“Then let’s get on with it.” Tristan turned to me. “Will you grant us passage, gatekeeper?”
His tone was solemn, but the glint in his eye was not. Not bothering to answer, I took the steps two at a time, extracting the key that was one of my birthrights. The steel was heavy in my gloved hand as I inserted it into the simple lock, the oiled mechanism turning with a soft click, the metal bars of the gate swinging open to reveal the yawning darkness of the labyrinth beyond. “After you,” I said, waiting for my friends to pass before closing the gate behind us.
We traveled in silence through the upper reaches of Trollus, the crushed homes and cracked paving stones testament to what happened when the tree’s magic failed. What would happen if Tristan’s magic faltered and Forsaken Mountain finished its destruction of our city. I thought about what my father had said regarding bearing such a burden, wondering, not for the first time, what it felt like to hold the lives and fates of all of our people in his hand. I didn’t know how he could walk through the labyrinth as though he hadn’t a care in the world. Although he could have all the cares in the world, be plagued with every fear, and I knew he wouldn’t show it. The persona he’d created to hide his true feelings, true intentions, was too important, and he never let it down completely. Not even around us. Little did he know that the act he employed to protect our cause had nearly been the downfall of it.
“You’re thinking so hard I can practically hear it,” Tristan said, voice echoing through the tunnels. “It’s distracting.”
“So sorry.” I extracted the book I’d retrieved from my room, along with my armor and weapons, and handed it over. “Esmeralda brought this, along with the next set of pamphlets.”
“Which are being distributed?” He plucked the book out of my hand and flipped it open, light moving behind him to illuminate the pages.
“I’m not sure we can distribute this batch,” I said, my mind whirling as it tried to come up with an explanation that would deliver the necessary information without inciting any questions. “What we’ve had printed can be tied back to a certain press in Trianon – including the decoy lot we had the twins take delivery of.”
“How?”
I explained the streaks and flaws as Pénélope had explained it to me. “I didn’t notice before,” I admitted. “But when you hold them up next to each other, it would be obvious to anyone with an eye for detail.” I all but held my breath, praying he wouldn’t ask what had caused me to finally notice it myself.
But he only swore and kicked a rock. “I think it’s fair to say that the Duke is possessed of the required eye for detail.” He shook his head sharply. “If nothing else, Pénélope will have proven her worth to him on this one.”
I bit the insides of my cheeks, saying nothing.
“Destroy this batch of pamphlets and switch printers,” he said. “This looks bad for the twins, but they’re protected by the fact that they can truthfully say that they’ve never ordered pamphlets or attended any meetings.” His eyes flicked to me. “You have no such protection. You need to be on your guard. Stay away from Pénélope for the next while.”
“I don’t see why–”
“You make mistakes around her, that’s why. Think of what would happen if you got caught. It wouldn’t just be your life on the line.”
“You know I’d take everyone else’s identities – including yours – to the grave,” I snapped, growing angrier with him by the second. Tristan loved the plotting. The planning. The spreading of propaganda, the drafting of new laws, the secret meetings where we discussed a new Trollus. But sometimes I wondered what it would take to push him past the planning and conspiring into taking actual action. What would be his tipping point. Whether he even had one, or whether we’d find ourselves old men and women who’d talked a great deal, but done nothing.
“And I’d rather it didn’t come to that,” he replied.
Anaïs’s soft whistle pulled us from our conversation. She had stopped a dozen paces ahead of us, spear held at the ready. Lifting a hand, she tapped her nose, and a second later, I caught the stench of sluag waste. Tristan set his book on a ledge to be retrieved later, and I nodded at the twins, who squared up behind us. We might be here for their entertainment, but their duty – and mine – was always to protect the heir. Even if he didn’t like it.
