IT’S OPENING! yelled Brynne through the mind link.
Aru looked up just as the purple door swung open. Whatever lay on the other side was impossible to see. All she could make out was a dim purple glow against a star-flecked background. A thick beam of indigo light shot down from the portal and onto the stage. The moment it touched the crystal floor, billowing silver clouds gusted across the pavilion. It was as if an odd drowsiness had poured into the space. When Aru looked out into the crowd, she saw people dropping to the ground like they’d fallen asleep on the spot.
Fortunately, the clouds had no effect on the Potatoes.
“I’ll send you up one by one!” said Brynne. “Mini, come on!”
Mini sprinted toward the purplish blue light. When she reached Brynne, her feet lifted off the ground. Brynne whirled her wind mace and with one gust sent Mini straight through the opening.
For one terrifying moment, Aru wondered if something had happened to her, but then she heard Mini shout back through the mind link, I’m okay!
“Rudy, you’re next!” said Brynne.
Rudy took off at a run, jumping into the beam at the same moment Brynne sent a wind to push him through the door.
“Keep singing, Wifey!” shouted Brynne.
Aiden was edging closer and closer to the ray of light.
“Aru, c’mon!” said Brynne.
Aiden’s words had rooted her to the spot. He turned to face her and she realized he’d lifted his visor. Time froze for Aru. She knew that in a matter of minutes she would tell herself this had never happened, he hadn’t meant it, he hadn’t really been singing to her.
But in that one shining moment, she didn’t listen to that voice in her head. Instead, she listened to him.
“I’m sorry that I lied,
But I’ve got too much pride….”
“Aru, now!” shouted Brynne.
Aru shook herself. She banged the tambourine one last time, and then ran up the last few stairs to the stage and toward the midnight-blue light. The moment the beam hit her skin, she felt Brynne’s breeze gather around her ankles. The wind grew stronger, propelling her up and through the portal. Far below, she saw Aiden’s head still turned toward her. Their eyes met across the stage and the lights and the music, and she imagined his words were meant for her.
“Maybe, when we reach the end,
We can finally start again….”
“Sir, they’ve been spotted.”
Kara looked up. She blinked. Her limbs ached with exhaustion, and her eyelids felt leaden. “Who?” she asked weakly.
“Do not concern yourself with these matters,” said Suyodhana. “Take your rest, daughter. We are so close to the end.”
He smiled, then rose from her side and left to go speak with the tortoise-faced lieutenant. Kara propped herself up on one elbow. She’d been lying in the makeshift tent her father had constructed roughly a dozen feet from the crater holding the nectar of immortality.
This was Kara’s appointed rest time, and for the past hour her father had been reading the plays of Kalidasa to her. Kara had almost been soothed to sleep by the sound of his voice conjuring the tales to life. Sleep was hard to come by these days. Every time she closed her eyes, she was back at Aru’s birthday party and the world was splintering around her.
Now that she was fully awake, a familiar panic seized her. Kara had lost track of the number of days they had spent beneath the ground. She knew it had to be less than ten, because otherwise the labyrinth would have vanished around them, but it felt like years.
Through a flap in the shadow-tent, Kara could see the nectar of immortality in its great kalash. The pot holding the amrita was smaller than she’d imagined, roughly the size of a kitchen oven. Even from this distance, she could see the still, mirrorlike surface of the gold drink. And yet, for all its closeness, it was proving nearly impossible to access.
They had spent days winding their way through the dark, and the whole time Kara had felt her confidence flagging. Their provisions were shrinking faster than they’d imagined, and she could feel the eyes of the soldiers on her back, hear their whispers in the dark.
He said she would be the answer to our problems….
Nothing but a child with a weapon she cannot use!
Who’s to say she is capable of leading us?
The glares and grumbles had stopped—for a while, at least—when Kara’s seam of sunshine led them to the lip of a vast crater that glowed like a fallen star. The army had cheered, and Kara had basked in their smiles.
But the feeling of victory didn’t last.
A shimmering sphere protected the nectar of immortality. It was impenetrable to blades and acids, and Kara’s magical trident had only managed to make a teeny hole in it…and that was after an hour of concentrating all her strength. Even so, a hole was a hole, and it was a start to opening it completely.
For the past two days, Kara had done nothing but stand at the lip of the crater and focus all her energy into destroying that protective sphere. The whole time, her father had been warm and attentive. He made sure she had regular breaks for water and rest. He read stories to her before her naps.
Even so, Kara could detect his impatience. She could read worry in the tightness of his smile and the lines around his eyes. He wouldn’t say it, but he didn’t have to. The soldiers whispered, and even when they thought they were out of earshot, she heard them. We are running out of time.
News of the outside world came to them in bits and pieces. With Kara’s celestial weapon to guide them, a route to the labyrinth’s core had been established, allowing a select group of soldiers to start hacking out paths that would eventually let in their allies. Even deep underground, news and rumors reached them. Including, most recently…
Video footage.
Kara spied an enchanted bubble levitating just outside the tent’s entrance. Within the bubble, silent images flickered back and forth. Kara slipped out of her bed of cool shadows and crept toward the tent flap where her father conversed in urgent tones with his lieutenant.
“Where was this taken?” her father asked.
“A desolate field outside the Otherworld,” said the lieutenant, pausing to consult a sheaf of papers in his hands. “The Final Stage? Some sort of…apocalyptic entertainment. It’s actually rather enjoyable—”
Her father snarled faintly, and the lieutenant cleared his throat. “Their faces are obscured by helmets, as you can see, but the likeness—height, size, number—to the Pandavas is indisputable. The singing boy is rumored to be the son of the apsara Malini, and he is often in their company.”
“I remember him,” said Suyodhana grouchily. “He has a soft spot for her.”
Aiden, thought Kara. They were talking about Aiden. Her cheeks turned hot. On Aru’s birthday, she’d worked up the courage to tell him that she liked him. What a mistake. She wished she’d never done that. When she recalled the pity in his eyes, or the realization minutes later that it was Aru he’d liked the whole time, she felt worse than a fool.
She’d been hoodwinked by hope.
Hoodwinked, Kara had discovered during her reading breaks, was a word that originated from the practice of falconry. When people used to train falcons to hunt prey, they’d calm the bird by putting a hood on its head. These days the word no longer meant to blindfold.