Tempted by Darkness

by Lillian Sable

  “So I did.”

  He walked up to the obsidian trees and paused next to a particularly large trunk. “Watch closely now.”

  With a grin full of dark whimsy, he stepped forward and disappeared into the shadows.

  Cursing, I raced up to the spot where he’d stood, but there was nothing to indicate where he might have gone. The wall of trees was as impenetrable as it had been for the past hour.

  “Hey! Where did you go?”

  Ryn’s disembodied voice floated over me. “I promised to show you the entrance. Nothing more and nothing less. Shall I demonstrate it again?”

  I hated these tricky deals more than anything else in the entire world. “Fuck you.”

  “Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep, dear heart.” His face appeared again in a break between the trees, and I understood now that his body only became a physical thing when he wanted it to be. The smug expression on his face made it clear that he never intended to help me find the path, not for something as simple as just knowing his name. “Shall we try again?”

  “I’m not making any more bargains,” I snapped at him, no doubt in my mind that these damn trees were the last thing I’d see before I died. “I don’t trust you.”

  “Nor should you. Don’t trust anything you encounter here, no matter what it promises you.” He leaned forward and rested his chin on a hand that appeared from nowhere. “One more bargain, and I promise to make it worth your while.”

  “Tell me what you’re offering,” I said obstinately. At least I’d managed to learn one lesson. “And then I’ll decide.”

  I wondered if he was going to ask for something sexual, which forced me to consider precisely what getting into this labyrinth was worth to me. Lives were at stake, except that wasn’t the only precious thing I was capable of losing here.

  But Ryn surprised me.

  “Allow me to accompany you on your journey, and I will ensure you are able to cross the trees to enter the labyrinth.”

  I couldn’t keep the expression of shock off my face. “That’s it?”

  His eyes darkened to a deep mulberry as he studied me. “That’s it.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged, but some unnamed emotion crossed his face. Before I could figure out what it was, the sunny smile had already returned. “You know as well as I that daemons are always hoping to make a new friend. And we so rarely have visitors passing through these days.”

  Did I trust him not to push me off the nearest cliff if the impulse struck? Absolutely not. But it wasn’t as if I had a backup plan.

  Regardless, it was important to be explicit. “And you won’t do anything to stop me from continuing on my journey. No helping me across the trees and then knocking me back to the other side?”

  Something above his head caught his attention, and he giggled before turning back to me. “Of course not. A deal is a deal.”

  “No lies?”

  “I would never.” He actually managed to look offended. “The gods do not lie, even you must know that.”

  I might have made up these rules, but it seemed like a good idea to make absolutely sure.

  “Fine.” I gestured toward the tree in front of me. “Help me cross the trees. And get moving. I’m running out of time here.”

  Ryn leapt back down, body coalescing midair in a way that made me blink several times before I believed what I was seeing. Sidling up beside me, he took my hand. His grip was as strong as iron when I attempted to pull it away.

  “Pay very careful attention,” he murmured in my ear, his breath tickling my skin. “You’ve been going about this all wrong. Sometimes, the labyrinth will require you to go straight through like a battering ram. But sometimes, as now, the way forward is actually sideways. I’ll show you what I mean.”

  “Hey—”

  I reacted with a high-pitched squeal as he swung me into his arms. For as lithe and slim as his body seemed, his arms wrapped around me like bands of iron. Approaching the wall of trees, he stopped just short of a large trunk.

  “Take a deep breath.”

  And then he stepped sideways. Instead of bumping right into the next tree like the laws of physics said we should, we entered a pitch-black space. I wrapped my arms around his neck as he stepped again in the opposite direction, and bright light nearly blinded me.

  He set me down, and I stumbled backward, blinking as my eyes readjusted to the light. My back hit something hard. As my vision cleared, I turned to see the wall of trees behind me, so tall that they blocked out the distant horizon.

  When I turned back, the labyrinth lie ahead of us.

  “Thank you,” I said, turning to Ryn with a genuine smile.

  He returned the smile and then said, “The next favor you ask of me will only be granted if you’re on your back.”

  I opened my mouth and then snapped it shut. What the hell was I supposed to say to that? His hand shifted to the swirling tattoos on his chest and stroked the skin while his gaze stayed centered on my face.

  “Duly noted,” I replied, swallowing hard as my gaze followed the path of his hand.

  Ryn brushed a silver nipple ring I hadn’t noticed before this moment with his thumb. Then his hand moved lower, fingers disappearing under the waist of his pants.

  I did what any sensible girl would do: turned and ran. Well, I didn’t exactly run. More of a brisk walk to put as much distance between me and the bare-chested, chiseled temptation that had suddenly attached itself to my side.

  I wasn’t here to get distracted or laid. It was impossible to know what sort of suffering Adonis and Cleo were enduring while I ogled man meat. My head needed to get in the game, right fucking now.

  His laugh wrapped around me. “There’s that word again. That must be on your mind a lot.”

  Shit, I said that out loud.

  “I don’t mean it literally.”

  Ryn jogged to catch up with me, the outline of his hardened dick visible through the thin pants. “You will.”

