Chapter 53
THROUGH THE DOORWAY is a huge square, sized for something much larger than mortals. Overhead looms the final gate. I can barely see its top. Carved in obsidian, it looks like shadows made solid.
And I’m standing at its foot.
Through dangers, death and despair, I have fought my way here.
The Collector should be at my side. What would they have wanted to do? Could they have come to the surface with me?
I swallow and rub my chest, the threads of connection still bright inside.
“We did it,” I whisper and hope, somewhere in the Underworld or the Next Place, they can hear me. “Thank you.”
I stare at the gate so long it’s burned into my eyes. Statues flank it—a huge obsidian dragon on one side, a rearing horse its match on the other. At a smaller scale, in a pair of alcoves, stand two humanoid statues, one in armor, the other in a robe, their arms crossed.
“Congratulations,” a familiar voice sounds behind me.
I draw a breath and brace for an argument before turning.
Drystan stands tall and somber, his black hair and outfit at one with the labyrinth. Somehow, he looks paler than usual. The corners of his mouth rise, but the rest of his face remains utterly still. “You’ve come so far, but I can’t—”
Stone grinds.
I spin on my heel.
The robed statue steps down from its alcove. “Your Majesty,” he says in a deep, scraping voice as he approaches.
Drystan stands there, regal and expectant. “Strife.”
Within the statue’s shadowy cowl, late-afternoon sunlight catches on a handsome, cruel face—hard lines, chiseled lips, a cleft chin.
The name Strife suits him. He bows with the sound of rock chips pouring down a mountainside.
“You are here about the presence within the labyrinth. His influence has not yet reached this tier.” He inclines his head. “I fear it is but a matter of time.”
I drag in a breath as I realize. “The presence? You mean the corruption? What do you know about it?”
Strife eyes me, mouth flat, before cocking his head at Drystan in askance.
“Answer her.” Drystan’s jaw ripples.
“As Your Majesty wishes… I will answer the human.” His nostrils flare as he turns his attention to me.
“A fragment of something arrived here years ago—a seed upon the breeze. But not an entity of life. A maelstrom. He remained dormant, seething in his own wildfire. But when he got your scent—a taste of potential, perhaps, or an outlet for his rage—he rose from his slumber and began to spread.”
Drystan cocks his head. “‘He?’”
“He speaks sometimes. Calls to me and the others who reside within the labyrinth’s walls. Calls us to him. I ignore him. Not all do.”
“The Devourer,” I murmur. Their attention snaps to me. “It was… corrupted. Like the thing had infected it.”
“Hmm.” Strife nods slowly.
“And this… presence wishes to harm Annon.” Drystan’s lips flatten. “The first person to attempt the labyrinth in centuries.”
“He appears to have been waiting for some unwary soul to set foot in here.”
“This is a matter I will attend to.” Drystan lifts his chin, the matter dismissed. “For now, however, she has reached the final challenge.”
“So she has.” Strife speaks slowly, taking me in. “The first supplicant in centuries. The first human supplicant ever.”
“I forbid you from opening the gates for her.”
“What?” I stare at Drystan.
He makes no reaction.
Strife bows his head. “I am loyal to the end of time, Your Majesty. But you know I cannot end a trial on your whim. You may pass through with her, and I will keep the way open for your return, but that is all.”
Drystan’s neck cords, and between us, his hand fists.
Strife turns to me and with a carved hand, indicates the giant gates. “The way lies before you. One gateway, but many paths.” As he speaks, light flickers on their stone surface like shadow and sun on the sea. “One path leads you home. One to failure. And one to death.”
I see it. Each one.
Our cottage under a cloudy sky. Me, tucked up by the fire. Lowen smiling as he sketches at my side. Annem and Pa repairing nets while we sing one of his sea shanties. It’s warm. Familiar. Painful.
Drystan’s fortress clad in night. I sit upon the consort’s throne, at his side, a crown upon my head.
I’m smiling like my heart might burst with happiness.
The corner of his mouth curls subtly, pressing a dimple into his cheek.
The cat is at my feet. Asti guards us. Min and Kishel stand at my side.
It’s clear—so clear. Unexpected. Aching.
And then oblivion. Me alone. Suffocating in nothingness. Dying.
