by Isabel Wroth
She spluttered and coughed as she went under, her toes finally slipping off the edge of the stone statue, her hands clawing uselessly through the water as she desperately tried to break the surface.
"Don't struggle, don't tense, just relax. Lie back in my hands and take a deep breath."
How could she relax when the freezing cold water constantly slapped and pulled at her? Why was it so cold? The sea had been so warm yesterday, so calm, now it churned and bubbled with the raging force of a hungry beast.
She spasmed, bubbles escaping her mouth and nose, the salt stung her eyes when she looked up, so close to the surface she could see the blurry shine of light.
The ocean swallowed her sound of terrified despair, the current caught her, twisted her around and pushed her down with the force of an unseen hand.
"Don't struggle, Jalia, just relax."
The fight drained out of her with the last few bubbles of air, and for a moment she just hung there, suspended in the swirling vortex-like another piece of flotsam.
There was a strange sort of peace in this world of silence and sea, such profound beauty Jalia forgot she was drowning. Ribbons of light sliced through the darkness, illuminating the bubbles that spun lazily, caught in the current just like her, but they didn't struggle. They didn't fight. They revolved in gentle circles, rolling on the tide.
She forgot to be afraid, and like it was a living thing, the water seemed to sense it.
The wild churn slowed to a gentle swirl, and instead of pulling her down, the tide began to push her up. Up toward the light, toward the opening above her.
Jalia raised her arms to reach for the jagged lip, her fingers so numb she barely felt it when her hands closed on the solid stone.
Just as she ran out of breath, she pulled herself up in one last ditch effort to survive, her desperate gasp mingled with the rush of water flowing through the hole and over the rounded edges.
She got her elbows up to brace her weight, panting, coughing as she clung to the rock and caught her breath.
She didn't know how long she held on, there was no sense of the passage of time, no way to gauge it other than the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears.
Why the hell am I putting myself through all this? She asked herself, her teeth chattering so violently it hurt, again...everything farking hurt. Focus, don't think about it, just breathe. Just breathe. The water will go down again soon. Just have to hang on a little longer. A little bit longer. You're going to get out of here, going to get nice and dry. You'll get warm, get your arm fixed up, then after that...I don't know what after that. But there will be an after. Just have to stay alive.
*****
"My king, the tide begins to rise again."
Hours had passed, the suns would set soon, and neither Jalia or Akeyko had emerged from inside the labyrinth. Dhega hadn't stopped pacing, hadn't taken his gaze off the entrance as the water gushed out and finally stopped.
Jalia had the key to navigate the maze. It shouldn't have taken her long to get in and out. Not unless something had happened to her.
"Sire? The tide," Jansus' grating whine was like a blade across his senses, releasing the helpless fury bottled so tightly within him.
"I can see the tide, fool!" he roared, turning away for a split second to grab Jansus by the neck of his fine robe, jerking him up on his toes until their noses nearly touched. "Speak again. I dare you."
"Fark my shoes," someone rasped in relief, and Dhega whipped around to see Jalia's attendants both rushing down the stairs.
Down toward the entrance of the maze where a wet, blood-soaked, yellow-haired figure came staggering out, half falling into the arms of her men.
Dhega was on the sand before he registered even taking the stairs.
Jalia's beautiful face twisted in pain when the two males tried to help her stand. Her left arm was a mess of bleeding cuts, the remnants of her tunic wrapped around them in a clumsy bandage to try and stem the worst of the bleeding.
"Akeyko is dead. I found her in the tunnels, but I couldn't drag her up the incline to get her out."
Dhega didn't care. Not one bit. Her bright eyes met his when she looked up, and a thousand different things to say crowded inside his mouth.
Dhega wanted to tell her how relieved he was to see her alive. His hands clenched with how badly he wanted to hold her,
"Her remains will be retrieved. The tide rises again. We must go."
