Exquisite Ruin (The Labyrinth #1)

Chapter 13

AS SOON as Daesra brings me within the smaller cave-within-a-cave, a shimmering curtain of shadow, almost like a mirror’s opposite, drops over the entrance, blocking it— and Pogli. I can see the vague shape of the little chimera, pacing and worrying in the tunnel outside.

“Pogli—!” I start.

“He’ll be fine.” The daemon’s tone has a dangerous finality to it.

I shiver. He told me not to speak. I’m not sure how much I can get away with, now that we’re inside and I promised to obey him. My stomach is a riot of dancing warmth, flickering through me like a sparking fire, making my face and hands tingle, leaving me lightheaded. I should be afraid of what might happen next, but I’m not breathless from fear.

He carries me across the space to set me atop a natural stone bench, like a day bed flowing out from a nook in one curving wall. I expect to feel cold, unyielding stone underneath me, but instead I sink into plush softness. When he withdraws, I look around in wonder.

I’m sitting on a bed of red cushions. There’s a red-and-black rug beneath Daesra, red drapes hanging between low-burning torches on the walls. My eyes trip over another dark splash—a trail of inky blood stretching behind the daemon. A lot of his blood. To make something new entirely from something else… the power is beyond me, and it took much from him. And all of this, just to make me comfortable.

Though I doubt he intends for me to be comfortable for long. At least I hope.

Whatever he’s about to do to me, he’s surrounded me with soft luxury. It’s such a warm light in the cold darkness, a tender kiss in a place of teeth, that I have to blink away tears.

Kindnesses can hurt more than blows, as I already know. But I can’t simply let myself relax into the sweet ache, the bloodred beauty of such a haven.

“Daesra, what if—” What if Pogli gets lost? What if something attacks us? What if the cave starts collapsing? I don’t know where to begin, my doubts all clamoring for attention at once. He interrupts me before I can give voice to any of them, leaning forward to plant his powerful arms on either side of me, penning me in.

“I thought I told you to be silent,” he says. He kisses me slowly. Threateningly. Deliciously. Biting my bottom lip gently before letting it go. It’s the first time he’s done so of his own volition, without being under the spell of the maze’s strange magic. I feel under his spell now, drunk with it, waiting. Wanting. He pulls away to draw a nail along my jawline, making my breath come faster. “Don’t make me gag that beautiful mouth to stop your words. I want it free for my use.” He taps my chin, the lightest of blows, his eyes so red through dark lashes. “That was your warning. Now, trust me .”

For some reason, I do. I feel a wash of relief, and delicious anticipation unfurls deep within me.

I was vaguely worried he might handle me softly, like he did in the most recent memory. I needed that then, but I don’t now. Quite the opposite. And he knows it.

But will he give me everything I crave?

He reaches around me to begin untying the simple harness holding my torn tunic together. Even though the rope is loose, the sensation—the pull toward him—is enough to make me want to lean in, sink into him.

But I want more. Much more.

“I sense you have a question,” he says. “You have permission to speak it.”

He’s so close to me that I murmur it into his shoulder. It’s easier, perhaps, not to have to look at him to say it. “Will you hurt me if I ask for it?”

His hands hesitate around my back. “You will not find your absolution in pain. Not from me.”

“I know. I want the… release.” I stumble over the word, and he pulls back to smile at me.

“Are you , my dear Sadaré, blushing?” He laughs outright, as short and sharp as the stab of a blade. “You remember only enough to be ashamed of what you desire. How delightful.” He only goes back to untying me.

I scowl into his neck, tempted to bite him. “It wouldn’t have to be a true punishment. Nor will I expect it to end in forgiveness.”

He steps away to coil the strand of my rope, regarding me for a moment. Serious. “I’ll consider it. Now, back to silence.”

He tosses the bundle into a corner and uncoils his own rope from his belt. Red. His slow, methodical movements are both soothing and preparing me—the calm before the storm. Some part of me remembers going through this ritual, dozens upon dozens of times, his steadiness bracing me for the ruin in which he leaves me before rebuilding me.

The heat rises between my legs, my nipples growing taut. My torn tunic now hangs loose around my chest. He looks at it, and then up at me.

“Remove it,” he says. When I hesitate, he adds, “I’m going to make you work for your so-called punishment. If I decide to give it to you.”

Cheeks burning as hot as the torches, I begin to gracelessly shrug off my tunic where I sit.

