Chapter 50
I LAND ON my bed in the fortress. My tears soak into its sheets as I stare into the inevitability of my own failure.
Now I’m out of the labyrinth, though, I can pick myself up. Everything was too heavy to manage that before. I curl up, back to the headboard, and hug myself for a good, long while, before I drag myself to the bathroom. Half-heartedly, I bathe and dress.
A summons arrives. Breakfast with the king. In the dining hall.
I go. I find him sat alone at one end of the table, another place setting at his side. Remembering politeness, I smile. It’s tremulous.
Nothing feels as bad as it did in the labyrinth, but I still can’t shake the feeling that this whole endeavor is doomed.
Drystan pulls out my chair before resuming his seat, and food appears not long after. I pick at it, trying to persuade myself that eating isn’t pointless.
The feeling has to be a challenge. I’ve never felt so hopeless in my life as I did passing through those gates, and with each one it grew worse.
But even if it’s only a feeling and not even a real one at that, it brought me to my knees. How can I overcome that?
“I know you’re annoyed at me about my little… distraction, but are you going to give me silence forever?”
“What?” I blink up from the potato I’ve been pushing around my plate for untold minutes. “Oh. No.” I shrug.
“I need you to understand. My brothers are not… well, our relationship isn’t the same as the one you share with your brother.
None of them would try to cross between worlds to save me, for one thing.
And if one of them were to get killed by one of our monstrous kin, that would be a cause for celebration.
I’ve tried to use the mirror to stop your brother, but he’s too set on reaching you.
I cannot control the actions of mortals—not when their will is this strong. ”
I dimly register that he’s explaining himself to me without prompting. Maybe another night that would feel like a victory. But not tonight.
“Look. Annon. Avellan. I don’t want you to leave. I told you I wasn’t a good man and I don’t care to be—I will do whatever’s required to keep you here. Because I—I genuinely believe your life will be better.”
Nodding, I spear the potato and rub it into some congealed butter. “Right.”
“What?” He chuckles. “No witty retort?” He leans in, nudging me with his elbow. “No cheerful reassurance that you’re going to escape despite my best efforts?”
My fork clangs into my plate. Because I’m tired.
I’m so fucking tired. Of smiling when I don’t mean it.
Of reassuring others. Of being on and ready at every damn moment.
My head snaps around and I finally meet his gaze.
“What if I don’t feel cheerful, Drystan?
What then? Am I no longer valuable? No longer useful? ”
He flinches. “What?” He reaches across the table, hand stopping short of mine. “That’s not what I… I don’t…”
“What if I just pretend to be cheerful all the time for everyone else’s sake?
Does that make me less interesting to you?
Do you not want to take me back to your bed or have me as your wife if I’m not a cheery little beam of sunshine?
” My voice wavers, though I try to keep it together.
“Does it make you feel bad that I feel like shit? That my wrists and knees hurt, that my legs ache, that my chest feels tight and I’m always waiting for my heartbeat to tick-tick-tick slower?
Is it better for you if I smile and pretend none of that is true? ”
He sits back, eyebrows peaking. “You’ve reached the Gauntlet of Despair.
Of course.” He presses his lips together, a contrite look on his face as he examines his hand spread on the table.
“You wanted to give up today, didn’t you?
That’s what the gauntlet is designed to do.
To make you give in. It’s just the gauntlet making you feel this way. ”
I slump back in my seat, part of me horrified at what I’ve spilled out, the rest of me too tired to care. “Is it?”
“Perhaps not all of it.”
Silence yawns between us. I’m not sure what was me and what was the gauntlet. And I’m not sure if any of it was inaccurate.
“Is it true?” I ask after a long while. “Has no one ever made it through the labyrinth?”
He sighs, gaze sinking to the table. “It’s true. None have ever succeeded, even after taking the shortcut to the final challenge.”
My gods. What is the final challenge? Something that’s beaten every single fae who’s tried. What chance do I have?
An aching heaviness drags on my chest, like I’ve brought part of the Gauntlet of Despair back with me.
