Chapter 12
Sidney
A tunnel of rock yawned before me, darkness waiting to swallow us whole. Around me, candidates and their Devotions moved forward, some hesitant, others eager.
Mathias raised his voice. “Form a line.”
The candidates ahead of me shoved and elbowed each other, jockeying for position. One hissed and bared her fangs. I stayed back, letting the chaos surge past me, and settled at the end.
Finn was already lost in the maze’s depths. I’d find him. I had to.
One by one, they vanished into the dark. When my turn came, I stepped in without looking at Mathias.
The world dissolved with a lurch, becoming a nauseating tumble through an abyss. I hit the ground with a jarring thud, knees and palms scraping stone.
When the dizziness passed, one thought remained: Finn was somewhere in this maze, unable to hear danger.
Focus and observe. Analyze and adapt.
Drawing one of my daggers, I headed toward a bioluminescent mushroom. Its light barely reached a foot beyond its stem. I crouched in its weak halo, fumbling for the vial at my ribs. I uncorked the glass of rupture. Three drops dripped onto my blade. I slid it back into my leathers.
I took a slow shuffle forward, my free hand outstretched, and met the rough, cold surface of stone. Another step to the side, and the wall was still there. Soft moss sank beneath my fingertips before I felt the unyielding rock.
A low groan sounded from deep within the labyrinth, and the floor vibrated. The wall I was touching slid sideways with a grinding scrape, revealing a new, equally dark passage.
Three days. Survive, find Finn, and hope my disguise stayed intact. If Adelaide’s spell failed while Mathias watched through his scrying plate…
No. Stay alive first.
A scream echoed from somewhere in the distance—feminine, cut short. For a heartbeat, satisfaction flickered. One less rival to worry about.
A moment later, cold spread through my chest and down into my fingertips. The trials were already claiming victims.
I took the new corridor. Occasional sconces illuminated the path from rusted iron cages that held a luminescent blue crystal.
In the dim light, the moss glowed in lush patches.
It clung to rock where no moisture belonged.
The maze of forks seemed endless, but my decision was automatic: left, left, left.
I counted the lights to keep track of time, marking each one in my mind.
The walls shifted again and again. My stomach twisted each time. The grinding scrape of stone became my enemy as I lost all sense of where I’d started and how many hours had passed. Dread crept in, quiet and persistent.
A click sounded beneath my boot. I threw myself forward, rolling across the stone floor as sharpened spikes punched through the air where I’d been standing, their tips gleaming wet with something dark. The spikes retracted with a hiss and a click as the trap rearmed itself.
I released a weary sigh. Exhaustion dragged at my limbs, and my throat grew parched. How long had I been walking? Six hours? Eight? I tore open one of my ration bars and forced down a few dry bites, washing them with a swallow from my dwindling water supply.
Ahead, sound pierced the corridor. Not footsteps, but the indistinct murmur of voices.
I crept closer, then pressed myself against the wall and peered around the corner.
Lenore Fournier was backed into a corner of the next room, one of her devotees beside her.
Four creatures advanced on them. These monsters might have been human once, but now they advanced with movements too fluid.
They were pale, hairless humanoids with milky eyes, warped by long years in the dark.
Their elongated arms ended in claws that scraped the floor.
In the center of the room, glass containers glinted with crimson liquid on a stone pedestal.
Her companion gripped her wrist. “We can’t take them all. We need—”
With a shriek, the nearest creature struck. The devotee’s words dissolved into a wet gurgle as its claws tore out his throat. Blood sprayed across the stone in an arc as it ripped his head off.
Lenore’s hands shot up, and wind erupted from her palms. Two monsters flew backward, slamming to the ground with sickening thuds. Yet the other two lunged from the sides.
Her fist connected with the first creature’s face. The crack of breaking bone ricocheted down the hall. Its head pitched back, then rolled forward again. Its jaw hung at a wrong angle, but it kept coming.
“No.” Lenore’s voice cracked.
Her expression hardened as she lashed out in one final burst of desperation. Bone snapped. One creature lost an ear; another’s arm twisted backward.
The first monster’s claws clamped around her neck. I shivered as it ripped her flesh, silencing her scream.
Her mouth worked, desperate, but only blood spilled out. She convulsed, then went limp as they tore her apart and feasted on her innards.
I slipped backward, breath catching in my throat.
