The Labyrinth of Flame

by Courtney Schafer

  “Not necessarily,” I said. “Isn’t there a way to release the spell binding all you Alathians to the weapon? The Council has released the border wards before.” Like when the Watch translocated us to Ninavel. With magic drawn from countless unsuspecting people’s lives. Gods.

  Marten barked a caustic laugh. “What do you imagine I was trying to do when you barged into my cell and abducted me? Only the Council knows the details of the ward spells; only they can safely release them. I had almost convinced Councilor Varellian to propose such a course.”

  All right, he had reason to be pissed. “If you’d told me,” I muttered, knowing it for a lie. I wouldn’t have listened. I’d been too set on dragging him back with us. My face burned.

  “We must leave what we can’t change,” Lena said wearily. She looked at Kiran. “You don’t need this weapon to kill Ruslan. Simply take him into the demon realm as you did Marten.”

  Now there was an idea. But Kiran raked the tangled fall of his hair away from his face and sighed. “Do you think I haven’t considered it? But if he stays in Ninavel, protected by his demon allies, I don’t know how I could reach him.”

  I knew. “We draw him out,” I said, excitement rising. “Make him think he’ll gain something worth leaving the confluence. Like you.”

  Kiran shook his head. “That wouldn’t be enough. If it was, he’d have left the confluence to hunt me down long since.”

  “Then what would? You know him best.”

  Marten leaned forward. Even Lena looked newly hopeful.

  Kiran said, “If Ruslan thought he could gain Ashkiza’s weapon, that might bring him. But even if we make a plan clever enough I can take him by surprise and snatch him into the demon realm—if I’m touching him, the amulet won’t block my mark-bond. He’ll simply force me to take him back before he sustains serious injury.”

  Marten said, “Unless you’re too incapacitated to cast. If you open yourself to the demon realm’s currents the instant you arrive, before he can muster a command…”

  Rage boiled up so hot the world went red for an instant. When my vision cleared, I was standing over a fallen Marten with my knuckles throbbing from the force of the punch I’d thrown. Lena was yelling something and Kiran snatched for me, but I dodged him.

  “You goatfucking son of a pit viper,” I snarled at Marten. Sprawled on his back, clutching his jaw, he started to speak. I kept going. “This was your plan from the start, wasn’t it? You want Kiran dead along with Ruslan.” After all the effort I’d put into convincing Kiran not to throw himself on the pyre, fucking Marten would talk him right back into suicide. And Lena, who put such value on sacrifice, would be cheering him on.

  “Dev!” Kiran got hold of my arm and dragged me back. Calm down. Don’t you think we’ve hurt Marten enough?

  That was exactly the guilt Marten would use as his goad. I could just picture him saying—not right out, but implying it with every ounce of manipulative skill he possessed—after all Lena and I have sacrificed and suffered to stop Ruslan, isn’t it your turn?

  “Don’t you fucking listen to him!” I was too angry to speak with mind instead of voice. “I don’t care what he says. I won’t agree to any plan that involves you dying along with Ruslan. That’s not the only way.”

  “Then help me find another.” Kiran gripped my shoulders. I don’t want to die. Not anymore. Not if there’s any other choice.

  He actually meant it. Somewhere along the way, he’d found the hope I’d wanted so badly to give him. The stubborn glimmer of his resolve was so welcome I had to swallow down a hot lump in my throat.

  My voice rough, I said, “I’ll help you. Just…give me a moment to clear my head and think, will you?” I didn’t trust myself not to hit Marten again, otherwise.

  I’ll tell Marten we’d like to wait for Cara before discussing plans further. She, Teo and Melly weren’t far; Kiran showed me two pinpricks and a familiar bronze candleflame fast approaching through the boulders.

  That cheered me even more. Kiran returned to Lena and Marten, murmuring apologies. I paced between rocks, taking care not to go where I couldn’t keep an eye on the trio. There had to be a way to kill Ruslan without Kiran dying.

  Oh, there is, said a sly, sibilant voice in my head.

