We moved through the campsites scattered across the labyrinth, the tunnels stretched wide beneath the surface river, damp air cool against my horns, water thundering faintly overhead where the stone grew thinner. My herdmate Kuonimwas guarding the new surface entrance, and with that entrance reopening, there was the risk that the school would find it and begin an attack from that direction. So my self-assigned task was to go around to the different monster campsites and prepare them. The Dungeon could have done it. It already shifted walls, moved rooms, and enticed the groups deeper along paths that would eventually bring them to exhaustion and death if they pushed too far.
It already did so much for us who dwelt within it.
So I scrubbed bedding in cold underground streams, wringing thick woven blankets until my forearms burned from the physical labor that came with a good, thorough cleanse. I shook out dust and beetle shells. I reviewed supplies for rot or damage, and set them aside for the Dungeon to compost. I trimmed back the vines, staying well out of their reach, cutting them with careful strokes to guide their growth along the towering walls so that they could serve their purpose as a defense and offense. I cleared loose rock, checked fire pits, reset cook stones, and built obstacles that would trip up a sneaky adventurer but wouldn't impede a directly charging minotaur.
Kyle travelled with me and did her own work.
Most days, she would find a flat outcropping of granite, or a comfortable spot by an underground stream near where I was working, parking herself there with the lesson book the Dungeon had given her open across her knees. The pages smelled like ink and dust. She traced each spell carefully, long fingers steady as she copied the runes into the air or onto scrap parchment or fabric. She learned each spell with a determined methodology, memorizing them and practicing her casting.
I learned the meals she favored. Simple stews thick with root vegetables. Flatbread crisped on a hot pan with tomato and cheese. I adjusted my recipes, finding the seasonings and flavors she liked, and was rewarded by her smiles and gratitude.
I learned about meals that she enjoyed, learned to cook them with her, and then for her.
Kyle travelled with me and let me do my own work. For the most part, she spent the time studying the lesson book the Dungeon had provided.
She worked through the spells, memorizing them by drawing them out and practicing them. When she moved onto the section of attack spells, she began helping with the vines, using them as target practice for her ranged attacks. When she reached the section on attack spells, she began marking the vines and testing her range. She listened to my guidance on where to strike, and her practice blended well with my plant maintenance tasks.
It was peaceful, and the days and nights blurred together.
Nights became painful when she invited me to sleep with her in the bed I made for her. She was soft and small in my arms, and she slept so peacefully, even as my body burned with the craving of her.
But still she did not run.
We talked about her youth, the difficulties she had in expressing herself, and how the world she grew up in seemed to want her to fit into a neat little box of its expectations. She told me about past lovers and books she had read. I told her about the culture of my people and how the different societies in the Dungeon fit together, accepting each other's strangeness within the boundaries of our magical world down here.
I kept my aggression to a minimum, ignoring the maddening scent of her, focusing on getting to know her and finding out what she enjoyed.
For her part, she did not run, though she did ask me pointed questions about minotaur mating practices to the point that the conversations became delectable torture of the difference between what I wanted to do to her and what she had yet to initiate.
Then we arrived at my new home and everything changed.
Chapter
Nine
Kyle
It was an underground castle.
It rose from the stone floor like it had grown there rather than been built or carved. We had traveled through a maze of vines, a dangerous passage that required our steps to be centered and careful, and when we finally broke free, there were none overhead to block the view of the cavern ceiling that arched high overhead. Stalactites hung like a forest of stone teeth, their tips dripping slow mineral tears into the black walls of the fortress that loomed up overhead. It had huge windows and balconies that looked out in all directions, and I realized that those who inhabited it could likely see large swaths of the maze, even though the vines would block the view of the hallways themselves.
"The tops of the vines light up when people move beneath them," Durom said, answering my unspoken question.
The main gate stood open in front of us, and as we passed through it, it opened up into a garden. There were no vines here, nothing to reach and choke, just lush edible plants thatgrew wild, needing tending. Sunlight streamed through one of the walls, beams that came through perforated holes and shone down on the plants. I studied the curve of the cave wall and realized that this was likely a section of the caldera walls. We were above ground yet encased in rock.
We moved through the gardens, and my heart leapt at the sheer size of the space.
"What is this place?" I asked as Durom pushed open a heavy wooden door, holding it for me as I passed through.
Inside, the air shifted, warmer. The entryway opened wide with plenty of space for towering minotaurs to stand. The air held the clean scent of mineral water and beeswax. The walls held veins of a soft purple rock, and a stream ran through the side of the room, guided through a trough of stone as it exited through a little grate to the garden. The entryway towered three stories high, with a railed balcony that looked down into the huge room from both of the levels above, and the walls that led up to them were covered by an intricate metal motif of artificial twisting vines, black metal that matched the image of the vines in the maze if not the life of them. The floor was laid with wide, dark slabs, but there were thick, woven rugs that softened the center of the path. Durom sat down on a bench next to the stream and dipped his hooves in it, washing them and drying them with a small towel that hung nearby.
"This is my home," Durom said. "The Dungeon has asked me to be the keeper of this section of the Labyrinth. It was a great honor to be asked."
I took off my boots, leaving them near the door.
There was a double set of stairs that curved up at the end of the room, and wide arched doors on either side that led out in either direction. There was so much to explore. So much to see! But there was something that was bothering me, something that tickled in the back of my mind, a thought held onto fromthe many conversations we had while travelling through the labyrinth.
"But you said you would follow me as far as you could," I said.
