Page 62 of The Labyrinth and the Threaded Daughter

The golden veins flashed brighter than he had ever seen, as if the Labyrinth was approving of his actions.

Slowly, he lowered himself onto a stone ledge near the center, setting his jaw.

He could hear his heart pounding, echoing in his ears and nearly overwhelming him. His body was warring with him. Half of him screamed at him to turn back and return to a pathway, to avoid this upcoming duel if he could. The other half reminded him that Knossos was so close—that he could return to his land with a simple bloody fight.

Ariadne remained at the threshold, watching him with an expression he could not bear to name. He could see the anguish on her face, coursing through her body. Anguish that he had brought about.

After a few moments, she slid down the wall behind her to sit, wrapping her arms around her knees as if to protect herself from the upcoming heartbreak she knew was coming.

If it hadn’t already hit.

The chamber felt wrong without the Minotaur in it. Too quiet. Too open.

The golden veins in the walls seemed to be just as restless as Corin felt with their pulsing. And the longer he waited, the more his heart squeezed. He counted his heart beats. One. Two. Three… until counting became laboring.

Something caught his eye.

For a moment, he simply stared.

Then he crossed the chamber slowly, every step heavy with memory and questioning. The sword he had entered the Labyrinth with was knocked along the edge of the room where it had struck the Minotaur. And beside it was his father’s dagger, its hilt darkened from where his hand gripped it with blood.

He crouched to pick them up, testing their weight. The comfort of familiarity settled instinctively into his grip.

Both weapons that had been helpful at the start of his trial but had been long lost. He wasn’t sure he would ever see them again, but holding them now felt… wrong.

He turned.

Ariadne was watching him closely.

Her gaze flickered first to the weapons, then to his face. Something unreadable passed between them—fear, disappointment, hope, all tangled together. Corin felt it twist painfully inside his chest.

The weight of the borrowed blade caught his attention next. Heavy at his side and sitting expectantly. A gift from Ariadne. A gifted blade from the man that betrayed and abandoned her.

He hesitated.

Then, deliberately, he knelt and placed his sword and dagger back where he’d found them. He stood there empty-handed for a breath, as if daring himself to waver.

Instead, he reached for the smaller gifted blade at his hip.

It fit his hand differently. Lighter. Older. Less certain. He drew it slowly, the metal whispering as it left its sheath. It felt… honest. Unpretentious. Not the weapon of a hero sung about in halls, but something far more intimate.

He met Ariadne’s eyes again.

“I’m ready,” he said quietly. So quiet he was unsure if she even heard him.

When she didn’t offer a response—no glance away or twinge of an arm—Corin turned back toward the center of the chamber and steadied his breathing. He planted his feet, blade low but firm in his grip, and every sense sharpened to a fine edge.

For a long moment, nothing happened.

Then the stone trembled.

A deep rhythmic sound echoed through the passage beyond—the unmistakable thunder of hooves striking stone. Each step was slow and deliberate, heavy with inevitability. The air grew thick as it vibrated with the approach of something vast and powerful.

Ariadne rose from her spot against the wall.

Corin tightened his grip on the blade.

The Minotaur was coming.