Jalia nodded, leaning heavily on the smaller of her attendants. Neither of them was strong enough to carry her up the stairs, and the healers were too old to make the trek down and back up with any haste.
It was all the excuse he needed to take her himself. She came eagerly, wrapping her good arm around his shoulders, sighing in relief when he carefully hefted her and held her close.
"You're so warm," she moaned, her teeth clacking together as she shivered. Her skin was like ice, pale from blood loss and shock. Dhega barked orders as he took the stairs three at a time, calling for healers, for a fire to be lit in her chambers, a hot bath prepared, charging past anyone who got in his way,
"I got the pearl."
Dhega held her tighter, grinding his teeth as he leaped up the last few steps.
"I don't care."
"You better," Jalia grunted, her hold on him failing as her body gave up the last of its strength. "I nearly died to get the farking thing."
"But you didn't. You survived."
"Thanks to you," she whispered in his ear, right before she fainted.
Not long after reaching the palace at Kaetonia, the crone who stripped Jalia of her clothes came to him with a torn length of cloth in her hand.
"The Marchesa insisted I bring this to you, your majesty," she informed him with a stiff bow.
Dhega knew what it was but handed the bundle to Jansus with the command to untie the knot made in the cloth.
Shaken from their earlier altercation, Jansus' fingers had fumbled to reveal the large pearl Jalia had ensured would come out of the labyrinth with her, having tied it into the bandages she made to bind her wounds.
"Another win for the Marchesa," Jansus announced, clearing his throat uncomfortably as he held up the pearl for all to see.
"What barbaric hell is this!? No! Absolutely not, you! All of you, out!"
The vehement cursing of the younger attendant sent the healers running, but when they found Dhega barring their way with a violent glare, they slid to a stop and stammered all at once, talking over one another.
After a moment he came to understand the attendant was not impressed with the healers of Kaetonia's methods for wound healing. He barged past them to see her assassin supporting Jalia as she reclined, once again unconscious in the steaming bath, a blanket draped over the tub for modesties sake.
The one called Croft muttered darkly under his breath while he used a silver canister to spray a blue colored foam up and down the length of Jalia's arm.
"What is that?" Dhega demanded.
Neither of the attendants looked to him, focused on their task. Croft was quick to speak, not bothering to hide his contempt. "It's a synthetic protein to sterilize any bacteria and stop the bleeding.
“Your gaggle of ridiculous medics wanted to use needle and thread to sew her skin back together! Hand me the QC2."
From the bag beside him, the assassin produced another silver canister, and once the foam on Jalia's arm turned from blue to white, the boy wiped it away to apply the next treatment. Dhega was baffled by the perfectly clean looking wounds.
Wounds that looked strangely so much worse without the blood covering them. He saw pink muscle tissue, the whiteness of bone, the ragged tears in Jalia's pale flesh.
There was a marked lack of irritation, no more blood flowed, and when the attendant sprayed the second liquid, the knife-like scores closed before his eyes.
"This QC2, is there more of it where you come from?" Dhega asked, having never seen anything like it in his life. To have access to such miraculous medi
cal supplies suddenly seemed far more valuable than money or outside alliance.
"Of course. No civilized world is without such basic necessities." Croft spat, clearly making his opinion of Minoan medical practices known.
But then, Dhega would never have claimed his world was civilized.
CHAPTER TEN
As the transport took off for Antaeus, Jalia had a vivid flashback of last night's terrible dream. The feeling of being suffocated, unable to breathe, watching bubbles dance across her vision as she uselessly tried to swim towards the light.
Her hands clawed above her, reaching up toward the towering figure she could just make out through the blur of the water.
From the shape of his horns, she'd known it was Dhega, but in the dream he just stood there, watching her drown.
"Marchesa, are you well?"
She jolted out of the nightmarish replay, jerking her hand out from under Kalphius's concerned touch, clutching at the wrap around her shoulders with a shaky smile.
"Yeah. Sorry. I didn't sleep well last night."
