Exquisite Ruin (The Labyrinth #1)

Chapter 7

THE DAEMON subdues me easily, I’m ashamed to admit. I’m taken by surprise, in my own defense, already lifted off my feet and still recovering from the last struggle. But also weak . Daesra practically slaps away what pitiful counterattack with either pain or fists I can muster and holds me still with claustrophobic force—much like he must have felt while surrounded by roots.

While I’m frozen, he quickly heals any bruises and scrapes I have remaining. He unties the binding on my calf as well as my chest harness, coiling all three of my gold-threaded lengths at his belt—too twisted up with my own intention for what he has planned. He uses his red rope instead, unraveling his own cuffs to expertly bind my hands together, threading it between and around my fingers to keep me from using them, and my legs from my ankles up to my calves. He’s gentle around my freshly healed break, though the coils are just as tight.

He even teases out the rest of my half-severed braid with clever fingers, his nails dragging over my scalp in a way that feels a little too good for my current mood. My reddish hair falls just above my breasts now, the edges sharp and uneven, when it was nearly to my waist before. He tousles it playfully as he releases me from the invisible force holding me.

I want to bite him, but I settle for seething at him from Deos’s arms. The daemon has rendered me painlessly immobile with his own bindings, unable to offer up any sacrifice of my own while I’m being carried around by the statue that he helped shape. There’s no way for me to convincingly surrender. Absolutely nothing for me to trade for power. No sacrifice or pain for me to hurl at him. Everything is his. He’s taken complete control, and all I can do is sit back in relative comfort while he gets away with it. Unless I bite my tongue, perhaps.

But the bastard anticipates even that.

“If she tries to bite herself, stop her,” he says to the statue, and then turns to me. “And if you try to secretly bite your tongue or cheek, I’ll gag you such that you’re choking. I’d rather be entertained by our conversation, though, wouldn’t you?”

I nod shortly. I don’t want to add drooling to the list of my current humiliations.

“Answer me so I know you haven’t disobeyed.”

“I would rather not be gagged,” I enunciate furiously.

“Good. Keep answering me when I speak to you. Now, let’s go.”

Pogli whines at me worriedly, running a circle around the statue’s legs, but his attention returns to growling and occasionally barking at the roots of the ceiling as our little party continues on, with Daesra starting forward and motioning for Deos to do the same. Perhaps the roots are the greatest danger right now. Even Deos must concur, since he seems to be ignoring the fact that I’m trussed up and ostensibly under threat from the daemon, all healing aside.

“It occurred to me that if I just haul you to the center of the maze and feed you to the monster,” Daesra says conversationally, making a flourishing gesture as he walks, “then I win. No more competition.”

“I thought you liked competition,” I spit, trying to shift in my bindings. Somehow, they’re not the slightest bit uncomfortable while being immovable. Like a very firm embrace.

“It’s getting tiresome. I’m a daemon, after all, and you’re a mere mortal. I bore easily.”

“Of course I’m not entertaining enough like this.” I laugh in derision, trying and failing to hide my fear. “There’s not enough spice in the world for you. You must need to rip me apart piece by piece. Grind me down to my very bones.”

Such talk must be enough for him to recognize what I’m referencing. He glances back at me. “You did call me lord and master of such things, so you should already know I have a high tolerance for spice and… grinding .” He grins suggestively and bares his teeth.

We’re finally going to do this. Talk about the memory. I wasn’t sure either of us would wish to, but of course the daemon can’t help himself. He’ll want to needle me as much as possible.

I sneer back at him. “And as you should have suspected then, had your pride not swelled to such size—”

“I’ll refrain from making a jest about what swelled to such size.”

“—then you would have known I was lying ,” I power on in a rush, willing my cheeks not to flush. “Why did you ever trust me to get that close?”

Daesra tosses me a shoulder. “Maybe I can’t resist a pretty face.”

I snort explosively. As a daemon with a pretty face, he’s no doubt seen and caressed plenty of others without allowing anyone near enough to bind him. He dropped his guard, for me.

Perhaps I groveled better than the rest of them. I can’t help but notice my hands are now tied in a mimicry of supplication.

