I didn’t know how long ago that return was, but the bushes in the labyrinth had shaken like an earthquake was rattling them. No screams accompanied its return. I didn’t know if that meant its victim or victims were unconscious like Tusks when taken, or if the beast decided to eat them already. Either way, the minotaur was back, and it didn’t know we were here or else it would be hunting us.
“Do you think the horsemen could have hidden their army in here?” I asked to distract myself from my surroundings. “It’s big enough, and if they teamed up with the minotaur and came and went out of the other exit, no one would have known they were here.”
“I don’t think the minotaur would let anyone in its domain that it didn’t plan on eating,” Corson said.
“And it doesn’t strike me as the type to share its territory,” Bale said.
“With as big as this place is, it’s not big enough to house the kind of army the angels and horsemen came at us with,” Lix said.
“True,” I muttered.
A sudden breeze caused the bushes over my head to sway; the rustle of their leaves reminded me of the cornfields I’d play in as a kid. My friends and I would laugh as we plunged through the rows, losing and finding each other in a game that was a mix of tag and hide-and-seek.
“That’s new,” Wren said.
And it was new. Up until now, the only thing moving the bushes were our arms brushing against them as we walked and the stomp of the minotaur’s feet. I gulped down the lump in my throat.
It was difficult to remain calm when every twist and turn had me feeling increasingly claustrophobic. I kept waiting for the fifteen-foot-tall bushes to uproot themselves, close in, and suffocate us beneath their shiny, green leaves.
Or maybe they would uproot themselves and twist all around until we had even less of an idea of where we were going.
“Maybe we should have let Caim come,” Lix said. “At least he could have flown over the top and told us which way to go.”
“It’s too late for that,” Bale said. “And we couldn’t risk him getting trapped in here too.”
I tilted my head back to gaze at the dome as I tried to figure out our position by the change in the light. When we first entered the maze, the light was dimmer, but as we got closer to the center, it grew brighter, but I still didn’t see anything to explain it.
“What if I torch the plants?” I asked.
“And if the fire gets out of hand?” Hawk inquired.
“Or if it alerts the minotaur to our presence,” Corson said. “We know its back, but it doesn’t know about us.”
I had no answer for them, but my frustration mounted as row after row of endless green stretched before me. Usually, I loved plants, but I wanted these things out of my way so I could see more than five feet ahead and ten feet to the side of me.
“We know there’s a way out,” Bale said. “Otherwise the beast couldn’t have returned to the town when the mining exit was blocked. Right now, that’s what we have to focus on finding.”
I didn’t ask her how we were supposed to find it when we had no idea where we were. I’d never been pessimistic before, and I wasn’t about to start now. I glanced back at the cave leading into the minotaur’s domain. Going by the light and the distance to the cave, we were in the center of the labyrinth. We were also about two hundred yards to the right of where we first entered.
That information didn’t do me any good when I had no idea if the exit was ahead or to the left or right, or nowhere.
Just keep going.
Because that was our only option.
I turned a corner and smacked straight into a row of hedges. The branches and leaves knocked me back a step but not before it also added insult to injury by shoving a stick up my nose. “Motherfu…”
My words trailed off as I wiped at my wounded nose and came away with a smattering of blood. Fire filled my clenched hands, but I smothered the flames instead of unleashing them on these awful things.
I rubbed at my nose as I tried not to scream in frustration. We’d tried shoving our way through the plants, but though they were made up of sticks and branches, they were as unyielding as a concrete wall and would not let us pass through.
In the magical light, the green leaves shone, and I took a couple between my fingers to rub their silky texture. Releasing the leaves, I stepped back to survey the plants. It was impossible to see over the top of them or through them.
I glanced up at the dome;wherewas that light coming from?
Before I could think about it too long, a shrill scream pierced the air.
My heart lodged in my throat as I spun back toward the mountain. At the entrance to the labyrinth, a man and a woman came into view as they burst out of the cave and sprinted down the path toward the maze.
