing around the vial, my mind racing. I hoped to reach Asterion before Theseus. Now I must figure out how to save them both before they kill each other.

  “Asterion! Stop!” I scream. But they are locked in a battle to the death and neither shows any sign of hearing me.

  Asterion charges at Theseus. Theseus scrambles backward halfway up the huge set of stairs. His foot strikes a weak spot, smashing through the marble as small pebbles scatter everywhere. He seizes the crumbling half-wall to his right to hold himself up and yanks his foot out of the hole.

  He gains his footing just as Asterion lunges up the stairs after him, whipping his horns like axe blades. Theseus jerks back. The razor-edge of Asterion’s horn slices the air a hair’s breadth from Theseus’s chest.

  Theseus ducks, darting in low to slash at Asterion’s stomach. The dagger catches a thin slab of flesh. Asterion roars in pain, swings his powerful arm, and strikes Theseus across the face.

  Theseus stumbles, pitching forward. He nearly falls straight into Asterion’s waiting horns but twists at the last moment, throwing himself into the bit of open space between the Minotaur and the wall, slid
ing down several stairs. He grasps the crumbling half-wall and regains his balance.

  I half limp, half run, watching in horror. “Stop!”

  Theseus whirls and darts up the stairs, stabbing low with his dagger, aiming for the Minotaur’s unprotected haunches. But Asterion sees him coming and braces to meet him. He seizes Theseus, lifts him high in the air, and throws him against the opposite wall with a thunderous roar.

  Theseus’s body slams into the wall, which gives way with a groan, collapsing, great chunks of gypsum crashing to the courtyard below. I watch helplessly as Theseus falls with it. His head strikes the stone with a loud crack, the dagger slipping from his hand and skittering across the marble courtyard.

  Theseus lays unmoving, his body limp.

  Dread knots my throat. No, please.

  I trip over a section of buckled, uneven floor. Only a few paces away, but it’s not enough. I won’t get there in time. Scrambling up, I kick aside the detritus of ceramic shards and hunks of gypsum and limestone as I scream Asterion’s name.

  Asterion bounds down the stairs, the steps crumbling from his weight, rocks skittering across marble. The floor shudders beneath his hooves. My brother crouches over Theseus, rearing his great head, about to deliver the death blow. I glance desperately from Asterion to Theseus.

  Theseus’s chest rises and falls. He’s alive, but unconscious.

  I take the last few steps, until I am standing before the Minotaur. “Asterion!” I shout.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  “Asterion!” I scream again. I bend, seize a gold cup etched with a carving of the mother goddess in a chariot drawn by goats, and hurl it at my brother.

  He turns toward me, snorting in startled rage.

  I raise my hands to show him I’m unarmed, defenseless, though my dagger burns cold against my thigh. It’s nearly time to use it. “Asterion, stop this!”