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Darnell sidled past me. “You shouldn’t goad her so much. She just eats it up. And Jantzen was much worse than she’ll ever know.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, wondering if that was supposed to be his version of sympathy. “You know of him?”
He shrugged. “Met him once or twice when I was at the Council on Earth. I trained there for a while when the Path was locked shut.”
“You were trapped on Earth too?” I clarified, not quite believing his story. And trusting him even less - the Council had nearly ended my brother Jai and his team, as soon as they’d completed the difficult assignment of finding the last Qilin. And they’d never once come after Jantzen to stop the atrocities he’d heaped on me and hundreds of other young Haretians.
He’d made a passion career out of kidnapping and torturing teenagers, and they’d simply stood by.
Call it a gut feeling, but Darnell was doubly on my radar now, just a few priorities lower than Jillian and Janus.
Jillian settled down as the sun rose, and by mid-afternoon, we’d mapped out a whole new area and found two useful antidotes - one paste made from sap to stop free-bleeding and another made from dried petals that supposedly cured several poisons when made into a strong tea.
“Not that I’m displeased, but this feels like it’s taking a very long time. In other words, I’m bored,” Jillian snapped, peering up at the bright sky for more harpies carrying nobles. She still hadn’t given up yelling requests at them, but so far, none had dropped anything for us.
“Clearly not a scholar,” Darnell snarked.
“What I’m trying to work out,” I said, ignoring Jillian entirely, “is whether the labyrinth is a square or circle cut into four sections that meet close to a center, or four sections strung together like rooms. Can we get to one of the other sections by a path we haven’t discovered, or do we have to cross that meadow?”
“Scared, aren’t you?” Jillian taunted, but I just looked pointedly at her hand that was still healing from a single mirror vine.
None of us could survive a field of them, even with my makeshift leg greaves. Darnell pursed his lips, staring at the map. Our area had begun to take on a roughly square shape, which probably ruled out my circle idea.
“Well, speculation is fine, but in the end, knowing the layout of the labyrinth will only ever be accomplished by continuing to map it,” Darnell finally said, leveling his gaze at me.
I glared, knowing he was probably right. I wished we could have a bird’s eye view like the harpies, even if it was only for a moment, but the mirror vines made the walls impossible to climb.
We trudged on, adding to our log of plants and our map, not to mention my irritation with the whole thing.
If only I had a way to contact Kas, but the man truly sucked at mindspeak, and Blaise and I hadn’t shared blood. And of course, Luca didn’t have enough ice magic to be any better at it.
My brothers and I had been able to exchange information and images from anywhere on the palace grounds, once, and with the kind of blood sharing Jai did with his Qilin mate, she’d even once found him from another realm of Haret.
But everything felt dampened here - my vampire speed was useless with this many dangers, scent and hearing worth little more, and even ice magic wasn’t much help against plants. It was as though our natural vampire abilities were hindered in the labyrinth, and as a Trial, that didn’t make sense.
A Queen of Saori Sang would rarely find herself without her magic or natural vampire abilities, right? Then again, I’d spent years in Jantzen’s cages without much magic at all, so maybe this was just more of Merden’s mind games. And other than the obvious construction and security of such a huge labyrinth, I hadn’t figured out what Merden’s mage and fae friends had contributed.
Jillian broke into my thoughts with a lusty little moan, and I turned the corner after her, finding her gazing at a sparkling pool of clear, deep water that we’d just come across.
“I want a bath,” she breathed, peering down into the pond. There were definitely plants in there, but it wasn’t overgrown.
“They seem to be harmless weeds,” Darnell said, examining the reedy plants.
“You go first,” I said, gesturing to Jillian to jump right in.
I was lusting after that water too, but I was in no mood to be the canary in the coal mine. But ten minutes later, both of my teammates were happily stripped down to underclothes and swimming. Still, I hesitated. Something wasn’t right here, and I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“You’re just as boring as this Trial,” Jillian called from the water, splashing onto her back.
I sighed, watching them for a few more minutes. They were fine. It would be okay to go in the water and have a bath. I carefully rolled my leathers and shoved them down into my boots, tiptoeing around the various plants to reach the water’s edge. I still had on my tunic, and I’d refastened all my knife sheaths onto my bare skin like a nutjob, but hey.
Even with magic at my disposal, I never went anywhere without my knives. They were practically a security blanket at this point.
Still, sliding into the water was an icy slice of heaven.
I dove deep, and the water was fresh and clean, letting me see the bottom even a dozen feet down. It was cold, but not too much for a vampire, and nothing like the frozen clover-shaped lake I’d been trapped in during the first Trial.
Even so, my mind kept pulling up the memories of that day, speaking with Gola underwater and learning about a rising darkness.