He shakes his head, making a tsking sound. “No, no. Stand. And stop sulking. I even made it easier for you by tearing it.”

I slide onto my feet, feeling utterly exposed as he regards me, even though I’m still mostly clothed. I’m tempted to snap at him, but I hold my tongue.

“Learning already, I see,” he says with a slow smile. “Now, take it off like I know you want to.”

I do, damn him. I draw a deep breath to calm myself, and slowly begin to drag the now-rough fabric down my shoulders, watching gooseflesh pebble my skin. That servant’s dance rises from up inside me, rolling through my body in a wave that slips the tunic the rest of the way off, though I let it catch on my breasts. My lips part with a gasp as a lovely thrill shoots through me, and then the material drops away to pool on the floor around my ankles.

I resist covering myself. I can manage that much, at least, under his gaze.

He watches me appreciatively before he twirls a finger. “Turn around.”

I turn, eyeing his long nails as I do, to face the bed. In showing him my back, I feel frightfully vulnerable—but this time, I’m choosing it. My breath comes faster once again.

“Now,” he says, “crawl forward, on your hands and knees.”

I shuffle onto the bed, trying not to cringe over the fact that my backside is in the air, my shame eating at me, and then I feel the whip of the rope against my thighs. I gasp, spine arching as the pain sounds a bright, clear note through my body that cuts through my hesitation, my embarrassment.

Yes, that. I want that.

“I know you want this,” he says, echoing my thoughts. Caressing my backside with the coils of rope. “All of it, even the humiliation. So, show me.”

I furiously wonder how he can know that when I don’t… and yet I feel moisture between my legs. I squeeze them together and feel another whip of the rope.

“Spread your legs. Wide. And touch yourself.”

I hiss back at him, barely keeping myself from hurling a curse. I’ve never been ashamed of pleasuring myself, as far as I know—though I haven’t exactly had time to find out, in the maze—but it strikes me as something private, personal, not to be commanded. I expect another bite from the rope—only to find him with his hand over his mouth, barely containing his laughter.

“Gods, the things we’ve done in the past! And now it’s as if none of it happened for you. You’re a blank slate. This is the greatest gift, truly.” He drops his hand, his smile falling with it. He dangles the coils of rope, wrapped together in loops, by a sort of handle, which he swings gently back and forth. “Touch yourself or you’ll never feel this like you want to.”

Jaw clenching, I resolutely face the cushion beneath me. I close my eyes and slip one hand between my legs. I find myself more than ready, slick and warm. I just have to pretend he’s not behind me, observing.

The beautiful sting of the rope across my shoulders forcibly reminds me he’s there. I gasp, not realizing I’ve paused until he says, “Keep going. Faster, if you want more.”

I growl, but my fingers start working and the blows continue falling. The pain is magnificent with the strength of his arm behind it, each spike heightening the sensation between my legs. I’m hardly paying attention to what I’m doing down there, my fingers swiftly moving through my wet folds and circling around my taut bud with mindless abandon, but it’s enough to build. Especially knowing he’s watching everything.

“This pain is not for me, Sadaré. It’s for you,” he says, as another bright slash cracks across my back, scorching my thoughts as well as my flesh. “But you’re giving me a lovely show in return.”

Even my distracted efforts are too much. He’s too much. A few more frantic strokes of my fingers accompanied by the fall of his rope is all it takes.

I cry out, convulsing and curling around my hand, even as I want to arch my back into the blows. Shuddering, I gasp, “ Fuck. ”

I wanted it to last longer.

“What was that?” Daesra’s tone is deadly, and I almost curse again when I realize my mistake—I spoke. “You had your warning.” The lash drags slowly across my blazing back, no bite in it. “Ah, I know how I can stop your mouth and have it serve my pleasure at the same time. Turn around.”

Still on my knees, I twist to face him, my skin both grateful for the respite and yet aching for more. But the sight of him nearly makes me forget all of that, cutting into me more than his whip, leaving me breathless. Gods, have I always found him this beautiful? The sharp parts of him—horns, nails, hooves, teeth—are all the sharper next to the smooth perfection of his face. I want to feel him pressing into my flesh. All of him. He’s still clothed, but under his robes I can see what he hid from me earlier in the tunnel. I felt it, of course, in the cistern, but I wasn’t entirely myself. Now I’m painfully present here in my body, confronted with this obvious sign of how much he wants me. It’s utterly intoxicating.

