Labyrinth of Stars (A Hunter Kiss Novel)

by Marjorie M. Liu

  “A week ahead of us? Or two?” What a horrifying thought. I stared out at the forest, which was not a forest—hoping by some miracle I’d catch a glimpse of him.

  And I did. Only it wasn’t him. I saw movement far from us, between the trees. Only for a split second, but it was human-shaped, and that was alarming. Especially because it wasn’t shaped like my husband. I’d know his shoulders anywhere.

  “Zee,” I said, noticing him looking at the same spot. For a moment I wasn’t sure he would acknowledge me.

  “Safe,” he rasped, finally meeting my gaze. Oturu drifted in that direction, then went perfectly still.

  “Yes,” he said, then, “We should continue, Hunter.”

  Tracker barely glanced in that direction. “Like I said, life comes through those doors, sometimes by design, mostly by accident. But just in case it’s an Aetar, I also don’t think we should investigate.”

  I was sure it wasn’t an Aetar. Not with the way Zee and Oturu had reacted. But I didn’t have time to indulge my curiosity. I already attracted enough trouble without looking for more.

  We kept on. Avoiding doors, listening to the sounds of the Labyrinth and its lost life. Lost ourselves, in the twilight. I entered a strange mental state—one part of my brain acutely aware of our surroundings—while the other half drifted. I thought about my mother so often that sometimes I felt as though she were at my side—and I’d look, half-expecting to see her, only to find a tree, or one of the boys giving me a curious look.

  More dead Yorana appeared. Bodies, like breadcrumbs. No Shurik corpses, which puzzled me. But again, it began to feel like a routine. The monotony never changed. I felt no hunger, no real thirst. I forced myself to eat what Raw would put into my hands: little bits of trail bar and fruit, stored in his bulging backpack. But I ate because I thought I should, not because I felt any hollowness. I didn’t see Tracker eat, either, even though I’d offer him food. He’d shake his head and glide into the shadows between the trees.

  Grant occupied my thoughts, but after a time, I felt the distance grow too vast, and I had to pull away from thinking of him. I missed our bond, and it was easy to feel resentful that it was gone. That link between us, in this place, would have made all the difference.

  I thought mostly, though, about being a mother. A mother like my mother. Or a mother that was wholly me, with all my terrible mistakes. Like deliberately bringing my unborn child into a dangerous place, risking her life and mine on a dream, a possibility—on love.

  I finally understood why relationships couldn’t last in my family—why no one married, no one stayed tied down—why strangers were better, cold and quick, and anonymous.

  Love was too great a risk. Love was the destroyer. Love might kill us faster than any demon.

  Or save us.

  Zee held up his clawed hand—a sharp, urgent gesture—and muttered: “Listen.”

  I didn’t hear anything, but I trusted Zee. I stood there, head tilted, relaxing into the silence. Sometimes it’s easier to see a star when you’re not looking directly at it. Stare just to the left, and the light will shine brighter.

  It was the same here. I didn’t focus, just stayed relaxed . . . and after a long minute of hushed waiting, I heard a high, sweet sound. A flute.

  A very familiar flute. I knew that tone.

  “Grant,” I said, and took off running.

  CHAPTER 28

  I remember my mother once asking, Is there anything in the world dumber than men?

  I hadn’t answered. I was only a kid. But if she had said that today, I would have agreed with her.

  Grant, you fool.

  That’s what’s strange about loving men. Really loving them. You love them even when their stupidity is so profound it could put out the world.

  Which is not to say you don’t have second thoughts.

  I mean, seriously.

  IT wasn’t my husband. I found Jack instead.

  He was nestled in the hollow of a massive root system, playing a golden flute. He sounded just like Grant, except the melody had the weight of age on it, a melancholy spirit. A song, I suspected, that had not been heard by anyone for a very long time.

  He had company. But it wasn’t my husband who stood with him.

  A unicorn rested at his feet.