Anaïs in the lead, we branched off the main tunnel, bending and squeezing and crawling through tight spaces and under low ceilings. She threw the occasional orb of magic forward, watching to see if it faded or flickered before proceeding, Victoria doing the same behind in case a sluag was tailing us. No one spoke, ears peeled for the telltale slither of a heavy body or the click of shifting rock, but all I could hear was the steady thud thud of my friends’ hearts, quick with anticipation and not nearly enough fear.
Anaïs’s hiss of disgust echoed back over us, and I stepped into a small chamber to find her crouched next to a pool of greenish slime, a skeleton draped in tattered fabric floating in its depths. She lifted a piece of the fabric out with the end of her spear, eyed the golden thread on the patch stitched to it, then let it drop. “Half-blood. Miners’ Guild.”
Tristan let loose a blistering string of oaths, slamming his spear against the rocks with no regard for the debris and dust that rained down upon us. Then he knelt next to the corpse, staring at the skull as though it might reveal its identity. “How many?” he muttered. “How many have been sent here over the years for no fault of their own other than a bad month of luck in the mines?”
I didn’t answer. One of the duties I’d inherit from my father was opening the labyrinth gates for the sacrifices to missed mining quotas, for aristocrats wishing to rid themselves of old or undesirable servants, for the King, when he wished to make a point. I’d have to stand there and do nothing while they were sent to their deaths. Some might last days, even weeks, but there was no escape from the labyrinth. It was the cruelest form of execution.
“I will end this practice,” Tristan snarled, the weight of the promise in his words making my head buzz. “I don’t care what I have to do or what it costs me, I will–”
Whatever he was about to say was drowned out by a piercing scream.
He was after it in a shot.
“Damn it, Tristan!” I reached for his arm, trying to drag him back so that Anaïs could go first, but he was too quick.
He chased the screams through the tunnels, and we chased him, the labyrinth shuddering as he carved through tight spots, rock and dust raining down on the magic we cast above our heads.
“Tristan,” Anaïs shouted. “Let me go ahead. You need to let me go ahead.”
He ignored her.
The light above his head winked out.
I swore as my own globe of light vanished, my magic present, but numb and unusable like a deadened limb. Reaching blindly in the dark toward the sound of my cousin’s breathing, I jerked him back, stepping between him and the sluag that could see us perfectly well in the blackness.
“Help me. Please help me.”
The voice was more sobs than words, but on its heels came the squish of something large and soft shifting its bulk. I hefted my spear, but it was impossible to tell precisely the direction it had come from.
Light from the twins blossomed brilliant bright a dozen paces behind me, but they were around a bend, and if they came closer the sluag’s magic would put the light out entirely. It was enough, however, for me to tell that we stood at the edge of a large cavern that some strange twist of physics and luck had left open when the mountain had fallen.
“Fire,” Anaïs whispered, and moments later, the smell of smoke filled the air as Victoria came forward with a torch flickering with natural flame. Bypassing Tristan and me, she held the fire out, illuminating the cavern.
It dipped down, the base filled with water, and at its center sat one of the largest sluag I’d ever seen. It hissed at the fire, twisting its bulk so that the water sloshed violently, splattering me with its stagnant smell. But i
t didn’t retreat.
“Please help.”
My eyes tracked upward, finding a filthy and blood-streaked half-blood clinging to the ceiling of the cavern. How she’d climbed up there was a mystery to me, but her perch wasn’t sustainable. Her arms and legs shuddered with strain, and without magic to help her, it was only a matter of time until she fell. Which was exactly what the sluag was waiting for.
Barooom. The sluag’s call filled the chamber, and I grimaced as at least two more answered. Distant, but the bloody things could move much faster than their bulk suggested.
The half-blood’s grip slipped. She shrieked, barely managing to catch herself, now dangling from one hand.
Tristan tried to push past me, but I held tight to his arm, assessing our situation. It was a bad place to hunt, the cavern accessible from at least six other passages, and knowing the sluag as I did, they’d find more. We were going to be surrounded, and if that happened, all of us were dead.
Which the half-blood would be, no matter what we did.
“It’s not good,” I said. “We need to retreat.”