  The lariat swung from my neck, and I glanced down at it. The next stone had already begun to change color, turning a pale yellow.

  So much time had passed only for me to make so little progress.

  “You know Hades brought me here for himself, right?” The long train of my dress snagged on a branch, and I stumbled. Ryn caught my arm, electricity tingled along my skin until I pulled away. “What do you think he’ll do if he finds out you helped me?”

  “Hades knows all and sees all. This is his domain.” The words would have seemed grave if not for the mischievous smile on his face. “There are no secrets that can be kept from him here.”

  I stepped over a large crack in the stone path before my foot could catch on it. “You don’t sound worried?”

  “Should I be?”

  “He’s your ruler, right?”

  A shadow passed over his face. “Hades has cast me from his court for my misdeeds. It lessens his power over me.”

  I glanced at his face, searching for some hint of his mood. “And now you want a friend?”

  “Or more than that.” He waggled his eyebrows, abandoning the somber tone. “For now, I’ll just stand here and watch you walk down the path. It’s quite a view.”

  He was trying way too hard for me to take his flirting seriously, but it was a nice distraction. Hades had promised that the path would be laid out clearly ahead of us, but he neglected to mention that it would extend into infinity. My feet already ached, and we’d only just started.

  The scrubby brush surrounding the trees behind us eventually gave way to a brick path that wound off into the distance. With each step I took, the path seemed more and more like it would never end. I squinted at the horizon, trying to make out the distant shape of what I could only assume was Hades’s castle. But it was too distant and amorphous to make out clearly.

  Another mile passed, the third stone around my neck now a violent canary yellow. We should have made more progress by now.

  “Something’
s wrong.”

  Ryn popped up beside me, his walk more of a jaunty dance. “And what would that be, lovely?”

  “We’re not making any progress. Hades gave me thirteen hours, but it would take weeks to reach whatever is at the end of this path.”

  He followed the finger I pointed at the horizon, his expression pensive. “Our ruler’s deals are rarely fair.”

  “But they can’t be impossible, that would be against the rules.”

  My foot caught again on a crack in the pavement, and my skirt wrapped around my ankles as I stumbled forward. Only the arm that Ryn wrapped around my waist as he pulled me into the circle of his arms kept me from falling.

  I stared up into his brilliantly-violet eyes, caught in the spell they cast. My body shifted infinitesimally forward as if drawn to him by a force outside of my conscious control. It was only at that moment I realized how much I wanted him to kiss me.

  What the hell was wrong with me?

  It wasn’t as if I didn’t enjoy sex on the handful of occasions I’d had it, but at no point in my life would anyone describe me as boy crazy. But I couldn’t seem to keep my mind off the idea of humping every beautiful creature that crossed my path. Hades had to be doing something to me, at least I hoped he was.

  With a knowing smile, Ryn set me back on my feet and slowly pulled away. “Careful now.”

  Embarrassed, I looked down at my feet. The crack in the pavement wasn’t large but deep enough that stepping on it the wrong way could have turned my ankle. I’d thought the same thing the last time I saw it.

  Because this was the exact crack that I’d tripped over before. “Oh, shit.”

  Ryn tensed, casting his gaze around as if waiting for an attack. “What is it?”

  I pointed to a rock that was suspiciously familiar to one I’d seen almost thirty minutes ago. “All of this is the same.”

  “You’re right.” He looked around us with a new attention, an expression of surprise on his face. “We’re trapped in an illusion. One of the more elaborate I’ve seen. Hades certainly wants to ensure you never make it from one end of this place to the other.”

  My gaze moved frantically around me, wondering how I could possibly have missed that every crack in the brick path, every blade of grass, even the angle of the setting sun on the horizon had remained unchanged. “How do we break it?”

  “This is Hades’s realm. We cannot break any illusion he has created inside of it.”

  “If we can’t break it, can we at least figure out a way to see through it?”

  “Perhaps.” He stepped off the path into the scrubby grass and brush, looking for something. “Illusions are powerful because they pit your own mind against you. When created by someone with more power than you possess, they’re nearly impossible to combat. I’m surprised you were able to see through it at all, most wouldn’t have.”

  My fingers clenched as the futility of all of it washed over me. The next time I saw Hades, I was punching him in his smug face. “So we’re stuck until Hades shows back up in . . .” I glanced down at the lariat, counting the stones that were still transparent. “Nine and a half hours.”

  “Not necessarily.” With a triumphant sound, he picked something up and held it out for me to see.

  “That’s a rock.”

  “If you want to be literal. In another sense, it’s our ticket to freedom.” He reared back and launched the rock into the air, then watched as it flew in an arc. It struck the path a dozen feet ahead of us with a loud thunk. “Not there.”

  He bent to look for another.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “The only way to break a powerful illusion without magic of your own is to force your mind to see through it. We aren’t seeing what’s really here, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a way out of it. It’s like holding up a prism and turning it in your hands. The light looks one way from a certain position and much different from another.”

  “What does that have to do with throwing rocks?”

  “If you throw the rock and then don’t see it land, you’ll know you’ve found a break in the illusion. Now, do you want to ask more inane questions, or do you want to help me?”

