“Don’t move!” Alaric’s voice now, distant but urgent. “Wyn, just—keep talking. We’re close.”
I opened my mouth to speak, to answer, but the hedge rustled violently, and their voices vanished.
The silence was absolute, the kind that pressed against your ears and made you hear your own blood moving. My pulse was too loud. Too fast.
I spun in a circle. The path behind me was gone. Only thorns remained.
I took a shaky breath. My heartbeat thundered in my chest. My palms were sweaty, and my knees felt weak. I had never felt so utterly skin-pricklingly alone.
Then the voices started.
“You’ll break them.”
My stomach clenched and twisted as I spun around in circles, trying to catch the voice.
A new one, this time far colder and familiar in the worst way. My mother.
“Softness is a liability, child. You were born wrong for a crown.”
“No,” I whispered. “You’re not here.”
“You can’t even lift a sword without trembling.”
“You’ll lose them all.”
“No,” I yelled.
“You’ll die, along with everyone else.”
I pressed my hands to my ears, but it was as if the voices came from inside my bones. They vibrated in my ribs, behind my eyes.
“You’re pathetic.”
“You don’t deserve the crown.”
“He won’t ever love you. He won’t ever feel for you.”
A dozen whispers now, overlapping fragments of fear, pieces of old doubts. My mind spun. I staggered forward and tripped, hitting the mossy path on my hands and knees.
Tears stung my eyes, and my chest was rising and falling rapidly. I couldn’t breathe. My throat clenched like a fist. My thoughts raced—panicked, chaotic, sharp-edged. I wasn’t enough. I’d never be enough. What if they were right? What if I wasn’t meant for all of this?
“I don’t know who I am anymore,” I whispered, the words trembling from my lips like a secret I’d never dared say aloud.
Then a fresh voice broke through, rough and achingly kind.
“You don’t have to be sure. Keep going.”
It was Erindor’s voice.
But it couldn’t be. He wasn’t here. It was only what I wanted to hear.
Still, my heart held onto it.
I closed my eyes, trying to breathe, but even that wasn't easy. The maze twisted the air, thickening it with thorns and sorrow.
A cold dread seized me, making me tremble uncontrollably.
I wasn’t a warrior. I wasn’t brave.