He’s a demigod in daemonic form. A ray of light forged into a quicksilver blade. I nearly want to open my throat against the edge of him. But not to betray him. Not again.

Perhaps to betray myself this time, or whatever I have planned, to pour my lifeblood out for him only in sacrifice, not for gain.

Had planned , perhaps.

I kneel before him like I swore I never would again and bow forward, dropping my head on my hands, clasped in supplication.

“If you can’t forgive me for what I did,” I say in a rush, risking his anger, “can you forgive me for wanting what I did?”

“For wanting immortality or for wanting me at the same time?”

“Both.”

His tone is cold. “You still want both, Sadaré, and that’s ever been the problem.”

Do I, still? I know at least one thing I want right now.

His voice turns devious. “Do you know what I want?”

I nod rapidly, wisely refraining from speaking again.

“Then show me.”

I practically throw myself at him in my hunger, tearing his robes aside, seizing his length in my hands. The warm weight of him in my palm feels incredible, but even more so the smooth ridges lining him from hilt to tip like a knobbed backbone meant for pleasure. My body remembers the shape of him, and not only with my hands but deep inside, as if my flesh has been hollowed out and waiting. Needing to touch him with more than my fingers, I take him into my mouth and continue exploring his ridged contours with my tongue. My hands drift down his legs until my fingertips find the soft fur that cloaks his hooves, trailing through it before returning to clench his hard thighs, drawing him forward, deeper into my throat. Tears spring to my eyes with the sweet strain of taking him in, but it’s worth the effort. With no little satisfaction, I hear him hiss a breath through his teeth. And yet, he’s still composed enough to bring the lash down on my back once more. Hard.

The pain is exquisite. Scouring. A hurricane against my flesh, my mind, stripping everything away. This, this, this is what I want, I think, drowning in sensation as I drink him in, my head bobbing, my jaw aching, my nose nudging into the soft, musky curls of hair at his base. Through the storm, I can feel the lash shifting, curling around my backside, hitting me between the legs. Building even more pressure—both the pleasure and pain rising nigh intolerably. Just when I’m ready to burst with it, sobbing around his length and shaking uncontrollably, I come again. I cry out with him in my mouth, half collapsing against his hips.

“Now, that was for me,” he says.

Weak as I feel, I hold him lightly in my teeth, still teasing him with my tongue, but he pulls away from me.

“Ah, ah, that’s not for you, either—not yet. Hold out your arms.”

I sit on my heels, hair in my face, tears on my cheeks, spittle on my chin, fire across my back, wet between my legs. I could not feel any rawer or more exposed, and I love it. I hold out my arms obediently.

“There you are,” he says, but it’s not proud or triumphant. It’s nearly sad, like I’m something he’s lost. Before I can wonder much about it, my mind churning sluggishly, pain-drunk, I feel his rope against my wrists, the wraps tamping down any coherent thought. Binding me. Only simple cuffs this time, but thick, and they somehow hold more than my wrists, reaching inside me. As if he’s pressing into me, gripping my heart in his fist.

He throws the other end of the line toward the roof of the cave, and the stone catches it, forming a smooth hole for it to thread through. He’s no doubt paid in blood for that.

He hoists my wrists above my head until I’m up on my knees, too high to sit back on my heels more comfortably. He spins me until I’m facing away, my burning back to him.

“Forgive me if I don’t want to risk it this time,” he says with a low snarl.

I was atop him, facing him, when I betrayed him, my hands free to work their dark magic—to cut my throat, bind him to me, and then stab him in the heart.

His hands find my neck now, as he presses his chest into my tender back, making me gasp. His skin is bare. He’s disrobed. I want to see him, but he keeps me turned away, refusing to give me what I want. His fingers tighten their grip.

“Now you know how a collar might feel,” he whispers with his mouth alongside my ear. “How it chokes you, when your life is not your own. You’re in my hands right now, every bit of you”—he seizes my backside, hard, as his grip tightens on my throat—“and I could snuff you like a candle. How does it feel?”

Terrifying. Thrilling. My body, singing. I doubt that’s how he felt, in that moment. And I can’t fault him. That was different. I want this… and I can choose when it ends.