My boots barely whispered against the floor.
Every nerve screamed to run, but I forced myself to move slowly, silently.
Lenore’s death clung to me like smoke—not grief, not pity, just the brutal speed of it.
Her strength hadn’t mattered. Her power hadn’t saved her.
Years of training and countless drills on vampire weaknesses had been ingrained into my muscle memory.
None of it had prepared me for this.
My chest tightened. I kept moving down a different corridor, faster now. Every shadow made me flinch, but I pushed forward. Left, left, left. My legs ached, a dull throb that matched the pounding in my skull. The air down here was stale, pressing against my lungs with each breath.
I’d stopped twice to sip from my flask and eat a ration bar. All the while, I worried for Finn. He was wandering these same passages. Had he run into a pack of monsters as well?
My vision swam at the edges. Fatigue was truly setting in. Twelve hours had passed, maybe? Fourteen?
The corridors grew narrower. There was another scream ahead, this one male.
Closer. Was that Finn? I broke into a run, my caution abandoned.
The corridor opened into a wider chamber.
Two vampires lay shredded, blood still pooling beneath them.
Glass bottles glinted at the far end on another stone pedestal.
No, not Finn. Thanks be to Aetherius.
Two hairless creatures crouched over the corpses, their heads buried in the ravaged flesh. The wet sound of feeding filled the room. My stomach lurched. I swallowed hard, bile burning the back of my throat.
Behind me, something breathed. Wet. Rasping.
I spun, blade raised, my hand trembling despite my tight grip.
Another one of the humanoid monsters appeared, its head cocked at an unnatural angle.
Tattered clothes hung from its elongated frame.
When it opened its mouth, rows of needle teeth glinted in the sconce light. Ice flooded my veins at the sight.
It lunged.
I ran.
My leg muscles screamed in protest after hours of walking. The creature’s claws scraped against the stone behind me. I veered left, then right, lungs heaving, breath ragged.
The corridor cut off in a dead end. A stone wall loomed before me, moss covering part of its surface. I whirled around, pressing my back against it. The creature rounded the corner, straightened to its full height, and advanced with deliberate slowness.
The dagger felt laughably small in my grip as I held it in front of me. The tip wavered from the tremor of my hand.
The creature swiped, and I dodged left. Its claws scraped across my leather armor.
I wasn’t fast enough to avoid its second swipe. Claws grazed my upper arm, tearing through fabric and flesh.
Pain flared, bright and searing. I gasped and lashed out at it in return. The rupture-coated steel opened a gash along its arm, but the creature didn’t flinch.
It backhanded me. My skull cracked against stone, and the world tilted, vision bleaching at the edges. Warmth spilled down my temple, thick and slow. I wiped at it with trembling fingers.
There was throbbing behind my eyes, pulsing with every beat of my heart. The creature loomed, its shadow stretching, arm rising for the final strike.
I shoved my hand against the wall, trying to rise. My palm sank into something soft—moss.
The stone shifted beneath it, and I fell through the wall.
A magical sensation burned, stinging my skin with icy needles. I hit the ground on the other side. Renewed agony exploded through my arm and skull. I scrambled backward on my elbows, smearing blood on the floor.
I cast a frantic look around. The wall had been solid. My chest heaved, each breath sharp and ragged. Where is the monster?
The creature’s head pushed through the wall, its empty eyes fixed on me. It reached for me, claws extended.
The wall solidified around it with a squelching thwip.
The monster’s mouth opened in a silent cry.
Cracks spiderwebbed across its body, starting where the stone had reformed through it.
Parts began to fall away. An arm, its head, chunks of its torso, all hitting the ground with wet thuds.
Within seconds, it dissolved into black ichor.
I caught my breath, staring at the wall that had just saved my life. After wiping the blood from my face, I pressed my hand against the stone—solid, cold, unyielding. When my fingers brushed moss, the rock beneath it shifted.
I jerked my hand back. The moss. Yet I’d touched it before. I stared at my hand, at the faint tint of crimson coating it, then back at the moss. I placed my clean hand on another patch. Nothing. Then I wiped my forehead again and used my bloodied hand. The stone wavered.
Blood on the moss allows me to pass through the wall.
My head continued to ache with a dull throb. The bleeding had stopped, and to my relief, the heat of my dhampir healing kicked in.