“No.” He jerked out of my grip, moving into the cavern. “Anaïs, with me. Marc, you and Vincent go left. Victoria, keep the light and watch our backs.”
We spread out, spears up. Unless one of us got lucky, it would take more than one to kill it.
The sluag rotated, watching, and repeated its call. Barooom.
More echoed from beyond.
“Tristan…”
“We’ll be quick.” He stepped in, and the rest of us mirrored the motion. The sluag’s stinger struck, but we were still out of range of the weapon, which delivered a toxin capable of paralyzing human and troll alike, leaving its victim helpless while the creature consumed its meal alive.
Anaïs attacked first. With a grunt, she threw her spear, the shaft glittering red and gold in the firelight. The tip sank deep into the sluag’s flesh, but it was already moving, lunging toward her with a shriek. Startled, she stepped back, and her boot slipped on the wet rocks, her head disappearing beneath the water.
Tristan threw himself between her and the sluag, batting aside the stinger and ramming his spear into the creature’s pasty flesh. It sank deep, but the sluag’s momentum didn’t falter. It slammed into Tristan, knocking him over.
I leapt on the creature’s back, dodging the flailing stinger, and driving my spear through its spine. The sluag went limp, but its stinger kept thrashing, stabbing into the murky water over and over.
Dropping to my knees, I grabbed the stalk and tried to pull it back, but it was impossible to get a grip on the slick flesh. “Vincent,” I shouted, but the only response was a flash of white and a labored grunt.
Another sluag.
Vincent’s spear was embedded in its side, his sword now in hand. His sister moved to help him, our lone source of light flickering in her grip. And behind her, there was movement. “Victoria!” I screamed, then the sluag moved beneath me and I slid sideways.
Scrambling, I caught hold of its stinger stalk, the fleshy appendage jerking me from side to side, in and out of the water. Choking and gasping, I managed one breath before its teeth closed on my shoulder. The pressure was incredible, crumpling my armor and snapping the bone beneath. I bit down on the pain, using the sluag for leverage as I jerked out a knife and sliced through the stinger stalk.
It shrieked and released me, and I had the chance to see the sluag attacking Victoria just before it knocked the torch from her hand and we were once again plunged into darkness.
Ignoring the pain in my shoulder, I surged through the water and slammed my knife into its side, then pulled another blade, using it to climb the sluag’s flank. It screamed and twisted, and I slid from side to side over its back, feeling its stinger slam into my armor. All it would take was one blow to a chink in the steel, one sting, and I’d be done.
Biting down on one of my blades, I ignored the burning of the steel against my skin and grabbed wildly until my hands found the stinger stalk. Digging my fingers into the flesh, I pulled, my heels braced against its back. The sluag reared, rising higher and higher. My boots started to slide, but before I fell, I cut the stinger off at the base.
The sluag twisted and screamed, and I fell, water closing over my head.
A heartbeat later, the sluag’s bulk slammed down, crushing me against the rock.
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t get my good arm positioned to heave the blasted thing off me. And until it died, my magic was useless.
Seconds ticked down, my fingers grasping futilely at the slick rocks, my pulse racing faster and faster with the desperate need for air.
All I could think of was Pénélope. If I died, her value to her father would cease to exist, and it would only be a matter of time before he found a way to kill her. I didn’t trust Tristan or even Anaïs to keep her safe. I was the only one willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of her life.
Desperation gave me strength, and I twisted, shoving the sluag’s dying body up enough that my head broke the water, and I gasped in a mouthful of air before its weight drove me back down.
And then it went still.
My magic flooded back under my control, but before I could do anything, the corpse was lifted off and hands were dragging me to the surface. Tristan’s blood-smeared face was suddenly inches from mine, his eyes full of panic even as the chamber shook from the impact of the sluag’s corpse hitting the wall, rocks splashing into the water. “Are you all right?” he demanded.
I spat out a mouthful of foul water and nodded, unwilling to waste precious air on words. My friends stood wide-eyed around me, battered, but alive, sluag corpses bleeding into the pool that glittered in the sunlight.