  I froze. Was that the demon? I tried to yell for Kiran, but my mouth wouldn’t move. My chest felt like it had turned to ice. What the fuck—

  Long has it been since I attempted this. Usually men offer themselves to us willing, and even then we cannot inhabit them entirely, only give them a taste of our power. But with your soul and mind alike so usefully threaded with our fire, I have no such limitation. You are the perfect tool, little rat. How fortunate for me that my young cousin was so careless as to take you within my reach.

  Behind the demon’s words were flashes of meaning like heat lightning. It hadn’t shadowed us through the demon realm only to drink Marten’s pain. It had used the spell it had once cast on Kiran, along with our blood-bond, to set a hook into me that had nothing to do with my bond to the confluence. That ripple of Taint I’d felt during the summoning had been the demon easing itself into me in slow drips like honey sliding along a wire. So slow we hadn’t noticed anything wrong, distracted by the demon’s talk, and after, it had stayed coiled still and small and tight inside me until it was ready to take my body for its own.

  Ice spread from my chest along my limbs, the world growing dim. I put every ounce of will into yelling for Kiran and managed only the faintest whisper of breath.

  Phantom laughter rang in my ears. By all means, let us summon him to your side.

  My mouth moved. “Kiran.” Not a frantic shout, but a lightly casual call.

  He turned. I backed around the side of a boulder, beckoning. His head tilted in puzzlement, but he left Marten and Lena to follow me.

  No. Oh, no. I’d been desperate for his help, but now I wanted him to stay away, keep clear, keep safe. The cold—I was sliding into frigid darkness like a man who’d broken through lake ice, sinking no matter how I clawed for the surface. The last thing I heard was the demon saying his name once more.

  Kiran.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  (Kiran)

  Dev looked so different, waiting for Kiran behind a misshapen lump of stone. His posture was no longer rigid with anger, but eager, even excited—the white blaze of his grin was evident even in the gathering dusk.

  He’d thought up some clever scheme already. Clever enough to let Kiran defeat Ruslan and live? Kiran hurried to him.

  “Tell me what has you so happy.”

  Dev caught Kiran’s arms. You, cousin. About to walk the labyrinth at last.

  Shock hit Kiran a hammer blow. The glimmer of Dev’s ikilhia was coated in an oily indigo sheen. Barbs of indigo were embedded all throughout Dev’s body, like innumerable thorns worked deep into flesh, and his mind—Kiran couldn’t reach it, blocked by a slick, seamless barrier that gave him nothing but the demon’s cold triumph.

  Kiran recoiled, drawing breath to shout for Lena. The demon clapped a hand over Kiran’s mouth and slammed him against the boulder’s side.

  No cries for help, cousin. This will be a private conversation. Do you know how easy it would be for me to leave your favorite ratling a dead husk?

  How do I know you haven’t destroyed his mind already? Just voicing the fear left Kiran shaking with anguished fury. He pushed as hard as he dared through the blood-bond, seeking any hint of Dev’s true self, any way he might rip the demon free.

  The demon said in Dev’s familiar voice, “Far easier to inhabit an empty shell, true. But rest easy, cousin; I have gone to the trouble of preserving your pet for you. All I have done is borrowed his flesh for a time. Though you had best make certain that time is short. Even the shadow-souled can’t survive the touch of our fire so directly for long.”

  The demon wasn’t lying about the potential for damage, but was it lying about Dev’s mind being intact? Kiran knew of no way to forcibly breach th
e demon’s barrier that wouldn’t cause some harm. Ruslan’s prohibition was a noose holding him far tighter than Dev’s crushing grip.

  Dev’s hand was still pressed hot over his mouth. I know what you want of me, Kiran said through the blood-bond. But without proof Dev isn’t mindburned, you have no lever to move me. I will not risk the lives of thousands on nothing more than your word.

  He projected that certainty with all his strength, hoping to shield the tumbling race of his thoughts. Lena was so close, mere yards away beyond the boulder, but he dared not summon her yet. If the demon would give him an opening, a chink in the barrier he might exploit without hurting Dev—

  “I say again: I have never lied.” The demon leaned in close as a lover and breathed soft words into Kiran’s ear. “I have seen your pet’s mind. Were he in your place, he would risk all the world to save you, no matter how slim his hope of success. And I have seen yours—did I not say I know your weakness?”

