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“Only one.”
Their gazes locked and held as an emotion that seemed too large to name flowed through the bond that connected them. Ryshi trembled, allowing the sense of destiny to wash through him. What was the point in fighting? Besides, he didn’twantto fight. From the moment he’d first seen Sofie there’d been a part of him that had known their futures were bound together.
Sofie, however, was obviously still struggling to deny the inevitable. Turning her head, she tilted her chin to a stubborn angle.
“You were searching for something in the vampires’ lairs. I just can’t tell what it was.”
Ryshi didn’t bother to argue. Instead, he studied the intersection, attempting to decide what direction to take. Not that it really mattered. He was wandering through the maze like a drunken troll. Left, right, left, right, and boom…whisked back to the beginning.
Rinse and repeat.
Thankfully his attention came in handy. They were stepping into the intersection when he noticed a black hole in the middle of the pathway.
“Careful,” he said, grabbing Sofie’s arm to bring her to a sharp halt.
Ryshi leaned forward, studying the opening in confusion. It wasn’t large. Perhaps three feet wide, but from his angle, Ryshi couldn’t see the bottom. Was it because there was no end to the darkness?
Sofie inched closer to him, as if instinctively sensing that something was wrong.
“I don’t suppose that’s the opening, is it?”
“No.” Ryshi shook his head. “It wasn’t here before.”
Sofie wrinkled her nose, leaning forward. “Maybe it’s a shortcut.”
A sharp shiver raced through Ryshi as he took a step backward. He wasn’t sure why he was afraid of the hole, but there was no denying the urgent need to be far away from it.
“This isn’t a gateway,” he said, taking another step back. “Or a portal. It’s empty.”
“That might be a good thing,” she suggested. “I don’t want anything crawling out of it.”
“Not empty of creatures, although it is,” he corrected. “It’s empty as if it’s a void.”
Sofie tilted back her head, obviously using her powers to search for an answer to the strange opening. At last she made a sound of frustration, shaking her head in defeat.
“I can’t smell anything. Could it be a trap?”
“Possibly.” Ryshi shrugged. From what little he’d seen of the minotaurs, they didn’t seem capable of this sort of magic, but he’d be a fool to underestimate what might be lurking in this god-awful place. “I’m not eager to find out. Are you?”
“No. But we might not have a choice.”
Ryshi sent her a startled glance. “Why do you say that?”
“It’s growing.”
Growing? Ryshi muttered a sudden curse. He’d been so intent on discovering what was inside the hole that he hadn’t paid attention to the fact that it was spreading wider and wider. As if it sensed they were nearby and was attempting to suck them into the darkness.
“You’re right,” he rasped. “It feels hungry.”
She visibly shuddered. “Hungry?”
Ryshi struggled to find the words that would capture the low pulse that seemed to reach out toward them. It was like the maw of a gigantic beast that had been awakened after a millennium of slumber and was in dire need of sustenance. Or a black hole that threatened to consume the entire maze.
The only thing he knew for certain was that it had to be some sort of magic or Sofie would be able to detect the weird sensation.
“I don’t know how else to explain it,” he muttered. “But we need to get out of here.”
“I agree.” She sent him an expectant glance. “You have to find the entrance and you need to do it quickly.”
