Chapter 29
29
M Y SLIPPERS SLAP THE GROUND . Darkness bleeds before me.
I am hurtling around sharpened corners and sliding around sudden bends. A distant shout rises, chased by a wretched snarl. My teeth clench. Though I long to return to Notus’ side, I would be a fool to overlook my mortality. He has his winds, his strength, his speed. My only skill lies in the violin and bow clenched in my clammy hand.
Catching the edge of the wall, I swing myself into another passage and stumble ahead. Gradually, the South Wind’s voice fades, eaten by darkness. My labored breathing grows coarse, throat rubbed raw. At times, I’m certain the beast is gaining ground.
I can’t keep this pace forever. Already, my body screams for rest. I require temporary shelter. Some nook or shielded alcove that will grant me time enough to weave my notes into a form of defense.
As I round another hairpin turn, however, I halt, straining for air. I’m almost certain I spotted a figure in the tunnel I just passed. Turning, I hurry after it, slippers scuffing the gray stone. Carefully, I ease around the corner.
In the center of the passage, a man stands with his back to me. I gasp, my heartbeat growing increasingly erratic. It is hope and disbelief twined so tightly they cannot be differentiated. The man turns. His eyes are like mine, like Father’s, like Amir’s.
“Fahim,” I whisper.
My brother smiles. “Hello, Sarai.”
I step forward, dazed, so dazed I do not even register the impossibility of his presence. The gloom of the labyrinth vanishes, and I stand in Fahim’s bedroom, his bedsheets twisted, documents cluttering his desk. “How—” But I haven’t the words. Truthfully, I don’t care how it’s possible that Fahim stands before me. He’s here. It is everything I want.
“It’s been some time, no?” he asks tentatively, slipping his hands into his pockets. The points of his countenance—cheek, nose, jawbone—are softened by the low light.
A corner of my mouth hitches, more sadness than anything. “It has,” I say. “You look good.” He wears a yellow headscarf and matching trousers, a breezy robe the color of dates hitting him mid-thigh. It is his eyes, however, that claim my attention. They harbor no shadows, yet there is a deadness to them: windows without light. “Life has been so hard with you gone.”
“I know,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
“Let’s not fret about the past, hmm? We’re together again.” Another step forward. “We can make up for lost time.”
Sarai!
I frown. Another voice, deep and warm and stabilizing, seems to echo from a great distance. But that hardly matters now, with my brother before me.
Shifting both the violin and bow to my left hand, I close the final stretch between Fahim and I. He does not appear particularly enthused to see me. It stings. At the very least, I would have expected an embrace, relief at finding one another again.
“There’s so much you have missed, so much I wish to tell you,” I murmur. And we have time now. It is a gift I refuse to squander. “I’ve been such a fool about so many things, and I don’t know who to trust anymore. Ammara is in peril. The darkwalkers grow stronger, and—” I hesitate, then say, “Ibramin has departed the palace. I thought you should know. He’s gone to teach a young boy with promise. I can’t help but feel like he has abandoned me.”
When Fahim doesn’t respond, I reach forward to cup my eldest brother’s cheek. His skin is like ice.
“You’re chilled,” I say to him in concern. My arm drops. “Are you ill?”
“Sarai.” His gaze meets mine squarely. “Put down my violin.”
I glance at the instrument. For whatever reason, my fingers tighten around the neck. “I found it,” I say in slight confusion. But where, exactly? I know better than to enter Fahim’s chambers without permission. I do not remember approaching his door. Nor do I remember knocking.
I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I know how you feel about me touching your things.” Of course he would ask me to put down the violin. I’m not sure why that proves to be difficult at the moment. “Will you play for me?”
Our surroundings blur for the briefest moment. When I next blink, however, nothing appears out of the ordinary. I must have imagined it.
But Fahim… he has become a different person entirely, his face grooved, harsh and unfamiliar.
