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I didn’t want to admit it, but I was really missing my men. Not just the physical contact and the blood, which were amazing, of course.
But I missed their snide remarks, their playfulness, the soft way each of them had just for me. I’d gotten way too comfortable in the second Trial, having daily access to them for whatever support I needed.
It was so much different than dealing with these two pricks I’d been stuck with, and I was quickly developing a hard jealousy for Blaise, keeping company with my thief and my wolf somewhere else in the labyrinth. We’d seen nobody except each other, and I was beginning to feel a little crazed.
“Think this is what the Trial of the Flower Moon is named for?” Darnell murmured, as we rounded yet another corner in the sprawling labyrinth and came upon what passed as a meadow in these tight quarters.
I didn’t bother to remind him that the moon cycles had their own names, and Merden had most likely just been playing games with her home decor.
The flowers before us were beautiful, but so tightly packed and varied that you’d have to be an idiot to go tromping through them. Any number of poisonous blooms, thorns, and deadly, twisted vines could be waiting in that rainbow sea of petals.
“But look!” Jillian cried, pointing to the other side of the field, which was about fifty feet across in both directions and completely walled in by the towering hedges, except for where we’d come - and an exit, directly across from us. The archway was made of dark stone, and for once, completely bare of plants.
“So, either we turn around and explore more of the Flora section, or we take our chances and see if that’s a new area?” I asked, going off our assumption that each team had probably been placed in a differently decorated portion of the labyrinth, possibly matching up with the books we’d each been given.
Darnell consulted our map, adding the square meadow. The drawing had grown quite a bit, but there were dozens of paths we hadn’t tried, and it looked more like a tangled spiderweb than a coherent map.
Plus, we still didn’t know what the point was, other than to survive. Something about that didn’t sit well with me. It was difficult, of course, but Merden and the mist seemed to always have an extra challenge waiting in the wings.
The three of us were debating our options when movement at the other side caught my attention. “Guys, is that...”
“Nineve,” Darnell supplied, because I didn’t actually remember her name.
“Ooh, she’s on Janus’s team,” Jillian squealed, yelling her brother’s name again. He didn’t answer or materialize, though, and I was beginning to notice Nineve seemed a little... crazed.
Even from fifty feet it was easy enough to see the panic in her eyes, the indecision as she looked over her shoulder again and again, weighing her options between the field of flowers and whatever was behind her.
She didn’t even seem to notice or hear us.
“Which book did they get?” I asked Darnell as Nineve made her choice and charged into the flowers.
“Prophecy,” he said, sighing as she screamed and fell to the ground immediately, writhing and convulsing while a flash of exploding mirror vines and a puff of powdery petals overtook her.
“Ah, shit,” I said, pointing up at the tall hedges surrounding us.
The mist had bypassed the magical barrier at the top of the wall and was creeping down the vines and leaves like drops of rain, ready to wrap Nineve in her final moments.
“What the fuck did she step on?” Jillian wondered, leafing through our book like an annoyed academic.
It didn’t escape my notice that the three of us were no better than a trio of sociopaths, calmly watching her die. But it wasn’t like we had a way to help her, or even a good reason to try.
She was a competitor, plain and simple, and she obviously didn’t have any personal meaning to Darnell or Jillian.
Her screams were already growing fainter, and the mist had soaked the field like a flood of smoky water, covering her completely and blotting out the bright flowers.
“Whatever it was, we aren’t going that way today,” I said, stepping carefully back from the field in case Jillian got the urge to shove me into it. “Even if that’s the way to the other parts of the labyrinth, we’re not ready.Shewasn’t ready,” I added.
In fact, she’d sort of looked like she was being chased by something, which made me glad that at least the dangers in our area weren’t mobile.
Unless she’d been running from Janus, which was a whole different kind of concern.
“If that is the joining of two sections, we’ll need to cross that field eventually,” Darnell mused, following me back the way we’d come.
“Which means we need to identify everything in it,” Jillian said.
“And have antidotes for anything deadly,” I added. “Which we aren’t likely to find all clumped up together right here. That would be way too easy.”
I wasn’t sure if that was the entirety of the challenge, but it was a start. It fit well enough with what I knew the mist would want from us. We had to work together as teams, without dying or killing each other. We had the books to help us identify the plants, animals, history, and mythology of Saori Sang and its enemies, so stealing the books would become top priority after mastering our own section.