After a thoughtful nod, Drystan stands. “Right. Come on.”
It’s only when he pauses at the doorway that I drag myself after him.
Asti and another of the Twylth step from their stations and go to follow us, but Drystan stills them with a look. “This is for us alone.”
As he leads me through Rigor Gard’s corridors, he mutters, “It must be bad if you’re not asking where we’re going.”
We reach the stables where he waves off help from anyone else and saddles my horse.
Asti told me that after Threnn, Drystan had instructed her to let no one else fasten my saddle when she took me out riding, in case they didn’t tighten the girth enough.
His attentiveness is almost touching, but I’m curling in over my crossed arms, thoughts knotting because I’ve shared too much, and worse still, I’ve complained.
He lifts me on to the horse, readies his own steed and we ride out in silence.
I’m faintly surprised when instead of staying within the fortress walls, he takes us out the main gate and along the causeway, down to the featureless plains of Mordren. But the deepening night quickly distracts me with the knowledge that only one day remains in the labyrinth.
One day left to reach Lowen.
Since my vision, I keep having the same nightmare. I’m at the frozen river. Standing on it. Ice creaking. Beneath, the dead scratch and writhe, desperately trying to break through. They all have Lowen’s face. The ice cracks, and I fall through, waking sweaty and tangled in the blankets.
It’s not real and yet it feels like a threat of what’s to come.
As I ride with Drystan, I glance back to the fortress. This is the furthest I’ve been since he took me to see the dangers of the Underworld. On the walls, small figures keep watch, lit only by the moon and stars.
I spend the rest of the ride staring into the snowy distance as everything inside me churns, only looking up when he announces, “We’re here.”
Tucked against a rocky outcrop is a semi-ruined cottage. The roof and walls are mostly intact, but the door looks ready to fall off its hinges and its windows are cracked and empty, save for tattered curtains.
The back of my nose stings. It reminds me of home.
A similar size, though it looks older, and this place is only one story.
But it feels like our cottage. There’s the crumbled remains of a wall encircling it, and we walk over fractured stones that were once a path to its entrance.
Icicles hang from what were once vigorous plants, including something that climbs over the windows and would’ve made this a pretty home.
Drystan pushes the door open with an almighty creak, but somehow it stays on its hinges.
Old furniture and cobwebs greet us, as well as dried herbs nestling in the roof and a table set for two.
A tall cupboard stands empty, its door hanging open.
There’s the scent of life here, too—old perfume, the smoke from a fireplace that was once well used, dead flowers in a sky-blue vase.
I even fancy I catch the familiar warming smell of bread baked long ago, trapped in the oven.
“What is this place?”
“It used to be someone’s home. Now…” He spreads his hands. “You see what it is now. When it became clear winter wasn’t ending anytime soon, most of my people sought refuge in Rigor Gard. Not the woman who lived here, though. She refused to leave, sure she could make it through the cold.”
“Let me guess. Her stubbornness killed her, and you’ve brought me here to teach me that lesson?”
“No, actually.” He turns with a half-smile, but it’s more apologetic than mocking.
“When the river froze and the dead ventured across, growing wilder and more dangerous, some consumed by unseelie creatures, that’s when she left.
She escaped with her life, but not her belongings.
” With his fingertips, he caresses a plate left on the table like it’s ready for dinner to come from the oven.
“But I didn’t bring you here for any reason to do with her.
I brought you here so we could be alone, and so you could do something other than being cheerful—or beating yourself up for not faking it. ”
I screw my face up at him, not really sure how to do what he’s asking. “I’m sure I’ve snapped at you enough times already.”
“Hmm, but it’s usually playful—more entertaining than hurtful.
It still feels like a veneer over what you’re really feeling.
And I think the odd moments you’ve told me how much of a dick I’m being don’t really outweigh everything else.
Show another emotion. You wear cheer for everyone else.
What’s beneath that? What does Annon feel? ”
I swallow, only realizing I’ve backed away when my hip bumps a threadbare armchair by the fireplace. He asks his questions softly, but there’s a threat in them. “I don’t…” I shake my head.