“It wasn’t fair,” he growls. “Why should I give up my gift when you had the freedom to pursue yours?” His sleeves stir as he lifts his hands to his chest. “And then to learn you were throwing it away, and for what? A man you hardly knew?”
I recoil from the unexpected venom in his words—and the truth he wields as a weapon. “I wasn’t throwing anything away,” I dispute. “You didn’t even talk to me about what I felt toward Notus, or music. You made a decision without my input.”
But Fahim isn’t listening. “Please understand, Sarai. There are things I must do, responsibilities I must uphold.” Once more, he glances at the instrument. “But I won’t be able to do so until you let go of the violin.” His mouth loses its curve then. “Let me take it off your hands.”
I peer closer at my brother, disquieted. Why do his eyes hold such emptiness? Why must I release the violin?
Sarai, it’s a trap!
My surroundings waver, a sheet of darkness momentarily blotting out the sight of my brother and his chamber, yet it snaps back into place. Only this time, Fahim has disappeared, and I peer down one of the bright, open corridors of the palace.
The setting sun is a jewel. It sets fire to the orange, yellow, and red mosaic tiling the far wall. At its end, I spot Fahim dressed in an ornate yellow robe, walking with a slump to his posture. His skin is wan, sickly. There, too, is the disheveled state of his hair.
“Fahim.” My throat closes around his name, snuffing it out.
I watch my brother shuffle toward his bedroom at the end of the hall. Look at his hands, how tightly they clamp, and the rounded stoop of his spine. Evening will soon fall. Where are the guards?
As he reaches the door, I scream, “Fahim!”
My brother halts, hand on the doorknob, and glances over his shoulder, just once. He frowns, as if having heard my voice. But it is his eyes I notice most. They are empty, as if the light has already gone.
I lunge, yet am stopped short by an unseen barrier. My voice warbles as I call again, “Fahim…” A yellow robe trimmed in black thread. The same clothing he’d been wearing the day I found him swinging from the rafters.
The image fades. I am back in the labyrinth.
The despair is so much greater in Fahim’s absence. I’ve lost my brother all over again. Is this the labyrinth’s plan? Force me to relive the darkest days of my life until I am driven mad?
A shudder of unease shivers through me, yet I hurry down the passage, ears pricked for any unusual sound. Another turn, and another. At this rate, I would not be surprised if I were going in circles. But there, up ahead—a shift in the gloom. I press forward, violin tucked beneath my chin, bow poised to coax music from its strings. The crumbling walls fall away, and I step into another impossibility: a tapestry of curling vines, hanging branches, sweet-smelling blooms. The palace’s eastern garden.
I glance around warily. In the distance stand two figures, male and female. It is night. Moonlight dribbles through the glass ceiling overhead, splashing the interlocking leaves, painting their waxy coatings in a high shine.
As I ease closer, I recognize the gown the girl wears. Fiery red trimmed in gold. Her hair is secured in a braid. I am both past and present in this moment. Twenty-five years of age, and twelve-year-old Sarai, following the evening of her solo debut. Which means the boy she speaks to is Amir.
It’s not real. But it was, once. This memory, which I have locked away, now thrust into the open.
Following my debut, I’d returned to the palace with my brothers and Ibramin, elated by my performance, yet brokenhearted over Father’s absence. I’d cried, of course. I had desperately wanted Father to witness this monumental accomplishment. Yet when faced with my tears, he only snapped “Stop crying,” before reaching into his desk, pulling free a square of cloth, and tossing it to me. “Wipe your face.”
I did so with a trembling hand. Whatever emotions surged toward the surface, I forced them down. Crushed them to dust.
Afterward, I’d sought solace in the garden, for it was deserted, calm. It was where Amir had found me hours later. He was angry. Apparently, my performance had upset Fahim, who did not wish to see me.
From my position shielded by the leaves, I watch this conversation play out. Yet suddenly, as young Sarai whispers, “I don’t believe you,” I am experiencing things through the eyes of my younger self.