My knees tremble. I can’t face that. Anything but that.
“I will open one path for you, but only one.” The images continue to cycle through as Strife explains. “All you must do is answer but a single, simple question. Surely that’s something even a mortal can manage.” His fingertips clink against a ring of keys hanging from his belt.
I swallow back my fear at the image of oblivion and tear my attention from the flickering lights. “How do I know which path you’ll open for me?”
“You don’t. I will choose based on your answer to my question.”
“Annon.” Drystan’s voice comes out low, torn at the edges. “No one who’s come this far has succeeded. No one. Give up and our bargain ends at sunset—you can come home with me.”
Home. That used to be such an easy concept. Now…?
Now it’s unimportant. I finger Lowen’s sketch in my pocket and shake off the thought. “The others. They ended up trapped here, didn’t they?”
“Or dead.” He twirls me to face him, fingers biting into my shoulders like I’m his lifeline. Bending so we’re eye to eye, he gives me a slight shake as he speaks slowly. “I can’t save you if he opens the wrong path. You’ll die. Alone. That path—it’s the one place I can’t reach.”
Desperation gleams in his eyes, shadows the creases pinched between his eyebrows.
That look frightens me. Oblivion frightens me. But the idea of staying? That might terrify me more.
But I need to get to Lowen before he does something irreversible. He’s risking everything to save me. I owe it to him to do the same.
I swallow, throat thick. Holding Drystan’s desperate gaze, I raise my voice: “Ask your question.”
Shoulders sinking, nostrils flaring, he bows his head and releases me.
Strife strokes his keys, striking discordant metallic notes from them. “Supplicant, which desire is it that burns brightest in your heart?”
Not a question I expected. But then, I should’ve learned by now—the unseelie are nothing if not surprising.
Also, this isn’t the simple question it once was.
I want a cure. To save my brother. To get back to the safety of my family. To curl up with the cat beside the fire with an interesting book… with Drystan. To hug Min and Asti. To master Fatework and learn more about my magic.
There are more desires in my heart than there once were. And not all of them compatible.
I turn the wishes over and over, like they’re gems and I can find a facet that will tell me which one I want most.
The solution doesn’t lie in my answer, though. My desires won’t tell me why everyone else has failed this final challenge and therefore how I can succeed.
There must be some way I can work this out. It’s a mental puzzle, and compared to all the physical hardships of this place, that’s my strong suit.
There has to be something the previous supplicants have all done wrong. Or they’ve each made different mistakes. Not comforting.
It doesn’t help that I know little to nothing about them. Only that they failed. None passed the obscure test in Strife’s question. That’s all I’ve got.
The first human supplicant.
They were all unseelie.
At my side, Drystan paces, his movements clipped, tight. “Just… just come home.”
All fae.
Every single one of them had a limitation that I do not.
Surely it can’t be so simple.
My heart thuds in my throat. I open my mouth. Close it.
What if I’m wrong?
Then I’ll face the consequences. I’ve already decided I’m not giving up. The sun is setting. It’s this or nothing.
“I have my answer.”
Strife’s lips curl, something anticipatory in the gesture. “Then give it.”
I formulate my lie. The phrasing has to be right to satisfy whatever criteria Strife will measure me against. “I want to stay in the Underworld forever. At Drystan’s side, as his queen.”
As I say it, my voice catches, because I realize…
It’s barely a lie.
A few weeks ago, it would’ve been. But now…
The image flickers across the stone gates. In it, I look happy. Truly happy.
Drystan has gone stock still.
Strife’s head tilts to one side. He hesitates over the ring of keys in his hands.
My pulse is thunder. I squeeze the bottle of dried skullflower in my pocket.
The guardian selects a key and slots it into the final gate. It grinds as he turns it.
A gateway that has never opened to the surface.
The images flickering over the gates slow, casting light over Strife’s obsidian eyes. They narrow. He makes a thoughtful sound, a tinge of annoyance serrating it. “I see. Clever.”
Strife. Of course someone with that name isn’t going to give people what they want. And yet fae are doomed to answer with the truth.
The huge gates groan open.
Ahead is a view I know, all color leached out. But otherwise familiar.
I square my shoulders, take a final breath of Underworld air and walk through.