The candidates ahead of me shoved and elbowed each other, jockeying for position. One hissed and bared her fangs. I stayed back, letting the chaos surge past me, and settled at the end.
Finn was already lost in the maze’s depths. I’d find him. I had to.
One by one, they vanished into the dark. When my turn came, I stepped in without looking at Mathias.
The world dissolved with a lurch, becoming a nauseating tumble through an abyss. I hit the ground with a jarring thud, knees and palms scraping stone.
When the dizziness passed, one thought remained: Finn was somewhere in this maze, unable to hear danger.
Focus and observe. Analyze and adapt.
Drawing one of my daggers, I headed toward a bioluminescent mushroom. Its light barely reached a footbeyond its stem. I crouched in its weak halo, fumbling for the vial at my ribs. I uncorked the glass of rupture. Three drops dripped onto my blade. I slid it back into my leathers.
I took a slow shuffle forward, my free hand outstretched, and met the rough, cold surface of stone. Another step to the side, and the wall was still there. Soft moss sank beneath my fingertips before I felt the unyielding rock.
A low groan sounded from deep within the labyrinth, and the floor vibrated. The wall I was touching slid sideways with a grinding scrape, revealing a new, equally dark passage.
Three days. Survive, find Finn, and hope my disguise stayed intact. If Adelaide’s spell failed while Mathias watched through his scrying plate…
No. Stay alive first.
A scream echoed from somewhere in the distance—feminine, cut short. For a heartbeat, satisfaction flickered.One less rival to worry about.
A moment later, cold spread through my chest and down into my fingertips. The trials were already claiming victims.
I took the new corridor. Occasional sconces illuminated the path from rusted iron cages that held a luminescent blue crystal. In the dim light, the moss glowed in lush patches. It clung to rock where no moisture belonged. The maze of forks seemed endless, but my decision was automatic: left, left, left.
I counted the lights to keep track of time, marking each one in my mind.
The walls shifted again and again. My stomach twisted each time. The grinding scrape of stone became my enemyas I lost all sense of where I’d started and how many hours had passed. Dread crept in, quiet and persistent.
A click sounded beneath my boot. I threw myself forward, rolling across the stone floor as sharpened spikes punched through the air where I’d been standing, their tips gleaming wet with something dark. The spikes retracted with a hiss and a click as the trap rearmed itself.
I released a weary sigh. Exhaustion dragged at my limbs, and my throat grew parched. How long had I been walking? Six hours? Eight? I tore open one of my ration bars and forced down a few dry bites, washing them with a swallow from my dwindling water supply.
Ahead, sound pierced the corridor. Not footsteps, but the indistinct murmur of voices.
I crept closer, then pressed myself against the wall and peered around the corner.
Lenore Fournier was backed into a corner of the next room, one of her devotees beside her. Four creatures advanced on them. These monsters might have been human once, but now they advanced with movements too fluid. They were pale, hairless humanoids with milky eyes, warped by long years in the dark. Their elongated arms ended in claws that scraped the floor. In the center of the room, glass containers glinted with crimson liquid on a stone pedestal.
Her companion gripped her wrist. “We can’t take them all. We need?—”
With a shriek, the nearest creature struck. The devotee’s words dissolved into a wet gurgle as its claws tore out his throat. Blood sprayed across the stone in an arc as it ripped his head off.
Lenore’s hands shot up, and wind erupted from her palms. Two monsters flew backward,slamming to the ground with sickening thuds. Yet the other two lunged from the sides.
Her fist connected with the first creature’s face. The crack of breaking bone ricocheted down the hall. Its head pitched back, then rolled forward again. Its jaw hung at a wrong angle, but it kept coming.
“No.” Lenore’s voice cracked.
Her expression hardened as she lashed out in one final burst of desperation. Bone snapped. One creature lost an ear; another’s arm twisted backward.
The first monster’s claws clamped around her neck. I shivered as it ripped her flesh, silencing her scream.
Her mouth worked, desperate, but only blood spilled out. She convulsed, then went limp as they tore her apart and feasted on her innards.
I slipped backward, breath catching in my throat. My boots barely whispered against the floor. Every nerve screamed to run, but I forced myself to move slowly, silently. Lenore’s death clung to me like smoke—not grief, not pity, just the brutal speed of it. Her strength hadn’t mattered. Her power hadn’t saved her.