Perhaps it’s for the best that he doesn’t allow me to answer him, not even after releasing his hold and letting me gasp for breath and blink away the dancing spots in my vision. His fingers hook around my cheek to stroke my tongue. He drags his wet nails down my chin, to curl around my throat again, more gently, as he pulls my hips toward his, forcing my shoulders to stretch and my legs to open as his body curves around me from behind.

“ This is the only collar I would ever want around your neck, in truth. I would hate to see your fire diminished. I would only hold you to shelter your flame, or fan it higher.”

I tip my head back between my raised arms, rubbing my cheek against his, gasping my incoherent desire in his ear.

A growl of excitement answers me. He jerks me harder into him, his warm, rigid length pressing against my backside.

“You’re mine, Sadaré,” he hisses. I feel his teeth, biting, muffling the words as he speaks them into my skin, into my veins. His voice begins to fray at the edges, going ragged. “I’ve wanted you more than I’ve ever wanted anything on this godsforsaken earth. I would burn down the world to find you.” Another jerk, before I feel him positioning himself behind me, ready to drive into me. His fingers dip between my legs, inside me where I ache, smearing my wetness on his tip that I can now feel so near. He pulls me ever closer. “I wish I was incapable of loving you so much.”

And then he thrusts into me. My back arches, my arms stretched even tauter, my head flying back. He holds me like that, for a moment, pressing us both tightly together, his hands splayed across my belly, my chest. His muscular body containing me as I do him. Both of us as one, for once, before he reminds me of his powerful presence by moving inside me. Slowly, excruciatingly, his ridged length sending languid waves of pleasure rolling through me. A storm building upon the sea.

It makes me want to beg him for more—for him to unleash his fury. I groan, already shuddering around him, my arms screaming with the effort of holding myself up as he claims me.

I want him to break me.

I not only want more of him. I want to give myself to him more desperately than I’ve ever wanted anything.

Almost more than I’ve craved power.

I want to tell him I love him, too. But I can’t, because he covers my mouth, perhaps only to stifle my moans, which are getting louder and louder. I close my eyes, sinking into the ocean of him. He outlines the shape of my body as if forming it anew: his fist in my hair, his palm pressing into my breast, his strong fingers hooking the curve of my waist, holding my hips steady against his measured, torturous thrusts that pierce me to my core. All the while I feel his lips and teeth and tongue on my shoulders, my throat, my ear, as if I’m feeling them for the first time. He’s everywhere, and I’m dissolving, the lines between us beginning to blur.

Together, we make a different shape, beyond the confines of ourselves. Using our bodies to form what’s between us.

We aren’t fucking, I realize. We’re making love.

I stiffen, my eyes flying wide.

“Don’t you dare,” Daesra growls, sensing the shift in me. “Don’t you dare leave me.” I don’t know if he means in thought or body before his driving thrusts begin to melt me back into him, infusing me with liquid heat.

His hand returns to my inflamed back, pausing between my straining shoulders, the other tugging my hips hard against him as his rhythm begins to increase. Two points of his nails prick into my skin below my neck, metal-sharp. I understand the threat they’re offering.

“Do you want this, Sadaré? I’ll give it to you if you stay with me.”

I nod frantically.

Just as when he broke my finger or when I asked him to hurt me behind the waterfall, he doesn’t hesitate. His nails rake down my back. They draw lines in my flesh so bright and sharp they’re almost cold, and then leave molten fury in their wake. Two stripes of fire on either side of my spine. I cry out as my vision turns red. Wet warmth runs down my backside, soaking what little space there is between us. Blood. Smearing across his hips, dripping down my legs.

When my back arches in agony, he pinches both my nipples with those nails, making me convulse as the fresh bolt of pain spears me straight through to my base, where he’s pounding into me faster and faster. I come harder than I thought possible, every muscle in my body seizing. His bloody hand covers my mouth as I scream. His own rising wave of passion crests soon after, and he gasps, slamming into me with such force I wonder if he might truly break me before he spends himself.

And then we both collapse, the rope somehow dropping from the ceiling. He twists at the last moment so he doesn’t land atop my flayed back with all of his weight. I don’t know if I even would have noticed. I can only lie there with his arms around me, both of us sticky with blood, sweat, and other juices, and simply breathe. I barely register when—perhaps a moment later, perhaps an hour—his hands move to untie my wrists. I can only watch through watery eyes, my head pillowed on his arm. I didn’t even realize I was crying.

When he’s finished with the rope, he massages feeling back into my hands before shifting to look at my back.