  With blurred speed, Dev released Kiran. He ripped his belt knife from its sheath and slashed the blade down his own forearm. Blood burst dark over his skin, pattering to the sand. “Shall I maim his flesh further? Next time, I’ll take a finger. Then a whole hand. He will not thank you for that. Not with how well he loves scrabbling up and down mountains.”

  “Stop!” It took all the control Kiran had not to snatch for the knife. He must not let the demon see his thoughts. The creature was right: he couldn’t abandon Dev while any hope remained for Dev’s survival. Yet neither could he risk a catastrophe on the scale of the southern blight. He could imagine Teo saying, Will you see the world turned to lifeless dust for one man’s sake?

  He must act as Dev would in his place. Use cleverness and subterfuge. But to cheat the demon, he would need to lie far better than he ever had.

  The demon was waiting, the knife poised a bare fraction from Dev’s spread fingers.

  “Don’t hurt him.” Kiran didn’t have to work to make his voice shake. “I’ll walk the labyrinth, but I will not give you the weapon so long as you remain in Dev. Let him go, alive and intact, and the weapon can be yours. If you spoke truth about returning it to Ashkiza.”

  Dev smiled at Kiran and wiped blood from the knife. “Truly, you need not fear, little cousin. For your ratling or for your realm. I will give you the spoor of the labyrinth as an anchor so you may travel swiftly to its gate. Find the labyrinth’s heart, return to me with Ashkiza’s prize, and your pet can be yours again, mind unharmed.”

  “You intend to remain here? What will you tell the others?” Did the demon understand enough of human magic to know Lena was certain to feel Kiran cross into the demon realm? She’d demand explanation. She and Marten—especially Marten!—would be suspicious.

  If he could leave them some clue to hint at Dev’s plight…

  Dev waggled the knife at him. “The children of fire no longer need lies, but that doesn’t mean we have forgotten how to wield them. Your friends will not realize the truth.”

  But the seed of a plan was fast forming. Grateful for the fading twilight and concealing shadows, Kiran slid a fisted hand between his back and the boulder. He scraped his knuckles over gritty sandstone with desperate force.

  “If I’m to walk your labyrinth in search of this weapon, tell me more about what I seek. What does the weapon look like? How will I know when I’ve found it?” His knuckles were sticky with blood, pain singing bright along his nerves. Kiran restrained his body’s instinctive reach for healing and dragged his mauled hand in a slow circle. Too simple a pattern to hold much power, and blood was far less stable a medium than metal, but it would have to suffice.

  The demon’s smile shifted into a perfect imitation of Dev’s sardonic one-sided grin. “Tell you what you seek, so you can think to cheat me by creating some false replica? I think not, cousin. You are not blind to our fire. When you reach Ashkiza’s weapon, you will know it by the taste of its power. Much as I will know when you return if you have truly walked the labyrinth. Your soul should reek of its stink.” The demon advanced upon him. “No more stalling.”

  Hastily, Kiran ground bleeding knuckles into the smeared circle he’d made. He forced along the tenuous contact a trickle of his own ikilhia that glimmered bright with a wordless message made of splinters of memory and emotion. A crude, childish tactic that he had not used since he was first learning to cast, yet the act felt reassuringly familiar, as if he’d last done this days and not long years ago. The demon shouldn’t sense the magic, limited as it was by Dev’s untalented flesh. Kiran must hope that Lena would be suspicious enough to notice the spark of power bound in blood before the message faded.

  A babble of voices rose from the other side of the boulder. Cara had arrived. “Dev, Kiran!” Her yell rang off the rocks. “Get back over here and tell me what in Shaikar’s hells is going on.”

  Kiran thrust away from the boulder. Dev grabbed him. The blood-bond opened wide; Kiran’s forearm burned with the pain of Dev’s wound. His ikilhia flared in instinctive response, healing both his knuckles and Dev’s arm. The demon took no notice. It was busy shoving at Kiran a sense-impression of a virulent roil of energies so noxious that Kiran gagged, his stomach heaving.

  “You have your anchor,” the demon said. “Go.”

  Kiran pulled a swift flood of power through Dev’s bond to the confluence and ripped open a passage to the demon realm. Sloppily, with no attempt to dampen the energies. Lena and Teo would feel him casting. So would Ruslan. Kiran buried hope and fear alike and leaped into the currents.