“Are you sure this snorting little pig isn’t actually your child?” Daesra asks, pointing at Pogli.

I ignore him. “You got what you deserved, then, after making someone run and scream and beg and crawl for you.”

The daemon stops for a moment, turning to eye me seriously. “Those things you did, I didn’t demand them. They were gifts you gave me. Gifts you rather enjoyed giving me, if you recall.” His usual smirk returns as he continues walking, but slower so he’s alongside me and Deos. “Perhaps you can now, a little.”

I don’t want to talk about whether I enjoyed it or not. “Gifts? You mean sacrificing my dignity on the altar of your despoiled godhood?”

“I appreciate the irreverent picture you paint. We actually enacted a scene like that, in the past.” He continues before I can deny it—not that I can. “Anyway, you don’t truly believe yourself lesser for it, do you? I thought your offerings were testament to the fact that I was worthy of such gifts. You gave in trust , not fear or derogation—and at least I was trustworthy.” He rolls his eyes. “You are the most prideful, least shrinking creature I have ever met, in case you were wondering. And I’ve met gods . One might mistake you for possessing ten times the ability you do. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you could make yourself smaller in my presence. Cringe a bit more.”

His tone is derisive, but paired with the rest of what he said—which sounded oddly sincere and, if I didn’t know any better, complimentary—it seems more like a mask.

I’m flustered enough that for a moment I can’t remember my argument.

His words grow sharper—the honed edge of a practiced swing. “And if we’re trying to make the other feel guilty, can we return to the fact that you slit your own throat while riding me—rather jarring, even for a daemon—and then bound me while I was quite naturally taken off guard? If we were in a competition for who is most despicable, you would have already won. As it is, we’re trying to outmatch one another in this torturous trial—one of your devising, no less—and you’ve as good as lost.” His smile bares sharp teeth once more.

But they don’t scare me enough this time. They’re too close to a different memory. I can still feel those points on my neck, my breasts. Heat doesn’t rise only in my cheeks.

“You can’t truly intend to hold me captive for the foreseeable future,” I blurt for something to say. It is the more pressing issue, even while I pinch my legs tighter together to smother the fire there.

“I do. Until this is over.”

“But that’s not fair! We’re fighting our way through a maze!”

“Which makes you one less creature I need to fight, witch . Arguably nearly the worst, next to the monster at the end. And if I offer you to it, I might not have to challenge it at all.”

My breath catches. “Would you really do that to me?”

“In a heartbeat.” He doesn’t meet my eyes as he says it, but when he does a moment later, I wish he hadn’t. His stare burns— not in a pleasant way, but with undiluted hatred. “You betrayed me. And for that, I would feed you to the jaws of hell itself.”

My mouth goes dry. There’s no gentleness in him now. He only comforted me through my pain so I could make myself whole for him. After all, there’s no fun in destroying what’s already broken. He was even toying with me in healing my finger, making me think he cared all the more. He snapped my finger before that, when he could have simply healed my leg instead. I’m just his plaything, to mend or break.

Or maybe he couldn’t heal me then because he truly wanted to help me, but these murky rules of the competition wouldn’t allow it. And indeed, it only occurred to him now to take me captive, and so his ability to heal me for his own purposes isn’t a good sign. What shifted in him once again, to want to choose this path? I’ve gone from ally to rival to captive in short order.

I suppose he is just a daemon, as he himself admitted. Changeable. Fickle.

Or he remembered too clearly what I did to him, and he’d only forgotten in the chaos and rush of the moment, when I seemed so helpless. He likes me helpless. I picture his face when he looked down at me, writhing on the ground with my broken leg, his expression deadly still. Like a predator about to kill its prey… or ready to kill for me.

But then he remembered what I’m capable of. That I’m not, in fact, helpless or in need of defense. That I might be a bit of a monster myself.

My stomach plummets a little at the thought, never mind that I need to wrestle with the idea so I can wrestle him with all my strength and any advantage I can gain, monstrous or no.

I need to win. That’s why I’m here, after all.

“You haven’t chewed through your tongue, have you?” the daemon asks.

“No,” I snap, and show him the whole thing for good measure.

He smirks, but his red gaze still burns.