Blinking, I stared up at the small opening that had appeared above, which revealed the blue sky of the outside.
Tristan hauled me to my feet, the metal armor that was crushing my shoulder popping back into shape under the force of his magic. “We need to go,” I croaked out. “They’ll have been attracted by the noise.”
No one moved, all eyes on something behind me.
Turning, I found the half-blood crouched in the water, eyes fearful. Confused. And, worst of all, hopeful.
“You’re a miner?” Tristan’s voice broke the silence.
The girl swallowed hard, then nodded. “Yes, Your Highness.”
“Your team missed quota?”
She cringed, clearly afraid of him. “Yes.”
The guild crest stitched onto her grey tunic was answer enough to his questions, but I knew that wasn’t why he was asking them. My heart, which had only just begun to slow, accelerated.
“Do you know why your team chose you?”
Silence.
“Because my magic was the weakest, Your Highness.”
Tristan’s jaw tightened, silver eyes fixed on the girl, though I knew it wasn’t really her he was seeing. The half-blood had been sentenced to die. If we left her here, that was inevitable, either by sluag or starvation. But what would bringing her back accomplish? There was no way to hide her for long, and once discovered, she’d only be sent back here again. Or worse. There was only one path to her salvation, and that was for Tristan to take the throne by force. And he was considering it.
Would this be his tipping point? I held my breath, praying to the human gods, the fates, the stars, that maybe this strange twist of circumstance would conspire to provide Pénélope with salvation.
Magic filled the cavern. More and more and more of it, the weight of it making my ears buzz and my skin break out in gooseflesh. An impossible amount of power – countless times what I could ever imagine possessing. Tears broke onto the half-blood’s face, and she whimpered, dropping to her knees in the water, her pleas unintelligible as she begged for him not to kill her.
But that wasn’t his intention. This was a test. A test to determine whether all his magic, all his power, would be enough to defeat his father. To take the crown.
Then it
vanished in a rush that made my ears pop. Tristan turned his head away from the half-blood, from us, and exhaled. Not enough.
A blade flashed.
The half-blood’s head fell from her shoulders.
Anaïs stood behind the corpse, face blank and unreadable.
“Why?” Tristan demanded. “What gave you the right to do that?”
“Necessity,” she said. “Because none of the rest of you would give her the mercy she deserved.” Bending, she wiped her blade on the half-blood’s tunic before sliding it back in its sheath. “And because to do otherwise would’ve put everything we’re fighting for at risk. The very fact we rescued her from the sluag was bad enough – how much worse if we’d brought her back to Trollus? She’d be discovered eventually, and even if she fought, they’d torture the information of how she escaped the labyrinth out of her. It can’t be more damning than you rescuing her from your family’s own laws.”
“She could’ve given her word not to tell.” Tristan’s shoulders were shaking with anger, but it wasn’t, I thought, for Anaïs.
“And been sent right back here for keeping her silence.” Anaïs walked over to a dead sluag and jerked the spear out of its side. “This, at least, was quick. There is much to be said for that.”
“Stones and sky, but you’re cold,” Tristan said, shaking his head.
“Only you can end all of this, Tristan,” she said. “You’re the one capable of ending your father’s rule and putting a stop to this practice. And every life lost while you delay doing so is on you.”
“You think I’m wrong to wait?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I’m doing this to save lives, Anaïs.”
“I know,” she said, reaching down to close the lids of the dead girl. “But not in time to help her.”
No one spoke, and though it was a half-blood lying at my feet, all I saw was Pénélope. No matter what Anaïs said, the half-blood had died because of what she knew. Because she was weak, and that made her a liability.
Pénélope knew more.
Staring up at the sunbeam shining through the gap in the rockfall, I knew I couldn’t tell Tristan that I’d brought Pénélope into the fold. That I couldn’t tell Anaïs. And in the face of this, I certainly couldn’t ask them for help.
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