“I can heal you now, if you like.” His voice is quiet. Almost sad again.

He knows our time here is almost over.

Part of me wants to keep this pain, to wallow in it, but it’s a luxury I can’t afford. It would soon become a hindrance. My surrender has already turned it into a deep well of power within me.

“Yes.” My own voice is broken. I sniffle, wiping my nose and wincing. Everything hurts. “But leave the scars. Please.”

Two lines straddling my spine. His claw marks. I want them on my body, for remembrance.

He hesitates, and then says softly, “I can do that.”

The pain vanishes from my back, as if washed away with a jug of cool water. His fingers skim lightly over my skin, careful with his nails, tracing a line from my cheek down to my neck and over the curve of my shoulders. He gazes down at me as his breath whispers over my ear, speaking to me without words. I would wonder what he was trying to say if his fingers weren’t saying it for him, gliding almost wonderingly over my curves, worshiping the landscape of me held in his arms. I could lie here for ever, open to him to explore, but then he pauses over the smooth ridges that are now on my back.

For remembrance. I lift my finger with the thin red band he seared into my skin after I first awoke in the maze.

“What is this, anyway?” I ask.

There’s a long pause. “It’s so you could always find me. If you wanted.”

I smile wryly. “And so you could also always find me in the maze?”

He pulls away, sliding his arm out from under my head and sitting up. “It was intended only for you.”

I blink, sitting up myself. “But why? You hated me then, when you gave it to me.” He might still hate me, for all that he loves me, but it hurts too much to think it. “If I could always find you, wouldn’t that have put you at a disadvantage, especially if you were ahead?”

He stands without immediately answering, tugging on his tunic and deftly tying his rope back around his waist. After he passes me my own tunic, I realize it’s whole once again, no tears or burns, and creamy white.

A blank slate. Except I’m not anymore. I have two ridged scars like tally marks upon my back. I’m not sure what they total, or against whom.

I pull my tunic over my head, still seated on the cushions. Beginning to feel uneasy in the silence, under his bloodred regard.

“You’re supposed to find me,” he says eventually.

“What do you mean?”

He rubs at his mouth, still studying me as he decides something, and then drops his hand. “I thought this would feel more satisfying. But I’m not satisfied, Sadaré. And I never can be, with you. And you never can be, with what you truly desire.”

I’ve never felt more satisfied in my life—what little I can remember of it. I blink at him in confusion, apprehension breaching though my glutted languor. I slide my legs over the edge of the bed and tug my tunic more quickly in place. “Why aren’t you satisfied?”

He shrugs. “I thought I wanted to hear you say you loved me. So that when I betrayed you, it would be as when you betrayed me—after I’d told you how I felt. After I’d spelled it out to you with my body, over and over again. And yet, in the end, that’s not what I want.”

Fear begins to eat at me, and I wonder distantly if that’s why he covered my mouth when I was about to tell him that I loved him. Because he knew what I was going to say.

I shake my head, not knowing what might be coming, but nonetheless understanding it won’t be good. “Daesra… what are you doing? Whatever it is, you don’t have to do it.”

I don’t want to give voice to the words and risk making the possibility real like a spawning from the maze: You don’t have to betray me.

His words are measured. Cold. Distant. “I’m afraid I do.”

I leap to my feet, tying my rope around my waist in a furious rush, snatching up my pack of needles. “What, you drew me in here, convinced me to trust you, only to get ahead of me in the maze again?” I’m nearly shouting as I throw my hand out at the bed. “Was all of that a lie?”

He stands as unmoving as a statue. “I wish it was. But it was no more of a lie than what you did to me, before you took me to the Tower.” He sighs, pain flaring in his eyes. “I love you, Sadaré. So deeply that I can’t tear it out of me, no matter how hard I try. It’s an arrow broken off inside my chest, a wound that won’t stop festering.”

“We can do this together,” I insist desperately, my voice cracking, my vision starting to blur. “We can work as partners, reach the center of the maze at the same time, defeat the monster together—”

“That’s impossible.” Daesra smiles slightly, a soft apology on his lips. “Because I’m the monster.”

I can’t breathe. My lungs feel frozen under ice. I can only stare at him, tears tracking silently down my face.

“What?” I finally manage in a whisper.

“It’s true. I’m the one you must slay if you don’t wish to die here. I’m the price of your immortality.”

His words, the truth, cut me deeper than anything ever has.

