Page 16 of The Labyrinth and the Threaded Daughter

He scoffed lightly. “That isn’t really an answer, you know.”

She glanced back at him then, eyes flickering over his face as if measuring how much truth he could withstand at that moment. “It is the only one I can give you.”

The glamor from when he first saw Ariadne, first heard her angelic voice, had worn slightly. Corin still enjoyed the way her words fell around him, but he was growing tired of her cryptic answers. Of everyone’s cryptic answers. Did the Labyrinth turn all who entered into cryptic messengers?

Corin exhaled through his nose. “You know this place too well for someone who only watches.”

Ariadne’s steps slowed—not enough to stop but enough that he stumbled slightly in order to not crash into her. “Young heir, watching is not passive. Not here.”

Corin blinked as they picked up their pace again. “How long have you been here?” He pressed. When she didn’t respond, he continued, “People speak of you like a myth up in Knossos. Like something that should have died centuries ago.”

Her jaw tightened. “Then they are no different than when I was there. People speak of many things they do not understand.”

“That didn’t answer the question either.”

“No,” she agreed lightly. “It didn’t.”

They walked a few paces in silence. The Labyrinth groaned somewhere deep beneath them, the shifting stone sounding more like a beast rising from a slumber, but it had seemed to calm down much from the chaos it rained down on them only minutes before.

“Why don’t you help the heirs? Why do you only watch?” He asked. “If you know the paths, if you know the rules—why let them suffer?”

“Who said I know the rules?”

“I would say it’s pretty clear.”

She stopped then—fully—causing Corin to stumble into the wall beside him to avoid crashing into her suddenly still body.

When she turned, the light caught her face just right, and for a moment, Corin thought he saw something raw beneath the restraint. Something like anger or sorrow—something sharp and old. But it vanished almost as quickly as it appeared.

“Helping has consequences,” Ariadne said at last. “And because not all who enter deserve to leave.”

Corin stiffened, his throat suddenly tight. “Do I?”

Her gaze lingered on him, heavy and searching. “I admit that I do not know yet,” she admitted. “That is the problem.”

He took a step closer, his feet moving from under him without intention. “You saved me back there. You could have let me be crushed by the stones. But you didn’t. That must mean something.”

“I stopped you from dying,” she corrected with a large step back. “That is not the same thing.”

“Then why bother at all?”

Ariadne looked away. She pulled lightly at her fingers laced in front of her before stopping and casting them to lay flat against the wall behind her.

She inhaled sharply as if the words she needed to say were painful to release. “Because you did not run when the Labyrinth spoke. You responded. You tried to go back for them. Because you asked questions instead of making demands.”

She turned back to him, her eyes ablaze. “And because I have been wrong before. Once.”

The words settled between them, heavier than the air. He wondered briefly if she was talking about Theseus or another heir that had found his way into the maze. The idea haunted him.

Despite himself, his body stiffened as a wave of anger washed over him. He wanted to hunt down those who had hurt her before, save her from ever feeling that pain again. His fists clenched, his nails digging into his palm sharply.

Though he knew, deep down, that he couldn’t do so. She was here, centuries old, trapped in a maze designed to prove the worth of his kin. And he was here only for a brief blink in her life.

He shook his head, mentally begging his body to relax. He cleared his throat before questioning, “Asking questions was all it took?” He paused to search her face. The concept seemed so silly to him. “Has no one asked questions before?”

“You do not understand the push of the Labyrinth, young heir.”

Frustration knotted in his chest. “You don’t know me,” he shot back. Then, a shiver rang down his spine. “You don’t trust me.”