  It was smaller than a horse but no less shocking: pure white, the white of virgin snow, with a delicate back and trim muscles, and a long neck that supported an impossibly lovely, fine-boned head. A touch could have shattered that skull; it looked so delicate, even the weight of the horn spiraling from the center of its brow, gleaming like mother-of-pearl, seemed too much for it to bear.

  Black eyes flicked from Jack to me. They were filled with so much naked intelligence, I immediately forgot the fantasy—and felt cold all over again.

  “Sarai,” I said, taking a guess. Only one Aetar I knew of had ever assumed the identity of the creature in front of me—though the last time I’d seen her, she’d been a woman: the owner of an art gallery in Seattle, elegant and assured, who had spent just as many years as Jack on earth, being born again in different bodies. I’d liked her, then. Watched her human body die in my arms before I knew she was immortal. I was still troubled by that death, sometimes.

  The unicorn inclined her head. Hunter.

  Her voice was soft inside my thoughts. I stared a moment longer, then pulled my gaze to Jack.

  My grandfather hadn’t stopped playing when I ran into the clearing. His eyes met mine, briefly—before he closed them and turned his head. I bit my tongue. I bit it so hard I tasted blood and waited for the song to end. Around me, the boys gathered, crouched in the shadows, red eyes glittering.

  The last note trailed away. In the silence, I said, “That’s Grant’s flute.”

  “Yes.” Jack hefted the instrument in his hands, a bitter smile playing against his mouth. “He left it.”

  “Bullshit,” I said. “For him, it’s a weapon.”

  “He needs few weapons now,” replied my grandfather, unmoving from his perch. “I knew you would come, Maxine. But I wish you hadn’t.”

  “No one gets what they want.” I stepped forward and felt a tingle run down my spine. I was better now at spotting the entrances to other worlds, and there was one in front of me—a haze that was stronger, heavier, than other doors I’d encountered, and one that carried a sparkle—dusting motes of light. It didn’t look or feel threatening—there was no warning sign. Just a tingle of cold dread, a strange and awful premonition.

  Reconsider your actions, said Sarai, and there was no longer anything soft about that voice pushing through my mind. Jack has apprised me of what has happened on your world. This is not the answer.

  “Then what is? Let everyone die?” I moved closer but stayed out of reach of her horn. “Why are you here, Sarai?”

  A snort flared those delicate nostrils. Jack said, “She’s the only one brave enough to meet you in the flesh. Most of the other Aetar are convinced you’ll try to kill them.”

  “You told them I was coming.”

  We felt you inside the Labyrinth. Sarai tilted her head, staring at me with those bottomless eyes. We felt the Lightbringer and the demons. The Labyrinth is a tuning fork of energy, Hunter. One ripple, and it affects all who reside in the forest.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t try to kill Grant.”

  Jack looked down. “That is still the question, my dear. Your presence here just might trigger our own civil war. Long-brewing, I might add. Those who are done with the killing, who regret our brutality all those eons ago—”

  —against those who would do it all again, and happily. Sarai stood, an impossibly graceful unfolding that seemed to happen in the blink of an eye. We cannot afford such a battle. We are too few. Too many innocents would be killed.

  “Same tired argument,” Jack said in a sour voice. “It saves us the trouble of having to confront who we have become. Of course, once the others realize where you’ve come—what you intend to do—it will be
a moot point. Even those who would let you and your family live would kill to stop this.”

  I held up my hand. “Where is my husband?”

  “Where do you think?” Jack rubbed his face, looking weary. “I couldn’t bring myself to go in after him. Which shows you the limits of my courage.”

  “You hoped I would arrive to be brave for you?”

  “I hoped you would never come at all. Sometimes bravery is doing nothing. Giving up the man you love for the greater good would have been such an act.”

  Old Wolf, Sarai admonished. But his words rolled right off me.

  “The Devourer is in there, isn’t he?” I said. “On the other side of that door, in the world where you trapped him.”

  “It’s not a world. More of a foyer, per se,” Jack replied. “But yes. And Grant went through with his demons. And his demons.”

  I gave him a cold look. “Watch it, Grandpa.”