“No. No, no, no.” My breath comes faster now, and I keep shaking my head. “If that’s true, I don’t want it anymore.”

He waves his arm as if casting something aside. “It doesn’t matter what you want now . Only what you wanted then. This is your task, to defeat the beast at the center of the maze. You must get there, or you’ll never escape. We still have a ways to go—the hardest part is yet to come.” He lifts his arm, nails ready to claw into his flesh. “But I have to get there first. Stay where you are.”

I raise my own hands in a calming gesture, even if my voice is frantic. “Don’t do this.”

He laughs, and it’s more than a little despairing. “I must. I can’t truly hurt you—at least as I am now. I’m not strong enough with the wound your love has carved. But I can feel something shifting within me. You’ve seen how everything changes the closer we get to the center. Sharpening. Growing. Becoming something new. I will, too. I must take my final shape, according to the gods’ plan—to your plan.” His injured gaze spears me through, leaving a wound in my own chest. “ You can’t hurt me either, as I am now. That was why you wanted me to become truly monstrous. So you could look at me and see a beast fit for slaying. You wanted a worthier sacrifice than when you brought me, bound and brokenhearted, to the Tower.” His lips twist. “And they call me cruel.”

“No! No, I don’t believe it.” I take a step closer to him. “Even if it’s true, I refuse such a plan. You don’t have to follow it, either. You and I, we can both become something else! What we felt between us when we made love.” My voice is pleading. “ Tell me you felt it.”

He shakes his head slowly. “It’s too late. This moment had to end. I savored it while I could.”

He backs toward the shadowy veil that curtains the way out of our little haven. Marking the end of our peace.

His voice sinks to a low murmur. “Goodbye, my dear Sadaré—my love.” His eyes drink me in as if seeing me for the last time, and he kisses his fingertips in farewell. But when he drops his hand, his expression is cold and distant once more. “When I see you next, I fear I won’t be what you remember. And you would do well to fear me .”

“Please, don’t go,” I sob, stumbling after him. Begging, to no avail.

He steps through the darkly shimmering curtain as if it isn’t there. I can still see him on the other side, shrouded in shadow. When I try to pass through, I can’t. It feels like running into a solid wall. Just like it must have felt to Pogli outside.

Pogli , I think, just as I spot the vague shape of him running up to Daesra.

“This little one is far too helpful when it comes to you,” the daemon says wryly, sounding untroubled now. Set on his path. “I’ll be taking him with me.”

“ Pogli! ” I shout, pounding frantically against the curtain. “Don’t hurt him!”

“Trust that he’ll be safer with me. At least until I become a greater danger than the maze itself.”

I press my hands flat, trying to push through what stands between us. As if I could ever reach him again. “Daesra, I’m begging you, please don’t—”

He cuts me off. “Don’t try to stop me. Since I know you never listen…”

I cry out as his nails rake down his arm. His blood looks black through the shadowy murk of the veil, two dark, dripping lines scored in his skin. I feel an echo of them against my back. It’s a tally that isn’t in my favor, after all.

I stumble back when a mountain of stone comes raining down on the other side of the veil, completely blocking me in with a cracking roar. Leaving me in darkness. Silence.

Alone.

At first, it’s hard to breathe in the pitch black, under the crushing weight of rock and Daesra’s betrayal. Biting my cheek, at least, makes me gasp a full breath. It also provides enough pain to transmute into fire to see by—not that I need more pain. It’s filling me to the brim. I manage to keep breathing through it while I scrabble for my needles and whatever rope I can find.

Don’t think , I tell myself. Just move.

I have most of my lengths, and most of my needles. Good thing, because it’s going to take a lot of power to move that much stone, even more than I have burning a hole inside me from my moment of utter surrender.

At least he left me with that much.

I’ve tightened down a chest harness, rigged torturous ties on my right arm and on my left leg, and am readying my needles when a glow far brighter than my transmuted flame suddenly flares across the small cave. I squint at it through watering eyes.

A mirror. A mirror has appeared right where Daesra’s shadowy veil was, and where a wall of rock now is.

I laugh at the sight of it, the sound choking in my throat. Perhaps the maze didn’t appreciate how Daesra used its stone to hold me. Or perhaps this memory is only meant for me.

“What worse can you show me that he hasn’t already?” I ask it.

I hope I don’t regret the question.

Baring my teeth in more snarl than smile, I march right into the mirror’s silvery embrace.