My brother shrugs. It is of no concern to him. “Believe what you will, but I’m not sure Fahim will ever forgive you for taking music from him. It was what he loved most in the world.”
Something wavers in my heart, for I have wondered if Fahim resented me, now that I alone carry music.
“Why are you like this?” I growl, fists clenched at my sides. If I were not afraid of injuring my fingers, I daresay I would wallop Amir in the face. “It’s not my fault Papa made Fahim quit violin. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were jealous.”
“Jealous?” He barks a laugh.
“Yes. Jealous that I am known to the world, that Fahim is known to the world, while you are left in the dark.” Fahim and Amir, both princes, but only one will carry the crown.
Sarai, can you hear me? Say something!
I ignore the distant plea, unable to look away as Amir’s expression shutters. A long moment passes before he responds. When he does, his voice is so riddled with bitterness it eats at his words. “You’re right. Fahim is heir, not I.” He looks me up and down with noticeable distaste. “Then again, I haven’t stolen music from him. I haven’t paraded my accomplishments in front of him, this life that was promised. I’m not the one who forces him to face that pain daily.”
Turning on his heel, he whacks aside the vines and plunges down the path, vanishing from sight.
I lift a hand, palm pressed to my chest, atop the fresh bruise that blooms in wake of his declaration. It’s not true. Fahim is happy for me. He’s told me so on multiple occasions .
As young Sarai collapses onto a garden bench, I charge through the garden, intending to speak my piece to Amir. Yet the stones beneath my slippers crack, and the sweet blossoms blacken, their scents curdling to rot. Two steps farther, and the garden begins to bleed out, the dense gloom melting into tall windows framed in drapery, an impressive desk that commands the center of Father’s study. A younger version of myself hovers on the threshold of the doorway. Through the crack of the partially open door, I watch Father pen a message, nerves tumbling through my stomach. I know the rules. I am not to disturb Father in his study, but this is important. Lifting my hand, I knock.
His head snaps up, and he frowns. “Sarai. What have I told you about interrupting my work?”
I can see that child so clearly. Her wobbling chin. The uncertainty of entering Father’s office despite the need to burrow into his embrace. It’s not fair, she thinks.
But she takes a breath—for courage—and shuffles forward. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I know I’m breaking the rules, but I wanted to ask you something.”
“Where is Ibramin?” He looks beyond me, face grooved in displeasure. “Shouldn’t you be practicing?”
“I already finished my lesson for the day. Papa—”
He rings a small bell on his desk. Two guards enter the study. “Sir?”
“Please take Sarai back to her rooms.” He returns to his correspondence, not bothering to watch as I’m led away into the hall.
The image changes.
“Papa?” I sit up in bed, blankets clutched to my skinny chest. The darkness of my bedroom looms before me. “Papa!”
Quickened footsteps. I turn toward the door in relief, tears wetting my cheeks, but it is Fahim who steps inside, not Father. My heart sinks.
“Another nightmare?” my brother asks as he crosses toward my bedside. He’s young, but not for much longer, toeing the threshold between boy and man.
“Where’s Papa?”
“He’s busy, Sarai.” Fahim wipes my face with the sleeve of his robe. “Lie down. I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep.”
For the third time, the image alters. I’m running toward the dining room, pale columns flickering past. The moment I burst through the doors, King Halim turns toward me from his seat at the table, expression twisted in frustration. “You’re late.”
Amir and Fahim hunch further over their plates, attempting to make themselves as small as possible.
I dab the sweat from my brow, struggling to stifle my heavy breathing. “I’m sorry, my lesson ran long—”
“Sit down,” the king snaps.
I look to my brothers for support, but they know what happens when one speaks against the king: nothing good.
My mouth clamps shut. I take my seat, as instructed, and I do not speak for the rest of the meal.
Sarai, please. You have to push through!