Kalphius accepted her excuse with a polite nod and turned to the male beside him to strike up a conversation about crop harvests. Behind them, the shadow of Kaetonia palace loomed on the horizon like an ominous thundercloud.
Dhega caught her eye when she turned back around, clearly not listening to whatever the prince at his side was trying to tell him.
Jalia offered him a quick reassuring smile and looked ahead as the terrain began to change, glad to see the last of Kaetonia, hoping she never had reason to go back there.
Could a queen refuse to visit places? Just make a list of immediate no-go zones and be obeyed? If not, Jalia knew what her first order of business as queen would be.
*****
It took them three days to get to Antaeus, and each night Jalia woke in a cold sweat, gasping for air and clawing at the sheets.
They arrived at Antaeus late in the evening on the third day, another new bed in a new palace, this one carved into the side of a mountain with red stone walls and shadowy halls.
Tom was waiting beside her bed when she woke that night, a tray of candles lit to banish the darkness.
She threw the covers back because she couldn't stand the weight of them, struggled to get out of the bed, to untangle the skirt of her nightdress from her legs.
Even the feel of her sweaty hair clinging to her back was too much. Her toiletries were on the vanity tucked against the wall, but what she needed wasn't there.
"Give me a knife. Now."
Tom gave a neutral blink, pulling a small one from the cuff on his wrist.
She snatched it out of his hand and turned to the mirror, hacking off the thigh length locks she hadn't thought to braid when she went into the labyrinth.
The water had pulled at it, made it heavier to help keep her submerged, wrapped it around her neck and arms as she struggled...
Tom grabbed her wrist, giving her a little shake when she made to fight him.
"I'll do it. You're going to cut yourself going at it like that."
The breath sawed in and out of her lungs as he pushed her to sit at the vanity, her hands shaking so bad she knew he was right.
She could see him in the mirror trying to even out the mess she'd started to make, but Jalia shook her head violently, feeling like she couldn't breathe.
"Need it off. Off my neck. All of it...off my neck."
"Alright. Breathe, Jalia. In through your nose, out through your mouth. Slow. You're alright."
For a man who had spent nearly all his life slitting throats, it was little wonder the Phantom was so good with a blade.
He cut and trimmed, shaved here and there, focused and silent while she got her shit together.
When he finished, she had an edgy cropped cut with a fan of lines cut very carefully, very precisely across the right side of her skull. It looked like a shell, a seashell, and the moment she saw it...she relaxed.
"Better?"
Jalia nodded, rubbing her palms up and down the sides of her neck, trying to soothe the feeling of the thick ropes of her hair trying to strangle her.
"Yeah." Her knees shook as she got up and stepped over the pile of hair on the floor, but her hands were steadier when she dug into the trunk of her clothes for something, anything other than a dress.
"Is this competition worth your life?" Tom asked, cleaning his knife, watching her while she threw her beautiful clothes—the costume of a stupid girl playing pretend—every which way to find what she needed.
"I haven't decided. But I'm in it until I win, die, or magically come up with a billion credits to forfeit. And if I don't win, you don't get paid the rest of what I owe you. Why the fark don't, I have anything but dresses?!"
"Because you're supposed to be playing the part of a lady. Ladies don't say fark, or wear pants."
Jalia threw a soft soled shoe at his head with a short scream of frustration, turning around, raking her fingers across her scalp.
"There are no windows in here, Tom. I need air. I need to get out of here!"
Tom took her by the elbow and led her out, here not even a few hours, and he already knew his way around enough to find her a secluded spot beyond the cover of the stone.
An open-air patio with a view of the stars and moon, where the hot desert air moved freely. She was dizzy with how much oxygen she drew in, sweating, shaking, finally collapsing on a bench.
Her phantom was with her the whole time, watching over her, making sure she could have her breakdown in peace. His voice was barely audible over the whistle of the wind.
"Is he worth it?"