We all walk in silence after that. Well, I’m being carried, and Pogli isn’t entirely silent, with his growling and occasional fits of barking at the web of roots overhead, but the mood between Daesra and me is otherwise tense and sharp. Somewhat like a standoff, if we were on remotely even footing. As it is, my feet are bound.

The way remains straight and narrow, despite the occasional crossroads that we don’t take. I almost wish there was more variation to distract the daemon.

I struggle to think of anything I can use against him. Even if I managed to hurt myself discreetly and free myself, what then? Daesra could splatter me against the wall in a duel. If I face him directly, I’ll lose, and he’ll scrape up what’s left of me, heal me, and put me right back where I am now. That must be why there’s the puzzle of the maze, a strictly controlled trial, whatever its rules, to reach a different opponent as a means for me to challenge the daemon, since fighting him is impossible. He’s cheating , if there’s such a thing in this place.

Now that I know we’re truly competing and he has no kindness left for me, I need to focus on defeating him in a way I can conceivably manage. It doesn’t matter that I’m currently headed in the right direction. I need to escape him.

In the meantime, I can perhaps try to distract him and even learn more about us both while I’m at it. Discover some hidden knowledge I can use against him.

I clear my throat in the uneasy semi-silence. “If you bore so easily, then you must be comatose, because even I’m falling asleep. You say you’ve met gods?”

His answer is slow, but it comes. “Regrettably, yes.”

“You could tell me a story while we walk. The one you refused to earlier, about the gods and how we have aether like they do. I don’t know any stories, after all, and I was left curious. You covered mortal offerings and horrifically bound souls”—he shoots me a warning glance—“but these mysterious gods are behind it all. How?”

“I told you,” he says with deliberate measure. “I hate talking about them.”

Probably for an interesting reason , I don’t say. “Please?” I pronounce it with obvious emphasis. “If you’re carrying me to my likely death, what does it matter? You have me at such a disadvantage now, you should give me something in return, even your hatred.”

“Oh, you have that,” he mutters, and then sighs. “Fine. Your company is indeed so tedious that this story might be less so, in comparison. You want to know how we can do what we do?” He lifts his arms as if in praise. “It’s all thanks to the god of aether!”

“There’s a god of aether?” I thought individual gods would have more breadth than that, seeing as they’re, well, gods. But Daesra did say they were limited by particular boundaries.

“The gods are only identified by what they are the god of , so this one is known as Breath—that substance from which other gods are made, hidden from mortal sight. Other gods came into being at the same time as them—keep in mind gods don’t have a human sex as we understand it. Some gods chose to identify with one over time, but some never did, and even those that have are happy to switch if it strikes their fancy.”

That intrigues me, but I don’t want to stop his story to ask about it. He actually might be imparting useful information for once.

“These most powerful gods simply coalesced from aether”—he waves his hand about, as if to conjure shapes in the air—“like wine fermenting from must. After watching their siblings float around in their celestial kingdom for eons, Breath must have grown bored—I don’t blame them—and so they formed mortals from clay. Or from physical matter of some sort, but clay just sounds more poetic. It was in their nature to create even if they weren’t exactly the creator of the gods, and they breathed life into this clay with—you guessed it—aether!”

I clench my jaw, resisting an impatient comment.

Daesra doesn’t pay me any attention. “Sky—the god of the sky, if you can’t keep up—wasn’t pleased. His partner, Sea, didn’t mind, but Sky had the ultimate say because he determined he was the highest of the gods, probably because of his name, and the other gods agreed because they’re utter fools.” I can only blink at his blasphemy before he continues. “Sky despised these clay forms, which seemed to debase the tiny fleck of the divine within them. He wanted to destroy them.” Daesra turns to eye me. “At times, I don’t blame him , either. Still with me? Or at least your tongue?”

I begin to nod, and then hiss, “ Yes .”

“Excellent.” Daesra carries on, both down the tunnel and with his story. “Breath convinced Sky that the worship of the gods was a way for mortals to elevate themselves. Sky, Breath argued, should want to encourage mortals in this task since that would be in keeping with his nature as the most high. And if he went against his nature, he would be lowering himself. Crafty one, this Breath was.”

My lips twitch.

“Respond,” the daemon commands.