  Jack grunted, glancing from me to Tracker—who appeared around a hairy, giant fern that could have sheltered a small family from the rain if there’d been any. Oturu, curiously, did not make an appearance. Now that I thought about it, he’d never shown himself to anyone but the boys and me. And Tracker.

  “You,” said Jack.

  “Apparently,” replied Tracker.

  “You know what awaits her?”

  “I do. Any last words before we all die horribly?”

  “Shut up,” I said, and made toward the door.

  I didn’t think Jack could move that fast. One moment he was seated on that root—and in the next he stood in front of me, grabbing my arm and trying to pull me away. Zee hissed. Dek and Mal puffed flame at his face, but that didn’t slow him down.

  I tried to twist free without hurting him, but it was impossible; his grip was like steel. Tracker drew close, expression inscrutable, but the old man was not so composed; the strong lines of his face showed the ravages of terrible distress, and his cheeks were flushed.

  “I must strongly advise against this course of action.”

  “You think I’ll let this freak go. Is your prison really that shabbily constructed? I mean, it must be if Grant was able to waltz in.”

  We made it impossible to leave, Sarai said, voice cool and dry. We were not worried about the fools who would fall in.

  “You’re not a normal woman,” Jack said. “So no, I don’t know how you might break his shackles, just that I’ve seen the possibility.”

  I’d seen the fire. Witnessed myself torn apart within it. And he was right, maybe being brave meant I should walk away and let my husband rot in that place. But I couldn’t even contemplate that. I couldn’t even face that option.

  I stared him dead in the eye. “Tell me the truth, old Wolf. Can a Lightbringer of Grant’s strength control that Aetar?”

  Jack hesitated. “I don’t know. Grant is not like any one of his kind who ever existed. But neither is the Devourer.”

  “You still managed to imprison him.”

  “Barely. Because we used the crystal skulls. It was our last act with them, after we broke the power of the Reaper Kings.” Jack glanced at Zee and the boys. “You destroyed the other skulls. If he goes free, we will have nothing to use. Nothing that is strong enough.”

  Sarai had also positioned herself in front of the gate, her head lowered ever so slightly—just enough to make that horn seem like a weapon instead of a decorative piece of fantasy. Raw and Aaz gathered close to my sides, watching her with glittering crimson eyes. Claws flexed.

  Tracker studied her, then my grandfather, his gaze inscrutable.

  “The Wolf is right,” he said. “This is too incredibly dangerous.”

  “Of course it is,” I said. “It may be suicidal. But what would you have given, Tracker, to have someone risk herself to keep you safe? What sacrifice would have been too much to keep that iron collar off your neck?”

  “This one,” he said.

  “Liar. Even the attempt . . . someone trying for you . . . would have changed everything.”

  I stepped away from the men—and the unicorn—clenching my right hand into a fist. Zee and the boys gathered close. “Get out of my way.”

  Jack shook his head. Zee rasped, “Nothing lasts, Meddling Man.”

  “Except foolishness,” he whispered. “You’re a mother now, Maxine. What do you owe your child?”

  “Stay here,” I told Tracker, ignoring that dirty play. “Watch them.”

  I didn’t wait for a response. I ran to that shimmering haze, demons at my side. Raw and Aaz slammed Sarai out of the way when she tried to charge me. I heard Jack’s choked, startled shout—but that was all. I hit that shimmering haze, passed through.

  And got a surprise.

  I found myself inside a white marble foyer. Wide and curved as two cupped hands—and gleaming, shining, with an unnatural brightness that permitted no blemishes. In fact, it was as though the stone and walls had been airbrushed to absolute perfection. No color, anywhere. Just a pure, alabaster white.

  It was the visual equivalent of hearing a prim old woman speak in a man’s booming lumberjack voice. Unexpected, given certain expectations. I was anticipating hell, after all.

  “Tell me,” I said to Zee, who prowled across the floor, looking like some obscene blemish against that pure, luminous marble. “This is kind of fucked up, right?”