  * * *

  Slick, polished stone under his knees and hands. His amulet burned hot against his chest, the aether thick with magic swirling all round him, but he was breathing ordinary air and not the demon realm’s wild currents. Dizzy, Kiran lifted his head.

  The labyrinth’s gate stood before him. A freestanding arch twice as high as a man, made of some substance with the texture of rock but the yellowed patina of old bone. Within that arch—

  Marten had not said the fire he saw was so beautiful. Rippling sheets of flame washed past like a waterfall’s spray, changing from emerald to viridian to cerulean, the colors so astonishingly vivid that Kiran could hardly drag his gaze away. But the energies spilling out through the archway—Kiran retched, cringing back. The core of demonfire within him shrank and thinned under the bite of magic that ate it away like acid. Coughing up bile, Kiran wove a fast, frantic shield from the human energies of his ikilhia. Amazing to think that ordinary mages like Marten could visit this chamber without even noticing the poison.

  Panting, he staggered upright on shaking legs. The chamber had no door. Pale sigils in the swirling Alathian style radiated in neat lines from the base of the arch across the gray stone floor. The walls and vaulted ceiling were so thickly packed with wardlines they appeared made of obsidian. The veil of magic Marten had spoken of—invisible to untalented eyes but an inferno in Kiran’s mage-sight—encircled him and the arch. The veil’s boundary was scant inches away; his bones shivered with the basso thrum of its power.

  His amulet burned his chest, sparking and flaring wildly as the spell bound within reacted against the veil’s powerful magic. Kiran ripped off the charm before its pattern could fail.

  He was ready for an angry horde of Alathian mages to appear, yet the chamber stayed empty. Kiran muttered an imprecation. The veil must shield him from the Alathians’ detection spells, but what were they thinking, not keeping a physical watch over the labyrinth’s gate? He’d hoped the sight of a blood mage entering the labyrinth would spur the Council into breaking the spells that bound their citizens’ lives into the weapon’s source.

  If Lena likewise failed to notice his message…

  He must put his faith in her meticulous caution. He’d never been so glad for her distrust of him.

  Kiran faced the arch and its mesmerizing waterfall of flame. The demonfire within him quailed despite his shield. He swayed, nausea rising.

  I was made to walk the labyrinth. For the
first time, the thought of his strange dual heritage was a source of strength. He would survive that poisonous, beautiful fire as demons could not.

  His barriers as strong as he could make them, he stepped through the gate.

  His first startled impression was of quiet. No howling chaos of currents battered him as in the demon realm. But the aether all around him was saturated with that caustic energy so inimical to demonkind; it was like being submerged in a pool of thick, acidic oil. His physical senses insisted he hung in nothingness. But his mage-sight…

  Kiran gasped. Before him was a vast…structure. Intricate and layered as an ice crystal, its latticework made of the jewel-toned fire he’d first seen in the archway. The blazing lattice towered above him as high as the Whitefires over Ninavel, so enormous in size he could barely sense its boundaries. And the entire structure moved. Slowly but ceaselessly, filigreed gaps in the latticework closed and opened and altered, the colors of the fire likewise shifting.

  Kiran had expected something more static. Also considerably smaller. How was he supposed to find the heart of this—this enormity? The deceptively beautiful energies of the latticework felt so fiercely concentrated he feared one touch would consume his ikilhia in a flash. The only way to penetrate the labyrinth was to navigate the gaps between the flames. But given the labyrinth’s size, Kiran might spend weeks searching those ever-changing pathways.

  He could retreat. He hadn’t intended to take the weapon hidden at the labyrinth’s heart. Only to see it so he might make a replica just as the demon had accused him of intending. He didn’t need to fool the demon for long, just distract it enough that Lena might catch the demon by surprise.

  But he’d also hoped a replica would lure Ruslan out of Ninavel. Kiran hesitated. Something about the pattern of the labyrinth’s changing gaps nagged at him. Not the colors, so breathtakingly intense and distracting—he tried to imagine the fire was stark white instead of a vivid rainbow of hues, the gaps black…