  I picked up a small stone and hurled it as far as I could down the path. It only landed a few feet away.

  Ryn scoffed “You’ll have to do better than that.”

  Resisting the urge to aim the next one at the back of his head, I picked a target just to the side of the path and threw it. The stone curved through the air, but then something strange happened. Instead of landing where it should, the stone seemed to jump in the air and then dropped at least a foot further away. The difference was subtle, and if I’d blinked, I would have missed it.

  I jogged forward to where the stone landed. The air shimmered slightly as I got closer. “There has to be something here.”

  “Only one way to find out,” Ryn murmured before he shoved me hard from behind.

  I plunged forward, barely getting my hands out in front of me in enough time to catch my fall. I hit the ground hard, gravel digging into my palms and making them sting.

  When I looked up, the scenery had changed. Walls of stone rose up around us, many of them cracked and broken. There was still a path ahead, but it turned in a sharp corner a dozen feet away, so it was impossible to know what lay beyond the bend.

  This place hadn’t felt like a maze until right now.

  “Sorry about that,” Ryn said as he helped me up. He brushed imaginary dust off my dress, his hands moving down my waist until I slapped them away. “The breaks in illusions are small and don’t last very long. We had to move fast.”

  “I’m sure.” I gestured to the maze of stone around us. “I guess this means we did it.”

  “Alas, each challenge will become more dire than the last. This is the way of the Underworld. One small victory will not win a war.” He sounded almost sad for a moment before his expression brightened. “Now get that ass moving so I can watch it twitch.”

  I rolled my eyes at him but continued forward. Secretly, I wanted him to watch it, too.

  Chapter Seven

  If I was happy to have beaten the illusion, the feeling was short-lived.

  I wouldn’t have thought I was the sort of person to struggle with claustrophobia. But the walls lining the path had slowly shifted closer until I couldn’t stretch my arms out completely without hitting them.

  Maybe the path was going to narrow even further until I was forced to crawl through the darkness with stone scraping my skin. The thought of it almost made me want to give up right then and there. Being trapped in small spaces with no way out was pretty much my worst nightmare.

  The sky above us had changed, turning from a pale red to a frothing gray-blue, like foamy waves crashing into rocks.

  “Storm is coming,” Ryn remarked from behind me, sounding almost nervous. “Hades’s doing, no doubt. He’ll bring the force of the skies down upon us at some point. I hope you don’t mind the wet. Or the cold.”

  Should it be able to rain in the Underworld?

  I shook off that thought as we continued on. Nothing about this situation made sense, so I couldn’t exactly expect normal rules to apply.

  For one thing, we should have passed the river Styx to get here. We hadn’t, which was good, because I didn’t have a coin to pay for the ferry.

  Nothing was where it was supposed to be.

  I had to twist my body to fit between the gap in the walls as the path turned. “And you really aren’t worried about what Hades will do to you when he finds out you’ve helped me?”

  “Nothing that hasn’t been done before.” Ryn didn’t so easily navigate the gap, given our differences in size. He had to use his arms to extricate himself when his chest got stuck. “What concerns me most is that you’re trusting me to help you at all. I’ve warned you before to trust nothing and no one that you encounter here.”

  Nervousness twisted in my stomach, but I forced myself to ignore it. What choice did I ha
ve? “I’m familiar with this logic puzzle, you know. How can I trust you to tell me the truth about you being untrustworthy if I believe you when you say you are?”

  “That’s certainly a question just begging for an answer, isn’t it?”

  There was a warning written into his gaze, even though I didn’t understand precisely what it was. If Ryn had wanted to stop me from reaching the castle in time, then all he had to do was refuse to help me cross the barrier of obsidian trees. Or simply neglected to point out how the illusion of the endless path could be defeated.

  I didn’t have to trust him to know that I couldn’t afford to turn him away. A fourth stone had already begun to change color on the lariat, turning a dusky amber that I could only assume would become a brightly burnt orange.

  When the path widened, I breathed a sigh of relief that caught in my throat when I saw what lay ahead. There were three doors blocking our progress. On each was the identical figure of a man made entirely of stone.

  Together, the doors stretched from one wall to the other and were tall enough that it was impossible to know what might lie past them. Creeping closer, I marveled at the detail on these carved statues. My face shifted nearer to the one in the middle, like all the others it had been made to look like a sleeping man.

  Every detail of a human face was there, from the fine lines of his eyelashes to the tiny veins that crisscrossed atop the lids. His nostrils flared out as if he’d just taken a breath, and his lower lip was slightly larger than the upper in a slight pout. He reminded me of a carving of Sleeping Beauty—if she’d been a man with a face like that of a Greek god. I reached out to touch the cheek, just to feel if the stone was as smooth as it looked. A shock of static electricity made me pull my hand away with a gasp.

  And then the eyes opened.

  “Not good,” I heard Ryn murmur from behind me.

  All three of the mouths opened and spoke simultaneously. “Who dares to disturb our slumber?”

  My heart couldn’t take this shit.

  I stumbled backward, but the stone men didn’t move. Fearfully, I waited for them to disengage from the doors and come lumbering toward us with the carved swords sheathed at their waists raised in attack.