  Dek and Mal began humming the melody to “Strangeness,” while Raw and Aaz pressed against the walls, scratching them—leaving claw marks that oozed black tar, like blood.

  “Excuse me,” said a quiet male voice.

  I flinched, surprised. Zee also twitched—all the boys, jumping a little—their surprise even more visceral than mine. No one ever sneaked up on them.

  I turned and found that an elderly man stood just behind me: stout, with spectacles hanging down his nose. He was dressed like a butler, all in black, his skin very pale and his eyes a watery blue. He held slippers in his left hand.

  “Please announce yourself,” he said.

  I stared, heart still pounding so hard I wanted to vomit. “Who are you?”

  One stubby brow arched up. “I am the butler. And you are?”

  He was polite, proper, the very epitome of nonthreatening—but the skin-crawling menace I felt at those simple, quiet words made me want to run screaming.

  “My name is Maxine Kiss,” I said.

  “Ah, very good.” He extended some slippers. “Please put these on. The master abhors noise.”

  Zee sniffed at them. The slippers seemed to be slippers. Still, I felt very strange about it. I stared from them to the butler, who straightened and fixed me with a cold look.

  “You cannot see him, otherwise,” he said in a crisp voice.

  I frowned, slipped off my boots. Slippers went on. The butler took my shoes from me, holding them away from his body and between his fingers, as if they carried some disease.

  “This way,” he said, and led me up the stairs.

  I caught glimpses of halls, rooms, none furnished—doors that were closed that I wanted to open. But I kept my hands to myself and followed the old man to a set of double doors, also white marble, which he tugged open with the lightest of touches.

  “Maxine Kiss to see you, sir.”

  I heard no greeting, but the butler gestured for me to enter.

  I did, and found my grandfather.

  CHAPTER 29

  A couple years back, I got a letter in the mail.

  It was from the New York law firm that had handled the affairs of several generations of Kiss women, and which was doing the same for me, though I rarely checked in—except when I needed information on some random property I’d vaguely recall my mother saying we owned.

  There was a note, brief: “For delivery on this date, at the request of Jolene Kiss.” It was clipped to another envelope, this one sealed, and slightly battered with age. I recognized my mother’s handwriting on the flap—no one else wrote my name with quite that flourish.

  A single sheet of
paper was tucked inside. More of my mother’s elegant writing. I was startled, a bit breathless with the discovery. I remember sitting down on Grant’s couch, bathed in sunlight, my tattooed hands shaking just a little. I had the armor by then—I’d traveled in time. But this was another kind of breach from the past.

  I should just die and be done with it, I read. That’s the proper way, to let a daughter move on with her life, instead of coming back from the grave. But you’ve always been a bit different, and experience has taught me that you don’t mind conversing with the dead. And I find that I don’t mind sending letters to a daughter who in my life is still in diapers but who will one day bear all the burdens of being a woman.

  You won’t have an easy life. You’ve had a taste of that by now, and more. You’ll discover things, if you haven’t already, that will make you question me and this life you’ve been born into. Feel free to be angry. I’m dead, after all. It won’t bother me.

  But you did come to me once, by accident. You, as an adult, with that particular ability to cut through time. You were afraid, you were sick, and I couldn’t help you then. I hope I’ve judged the delivery of this letter so that I can help you now—which won’t be much help at all.

  There are miracles, Maxine. Even in death, and betrayal, and grief—there are still miracles. Cling to that, cling to hope. No matter how terrible things get, or how helpless you feel. Hope is what will save you, again and again.

  So get up. Get up off that floor where I found you.

  Fight, Maxine. Fight for your life.

  Fight for other lives that haven’t been born.

  Fight for your hope. Fight for your heart.

  You’ll find a miracle if you do.

  I promise.

  MY grandfather.

  My grandfather, as he had appeared when I first met him, years past. Trim, long legged, elegant. Dressed in sleek tan slacks and a cream-colored cable-knit sweater. Quite polished. Clean-shaven, his gray hair swept back. He was pale and sat in a soft chair with a brown blanket thrown over his legs.

  Yes, the epitome of torture and evil.