“I agree that Breath was clever,” I say with laborious slowness.

“Lovely. Now, Sky didn’t actually mind the thought of being worshiped. He would say it was because lifting up humankind was his duty, but I think it was just vanity. Still, because he’s a stubborn bastard, he protested, ‘Any mortal proximity to the divine risks debasing us more than it might upraise them.’

“?‘Let them make sacrifices to prove they are worthy,’ Breath suggested. ‘See, look what they are doing.’?” The daemon gestures down at the empty smoothness of the stone floor as if from on high.

I can’t help but be impressed at how well he’s relating the tale, changing his expressions and even his voice for the different gods. I wonder who might have told him this very story. A parent? Mortal or god?

Daesra doesn’t seem to notice my regard, glaring at that invisible spot on the ground as I imagine a disapproving god would. “Sky looked down his nose at the mortals and said, ‘But we need nothing they can give. Offerings of wine and flesh on bloody altars are pitiful next to our nectar and ambrosia.’ What are you thinking?”

His sudden question, directed at me, startles me into admitting the bald truth. “That Sky is a bastard and that you tell stories well.”

It actually draws a smile from the daemon as he continues. “Meanwhile, Breath argued against Sky, ‘Their will to surrender the physical things they need is the most they can do within their limited power to prove themselves. While we need nothing, mortals require assistance in their quest for elevation that only we can give. They should receive something from us in return for their piety. For a powerful offering made, they should have a desperate desire fulfilled. Their breath for ours.’?”

Before the daemon can ask my thoughts, I say, “Breath was still being clever.”

Daesra gives me a wink and folds his arms behind his back, completing the picture of a casual stroll—despite where we all are and the fact that he’s a daemon and I’m tied up and being carried by a statue with a ridiculous chimera following me. “Sky finally relented, with certain caveats. So it came to be that through making sacrifices, mortals could receive the gods’ help. They couldn’t use aether themselves unless they were demigods, who soon came about thanks to the gods’ inevitable mingling with humanity. And yet mortals still used the gods’ power by proxy to shape kingdoms and destinies.”

I can’t help but shiver in Deos’s arms.

Daesra glances back at me, but only says, “Breath didn’t care about Sky’s worship, only wanting to help their mud-children because that was in their nature. To keep them breathing, I suppose. They’d already shared themself in creating them. Why not more, to strengthen them?”

He sounds appreciative despite his own tendency to disparage the gods. Maybe he admires how Breath subverted the gods’ will, which I suspect is very much in the daemon’s nature.

Or perhaps he’s somehow related to Breath? There’s no way for me to tell, not with the effective disguise provided by his daemonic attributes.

“Indeed,” I say in agreement.

Daesra shrugs. “Alas, Sky grew to regret allowing this when he saw how the other gods’ gifts became tools for vengeance and greed and lust, and that the gods themselves were growing debased by taking human or animal form to better grant their favors. Sometimes very intimate favors. What do you think of that?”

My words come more hesitantly this time. “That there was more possibility for… mingling… between gods and humans than I’d imagined.”

The daemon raises his dark brow suggestively. “Some say even Sky himself partook of such mortal delights once or twice, assuming a physical body and doing naughty things against his nature. I’m sure he would claim he’d had no control with such corporality polluting his purity. Either way, perhaps after he’d gotten his fill, Sky decided it was too much. With his discouragement, the gods required ever more sacrifice for their assistance, and only granted their gifts to their most favored mortals, ignoring all the rest in their increasing desperation and otherwise withdrawing to their lofty realm.” He waves at the root-woven ceiling as if sweeping away the gods’ help.

“Bastard,” I confirm without prompting.

Daesra nods. “Breath, finding this unfair, went against the gods and gave mortals who were willing to pay the price an open doorway to aether. But this required more than a mere offering in a god’s temple. More than slitting a bull’s throat or pouring out your best vintage on the altar. This sort of raw power required sacrifice from the mortal’s own body. Gifts of flesh and blood. Pain in exchange for aether. While not everyone accepted this deal, some few did.”

“I wonder who they could be,” I say with breezy sarcasm.

