And Hades has yet to admit I’m his daughter. That the mortal woman he impregnated was so unenthused about bearing his child that she dumped the baby in a garden.
The minotaur howls with frustration several rows away.
“We need to keep moving,” Haven says. “I came from the north. You came from the east, yeah?”
“I think so.”
“Then let’s go west.” He nods at the entrance just beyond the Medusa fountain. “We’ve made it halfway. We can make it the rest if we stick together.”
I look at him in the firelight trying to decipher what’s going through his head. One minute he seems to detest me and the next he seems willing to do anything to save me.
“Why are you helping me?” I ask. “You hate me.”
“You want to have this conversation now?”
The minotaur roars, but the sound is much farther away.
Haven sighs and looks to the west to the full moon hanging heavy in the sky. “I don’t hate you, Ana,” he says. “I hate what you are.”
I snort. “And what’s that? A girl? An orphan? A nobody?”
He shakes his head. “You’re free. Free to choose your own fate.”
“That’s ridiculous. I’m literally standing here right now because the Fates chose me.”
“And yet who governs the decisions you make? If you choose to strike, there is no one to tell you otherwise. If you choose to sacrifice yourself, there will be no one to get on your case for making that decision. You are your own person, your destiny is totally up to you.”
He takes a step toward me. The torch snaps as the wind shifts.
The dancing light finds his good eye and turns it golden.
“And beyond that,” he adds, “you are irreproachable.”
Faultless. Free from defect.
Never in my wild, wandering daydreams did I ever think Haven Knightfall would be standing here in a Minotaur Labyrinth telling me that he envies me.
I don’t think he’s admitting that I’m better in all ways, just this one. The one that matters. Because I’d rather be good than powerful.
And maybe that’s what he means.
He comes from darkness. He was raised on cruelty and ambition and war and death.
I come from the light, even if not by blood.
And he’s right—there’s no one to tell me what to do.
And there’s a glorious freedom in that.
It’s as if the chains snap then.
Chains I now realize I’d locked on myself.
I had thought I was stuck at Hestia’s house, an abandoned descendant with a mother and father that never wanted her. But instead they cleared the path for me and gave me a choice.
I could be whoever I wanted to be.
I could find my own place in the world. A place to belong.
And for some crazy, insane reason, the only place I want to be right now is by Haven’s side.
I want to fight through this maze with him and emerge on the other side victorious.
That won’t be the end of our story. Or the end of our rivalry. There’s still one more trial to get through. But for now I’ll take that, for however much longer I can have it.
Haven seems to think this the same time I do because he catches me in his grip and presses a kiss to my mouth. He tastes like the fountain water, like crisp, deep, dark earth.
“This is no time for kissing,” I say when I pull back. But I know there’s a blush on my face.
I want him to keep kissing me. I want to tear his clothes off and drink in the sight of him.
But I can’t have that until I finish this trial. Until we finish it.
“There’s always time for kissing,” he says at my mouth and then steals another from my lips.
“Go.” I shove him toward the west entrance.
He stumbles forward, smiling.
And that’s when we realize we aren’t alone in the maze center.
Two dark figures stand at the hedge wall with a pack of snarling dogs at their feet.
Chapter 33
The figures make no move to attack.
The dogs—six of them in all—are hunched, teeth bared at us.
At first I think they’re no different than the strays that wander in the city or the house pets that protect the farmers’ livestock. They’re the size and shape of regular dogs, but when I take a closer look, I realize they aren’t entirely solid.
There’s a mist that trails off of them like they’re made of smoke and when they shift, their bodies are a blur that takes another second to re-congeal.
But their fangs...those look very, very real.
“Divide,” Haven says to me.
“What?” I ask too late.
He’s already halfway across the maze center on the other side of the fountain.
Three of the dogs lock onto him and their eyes glow red.
The figure closest to Haven steps forward into the firelight.
And I realize it too has no shape.
It’s a ghost made of charred smoke with hollow holes where its eyes and mouth should be.
I don’t know what these creatures are, but something tells me if they attack, it’ll be a very, very bad thing.
I slowly skirt the fountain unsure of what Haven expects of me now that I’m following his battle plan. I get what he’s trying to do—divide and conquer—but I have no weapon and even if I did, I wouldn’t know how to use it.
Haven loosens his stride and keeps his knees bent, ready to lunge. I try to mimic him, but I’m no warrior. Not like he is. I wasn’t raised on a battleground.
The figure nearest me steps forward and the dogs follow its lead.
My heart beats in the back of my throat and my mouth is dry and my stomach is in knots, but I know what my objective is—get out of this maze alive—and I’m willing to try anything to make that happen.
Come on, magic powers. Don’t fail me now.
The problem is, I’ve never known how to call on it. I don’t know where the magic resides when it’s dormant. Do I mentally reach for it? Do I wiggle my fingers?
One of the dogs snaps at me.
The figure stalks forward and hands solidify at its sides, then a sword in its hand.
In a blink of an eye, the sword is gleaming in the light.
Real steel born of shadows.
Steel that could easily gut me from the looks of it.
Think, Ana.
You can do this.
I imagine my hands glowing, the power burning through my fingertips.
But nothing happens.
The figure stalks closer. The dogs spread out and form a half circle around me. Their shadow lips pull back revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the other shadowman take a swing at Haven and Haven ducks beneath the arch of its blade. Behind it now, Haven plants his boot on the shadow and gives it a shove. But instead of falling to its knees, the shadow dispels and Haven stumbles forward with the unspent momentum.
The shadowman reappears ten feet away.
That’s not good.
Distracted, I don’t notice my shadowman coming closer until it’s too late.
He wraps a hand around my throat and gives me a shake causing my teeth to clack together. I flail in his grip as my feet come off the ground. He pulls his arm back and then tosses me through the air.
I crash into a hedge row, branches scraping at my face, tugging at my hair.