Why does that sound like Notus? Why would I conjure his voice now, of all times? Except I realize that the dining room looks different, as though I view it through a filter, fogged behind lost time. The smell of damp is real. It doesn’t belong to the image spread before me.
Notus. The labyrinth.
I blink, and the dining room vanishes.
The bull stands at the opposite end of the shadowy passage, its bulky shoulders and towering height filling the space. Yellow eyes boil like feverish pustules. In them, I see its sorrow and its wrath, this immortal unfairly imprisoned through no fault of its own. An old pain rises in me, a kaleidoscope of memories emerging from the earth in which I’d buried them, and Father at the core of it all.
“Not now, Sarai.”
“A princess must never show weakness.”
“Go.”
“Stop that.”
“What did I tell you?”
“I don’t have time for this.”
Steam is expelled from the creature’s wide, slitted nostrils. For a moment, I’m almost certain I glimpse something human in its face.
A sharp crack of air blasts the bull backward. It rears, hooves wheeling, and charges the South Wind, who has appeared at the other end of the corridor, dripping sweat and looking incredibly relieved to find me unharmed. In seconds, he smothers the beast with a column of wind that whips and shreds and flays, immobilizing it briefly. My hair tangles in the rush of moving air, and I have to brace myself against the wall.
You must conquer the darkness of your own heart if you wish to escape the labyrinth alive.
Of course. I’m not sure how I didn’t see it sooner. This is no beast, I realize. It is a manifestation of our shadow selves, what we become when we allow others to dictate our character, our fate. So long as I continue to run, it will give chase. I will hit yet more walls. I will find my way barred. I will travel this maze end to end, my mind torn apart in attempting to rid myself of all the brokenness, the woe and resentment and bitterness, the agony and the strife.
I glance at the violin in my hand as the South Wind continues to pummel the bull with his power to no avail. Music is my protection, but ultimately, even if we kill the beast, it won’t help us escape the labyrinth. I think… I think I discovered Fahim’s violin to remind myself that I’m still here, still fighting. I had dreams, once. I believed they’d died with my brother, but really, they’d died with me.
Because I did not fight for myself. Because I accepted my circumstances. Because I allowed others to write my beginning and middle and end.
“Sarai, help me!”
Notus won’t be able to maintain that power indefinitely. He is waiting for my performance, the creation of melody and countermelody that will build some contraption strong enough to trap the bull a second time. But as his eyes meet mine through the dim, I gently tuck the violin beneath my chin and play not Fahim’s melody, but the pain and grief locked away inside my heart. The music that is Sarai, just Sarai.
The South Wind cuts at the creature to no avail, his features twisted in horror. “What are you doing?” He swears and blasts the beast against the wall. It slams into the stone with a bellow.
“It’s all right, Notus.” I have held on tightly all this time. I clutched what was and what could have been . But we have only now. For the first time in years, I understand what it means to let go.
“What about the other melody? We need to confine the beast!” The words tear free of his heaving chest.
Briefly, I pause my performance. “Notus.” His petrified eyes hold mine, swimming with confusion. “It’s all right,” I say again, softly.
Taking advantage of the distraction, the beast kicks out with a hind leg, catching the South Wind in his lower back. He falls forward with a bark of pain. The bull lunges, narrowly evading the sphere of wind Notus hurls at it. The strike of hooves on stone descends. I smile and let it come.
Here, in the black depths of the labyrinth, as I play out the darkness inside myself, I feel as if I have clarity for the first time. Do I continue to deny the truth of my heart? Do I reject myself, as I have done since childhood? Or do I welcome, shelter, embrace?
The beast is steps away. I understand, now, the harm I have inflicted upon myself in continuing to perpetuate the narrative Father wrote for me. A story that dictated no room for error, exploration, or authenticity. But I have the power to rewrite my story. I will scrub the manuscript of perfection and precision. I grant myself permission to be messy, open, raw, vulnerable.
Lowering myself onto my knees, Notus screaming in horror, I close my eyes and let the darkness swallow me.