The daemon’s hand slashes down, making me start in my bindings. “In punishment for circumventing him, Sky threw Breath back into the primordial soup from whence they’d all sprung, forcing the god to become one with the wellspring itself. Somewhat like dying, insofar as a god can die. In a sense, Sky condemned Breath to torture for all eternity—to be forever consumed as aether by gods and mortals alike, making immortality into a curse.” Daesra leans closer to me, waggling his long-nailed fingers in my face, less like a daemon and more like someone telling a scary story to a child.

I’d be more amused if I weren’t bound fingers to ankles. I rudely show him my tongue again before he can ask me to. Poking two eyes with one stick , I think, wishing I could poke his.

He smirks and continues, “Sky tried to forbid mortals from accessing aether directly, of course, but there were those who ignored him and continued teaching other little mortals in secret. They became despised, considered unnatural by humans and gods alike, but also feared. Sky couldn’t control the aether to halt the flow—it seems to have a mind of its own, continuing to accept self-sacrifice from those who know how to offer it in exchange for its potential. Maybe it’s Breath lurking within it, still acting according to their nature.”

Daesra sweeps out an encompassing arm and pivots to face me, forcing Deos to halt. “Which is how , with such offerings and rewards thus divorced from the gods, there came to be corrupted mortals who use aether for their own gain. Witches, like you.”

“And that’s also how you came about,” I say. “Through mingling . And then your own soul-binding to become a daemon.” I pause, already knowing what his answer will be, but I can’t help asking anyway, “Which god was it?”

He sighs. “I told you, I’ve already shared such details with you and I don’t care to again.”

At least the daemon’s eyes are less filled with hatred than the last time he turned them fully upon me. The story has calmed him, hopefully distracted him somewhat, though I’m not sure what else it gave me. Perhaps fragments to piece together to eventually build some sort of defense or weapon against him, even if I don’t yet know which god his divine parent is. I hope knowing more about the gods will tell me more about this place and perhaps my task, not only him.

Pogli hasn’t ceased his occasional fits of barking, and his vigilance is rewarded when we finally reach an end to the roots overhead at the next intersection. Unfortunately, the way forward this time is a true tunnel, a round opening not much taller than the tips of the daemon’s horns, yawning within the stone wall. Inside, it’s pitch black.

“And the deeper we go.” Daesra purses his lips. “I imagine there’s absolutely nothing unpleasant in there, lurking in the dark.”

I shift nervously in Deos’s arms. “I don’t suppose you want to untie me so I’ll be able to defend myself from the things that absolutely won’t be in there?”

“I don’t suppose I do, no.”

“Pity.” My glib tone doesn’t entirely disguise my unease.

He shrugs. “You can always gnaw on your tongue in an emergency. I didn’t leave you that freedom solely for your sparkling conversation. You have a way out if necessary.” He glances back at me, eyes narrowed. “Being afraid of the dark doesn’t qualify.”

Afraid of the—? I don’t wish to humor him with my indignation, so I smile sweetly instead. “What about stabbing you in the back?”

“You’ve already done that, I’m afraid.”

“I’m fairly certain I stabbed you in the chest.”

He raises a brow. “Is this your way of asking to be gagged? You need only speak the word, Sadaré.”

My smile turns sour.

“I thought not,” he says, and then studies me for a moment. “You have asked me, you know. To gag you. You enjoyed it.”

I can only stare, speechless. When would I have…?

A flash of remembered sensation comes as if in answer to my silent question. I can suddenly feel silk cloth pressing down on my tongue, biting into my cheeks, stifling my moans even as the bound strip of fabric keeps my mouth prized open. Spittle soaks my chin, and sharp nails trace through it, forcing my head up to meet red eyes …

No. I shake off the phantom impressions. Even if such a thing did happen between us, I won’t pursue it further, either in thought or with him. He’s already scored far too many hits against me; I won’t open myself up to more.

“Don’t you think you already have me at enough of a disadvantage?” I ask hoarsely.

“Never. But I’ll grant you a brief reprieve from harsh truths.” He ducks his head to enter the tunnel, first summoning fire into his hand as a light. I catch his self-satisfied smirk before he turns. “Shall we?”

I glare at his back as Deos follows him. Pogli trots between us.