Jalia stared at the sky above and asked herself the same thing.
*****
"I like this."
Jalia laughed and jerked her face away from Axtasusa's heavy-handed ruffle of her hair. Entayta smiled and agreed she too liked Jalia's new look, but for the first time—without Cocknostril's presence and the distraction of Akeyko's strange ramblings—Jalia noticed the smile didn't reach the Nirian's deep blue eyes.
They were cold, utterly devoid of actual emotion. They reminded Jalia of a doll she'd had as a child. A scary, ugly thing her mother had brought home from somewhere.
Jalia had kept the hideous thing in the corner of her room with its dead doll eyeballs pointed at the wall.
She'd screamed for days the first time she had woken up to find that damn doll looking at her, sure it was alive. Joseph and Jeremy had laughed and laughed...Jalia struggled not to shiver in reaction to another rise of even more disturbing memories and covered her discomfort by giving Axtasusa's thick arm a shove.
"I'm so glad you approve."
Dhega's absence was marked, his empty chair at the head of the table continued to draw her attention while the three of them discussed random things; the weather, the changes in scenery, Axtasusa's continued displeasure over her meat-free diet.
Kalphius arrived with a dour-faced male he introduced as Daegana, Prince of Antaeus.
Daegana was much older than Kalphius and Dhega, evident by the wealth of wrinkles on his long face and the silver in his russet colored pelt.
He wore simple red robes with no adornments, his twisted horns bore a single band of gold to proclaim his royal status, but other than that Jalia wouldn't have guessed he was one of the Golden Bulls who governed the territories of Minos.
There was something about the stooped figure that gave her the creeps. An energy about him that made her feel as cold as she had during her stint in the heart of the Vanishing Labyrinth, and about as eager to remain in his company as she had been to play with that doll of hers.
Kalphius explained he and Daegana would be escorting them to the arena as soon as they finished breakfast.
"Arena? I thought we were watching via vid-screen." Susa garbled with her mouth full.
Kalphius blinked, his lip twitching like it wanted to curl in disgust at her table manners. Daegana harrumphed, clearing his throat to answer in a deep, gruff voice.
Jalia wondered what that meant exactly but finished her meal and waited for the others to do the same.
She caught Kalphius staring at her haircut with a dubious expression, but when he noticed she saw it, he was immediately all smiles.
On their way to the labyrinth, Entayta struck up a conversation with Daegana, asking him about his home, the desert terrain. Axtasusa lumbered along behind them, leaving she and Kalphius to trail behind.
"Are you sure you're well, Marchesa? You seem...troubled." The prince asked softly so as not to be heard by the others.
Jalia forced a smile and kept her chin up. "I'm fine. It's just difficult acclimating to another new bed in a strange place."
When they reached the Red Labyrinth, Jalia understood why the prince was so on edge, and perhaps the reason for Dhega's strange mood and absence these last few days.
She heard the muted roaring first, the sound of thousands of voices speaking all at once, and an odd mechanical whir.
Kalphius offered his arm as the began the climb up a long flight of stone stairs carved into the side of the stadium itself.
Jalia was thankfully pressed to the wall, while one wrong step or a push from her, and Kalphius would have gone flying off into space to die a terrible death on the broken, jagged stones far below them.
At the top they turned down an arched stone hall, the noise getting louder and louder with every step.
The light blinded her for a moment when they finally entered an open pavilion of sorts. Jalia blinked to adjust her eyes, immediately recognizing the space for what it was. A spectator's box.
They were shaded from the brutal suns overhead by a tasseled crimson canopy that snapped and flapped in the wind, with enough space to seat at least fifty on the graduated stone benches beneath.
Dhega already sat sprawled in a carved stone chair, his view unimpeded by how it sat raised above the rest.
He glanced her way, and Jalia felt Kalphius withdraw his arm immediately, but she was too busy staring at the labyrinth below to pay either of them any mind.