The tunnel is as dark and hole-like as it appeared at the entrance. At least it’s blessedly free of roots. But I’d almost prefer those to something like spiderwebs, which I won’t be able to frantically claw off myself with my hands bound.

“Why are you breathing faster?” Daesra asks. “Are you truly afraid of the dark?”

Curse his hearing. “Spiders,” I say shortly.

He gives me an incredulous look. “I didn’t know you feared spiders.”

“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

He makes a noncommittal sound, and then chuckles. “Never fear, my venomous little witch, I’ll protect you from the spiders.”

I try to breathe more quietly after that, and not only so he doesn’t know I’m afraid. I keep imagining I hear something in the darkness, but it’s only the echo of our group’s movements. Daesra is as silent as his flame, his hoofbeats obviously muffled, but Deos’s marble feet thunk against the stone ground, and Pogli’s breathing is the loudest of all. One would think a giant beast was panting around the corner, for how his rasping rebounds.

There are bends and forks within the system of tunnels, though nothing nearly so regular as the passageway we just left. Daesra adheres to his usual rule for choosing a path, and when the choice is more challenging, he simply guesses, the outline of his horns twisting this way and that. I try not to agonize over it, since I’m not in a position to choose, but I find myself trying to trace the way we’ve come and I lose the thread. One could get lost in here easier than ever, with little variation in the tunnel surface or any other means to orient oneself. At least the maze seems satisfied with the daemon’s choices. So far.

I especially try not to think about the tunnel collapsing. The last passageway didn’t, after all, but maybe that was because we never took a wrong turn or strayed too far from each other after the roots attacked. At least I can’t spot any cracks or rubble within these walls.

And then I begin to hear a faint noise that makes me understand why the tunnel is so smooth and clean. At first, it’s only a whisper, but it starts to swell until it’s a rushing roar—still distant, and yet I would know the sound anywhere.

Running water. Lots of it. I hope we’re only getting closer to it and it’s not somehow approaching us. Fast approaching.

Maybe I should have wished for spiders.

Finally, I can’t help but ask, “Do you hear that?” My voice is now strikingly quiet in the dark, dwarfed by this other noise.

“Yes,” Daesra says tersely. His tail flicks.

“Do you think—?”

“Yes,” he says. He’s walking more quickly, I realize.

Now I’m afraid. “Did you take a wrong turn?”

“I suppose we’ll find out.”

The volume of the roar increases, rising all around us, filling the tunnel as if the danger is already upon us—water, moving with the strength of a river.

“Maybe the maze doesn’t like that you took me captive,” I suggest with no little desperation, hoping he’ll get the hint.

He doesn’t respond.

“Is there somewhere we can shelter, if it’s coming for us?” I ask as he moves ever faster, his long strides just shy of breaking into a run. Deos hurries to keep up.

The daemon ignores me. I wonder if he’ll leave me behind once again, if it comes down to it.

“I’ll drown if you don’t untie me.”

He still doesn’t respond. I begin to feel a cool breeze wafting down the tunnel behind us. Mist. Air , forced ahead of the torrent.

“Daesra!” I cry.

And then we round a corner, and I find what I’ve been fearing most: a dead end. Worse, the tunnel is walled off by a mesh of marble bodies, as if the water had caught them and smashed them against a grate. The entwined statues are a twisted agony of frozen limbs and frightened faces, united in their failure to escape, with gaps only big enough for water to flow between them. I certainly don’t wish to join them. Stone fingers seem to reach for us, begging for help, when really they’re waiting to impale us.

Water begins to wash around Deos’s ankles, Pogli’s paws, and the daemon’s hooves. It rushes on to slosh against the blockage of statues, swirling and building around their tangled legs and making the fear in their inanimate expressions appear all too fresh and alive. My own terror rises with the flood.

Daesra bites out a curse. It’s convincingly distressed, but I half wonder if he led us astray simply as an excuse to leave me to die. But he doesn’t leave me, even if he still won’t untie me. He wades through the dark flow of water braiding around his calves, back the way we came, signaling for Deos to follow.

But the flood has nearly swept Pogli off his paws. The little chimera claws frantically at the water, flapping his useless wings in a panic, but he’s losing ground, buffeted and shoved toward the terrible marble’s grasp, where he’ll be pinned. The sight of him struggling is enough to make me want to throw myself after him, tied up or no.

“Pogli!” I shriek, thrashing in the statue’s arms. If Deos drops me like this, I’ll drown, but at least it gets the daemon’s attention. He must want me alive enough to feed me to the monster at least, because he pauses. “We’re not leaving him!”

Cursing once more, Daesra pivots and dives for the chimera, seizing him by the scruff of the neck in one hand, wielding his blue flame in the other. Just then, dark waves of water come bursting and thrashing into the tunnel behind him, riding up the curve of the walls with their speed, white froth on the tips as if they were toothy jaws ready to devour. A force to crush us all—even Deos. Especially me.

Daesra raises his glowing hand with a growl. Daemon though he is—as strong and absurdly stubborn as he is—the sight of him standing tall before such an oncoming torrent with only a small flame for light and a wriggling, soaked chimera under his arm might have made me laugh, at another time. Or stare in sheer admiration. Except now I close my eyes and cringe into Deos’s marble shoulder, waiting for the flood to close over me.

My eyes fly open when it doesn’t—to the roar on all sides, to Daesra’s still-raised hand, and to the water parting around the rest of us. Parting for him. The rounded stone walls have turned into a tunnel of raging water that rushes by—open for us.

At least for now. It closes right beyond Deos’s shoulder in a crashing churn like two tidal waves colliding. I can no longer see the statues behind us. Perhaps they were obliterated.

“Come on,” Daesra says, and steps forward, one hoof after another, arm uplifted, blue flame flickering at his glowing fingertips in the gusting mist, heading back to the turn he chose wrong.

My mouth hangs open as Deos starts after him, but I don’t care. I gape at the daemon’s back more than at the angry, suffocating walls of water. “Are you the son of a river god, or of a lake—?”

“We’re definitely not having this conversation right now,” Daesra interrupts. He lets Pogli slide to the ground, since the water flows in only a thin sheet there. The chimera shies away from the walls, nearly getting under the daemon’s hooves. “If that little abomination trips me, I’ll let him die this time.”

I can still barely believe he saved him in the first place, but there are other things I’m having a harder time believing, such as what I’m seeing. I knew Daesra was powerful—a daemon, yes, but he’s also the son of a god. I’ve never seen him use his strength like this. He’s parting a colossal amount of water as easily as a silk curtain. “You can’t be—?”

“You can die!” Daesra snarls over his shoulder, red eyes flashing. “Is that what you want? If not, then shut up and let me concentrate.” He pushes into his legs now, hooves splashing as they stomp down, his broad shoulders braced into a lean. I realize his hand is shuddering, the blue flame beginning to gutter. “ I might make this look easy, but trust me, it’s not. I’ve suppressed my divine nature.”

At this moment, I do trust him. “Go, go!” I shout, nodding ur gently in my bonds from Deos’s arms and waving my tied hands, as if that will help move us forward.

We reach the turnoff, and the tunnel of water bends with us as we choose the other path. Daesra’s steps falter now, and his flame flickers out completely for a blink before flaring back to weak life. Pogli whines nervously up at him, his bug eyes wide, his wings spread as if ready to lend his aid.

The watery walls begin to narrow around us. Water splashes free against my feet, then my shoulder, as if coming loose. More gathers on the ground, swirling over the daemon’s hooves.

“Almost… there…” Daesra breathes heavily.

“ Where ?” I cry, feeling like I’m already drowning in my panic.

And then the blue light dies. I can barely hear my own rasping breaths in the pitch black over the roar of the surrounding water. Closing in on us. Pogli shrieks.

And then blinding silver light surfaces in the dark as if at Daesra’s beckoning hand—though really he’s only moved us forward enough to part the water around it, uncovering it in the tunnel before us. A mirror.

This must have been what he was hoping to find. Surprisingly, Daesra doesn’t dive for the mirror first, but kicks Pogli in and hauls the statue forward, shoving us both through the shimmering curtain as his barrier collapses around us and walls of water come crashing down with crushing, scouring force.

But the strange surface closes over my body first, and everything is washed in silver.