Chapter 15 #2
The hedge shuddered. Just once, but enough that I felt it in my bones.
I couldn’t see much inside, beyond the shadowed entrance, but a vine on the outside thickened, thorns lengthening until they curved like claws.
Another section of wall bulged outward, then snapped back into place with a sound like breaking ribs.
The flowers, nightshade, I thought, or maybe hemlock, turned their faces toward us.
Tracked us. The maze wasn’t just alive. It was paying attention.
And somewhere in this fucking nightmare, Katarina was probably laughing her ass off, because she’d already won before we even stepped inside.
The hedges would do whatever she wanted.
Strangle. Poison. Crush. All she had to do was ask nicely, and every plant in there would be happy to oblige.
I scanned the sea of faces, searching for the one I desperately needed to see.
Vitoria would never be here. But Eda Mire might, if only to keep eyes off her notable absence.
Hunters clocked every witch’s whereabouts as often as they could.
Unfortunately, in the chaos of waving banners and shouting spectators, I couldn’t pick out her familiar form.
Wind whipped across the arena floor, carrying the scent of earth and something sharper: magic, thick enough to taste.
Wickett stepped ahead of me, talking over his shoulder. “We go for the center artifact. Logical choice.”
“Logical would be to refuse to take part in this spectacle and draw straws. Save the bloodshed.”
“Cowardice doesn’t suit you.”
“Fine. Then the logical choice is to take the first artifact we see, rather than taking one just because someone else wants it. But who am I to judge?”
Before he could respond, the Magistrate’s voice boomed across the arena, speaking directly to me and the Ripper. “Champions, you have earned first entry. Choose your path, and thus your item wisely. You won’t be able to see the crowd but worry not. They will have no problem seeing you.”
The magical ribbon connecting me and Wickett thrummed as we approached the maze entrance.
Three artifacts waited somewhere in this green hell: a crown, a blade, and a chalice.
We couldn’t even be certain what they did.
We just knew claiming one meant potential survival.
Above us, the crowd pressed against the viewing platforms like hungry beasts, their voices carrying down in waves of bloodlust and betting odds.
“Ten crowns says a witch dies first!”
“Go left.”
“Kill her!”
“The Ripper’s never lost a hunt!”
Charming. There was nothing quite like performing for an audience that would prefer to watch you die.
The hedges began shifting to create a narrow passage. Wickett stepped forward without hesitation, his hand resting on his blade hilt. “Stay close. Don’t touch anything unless I tell you to.”
“Don’t touch anything in a maze designed to kill us? Revolutionary strategy.” But I followed him into the green darkness anyway, because the alternative was letting the magical ribbon drag me. There was no time for a final look back at Calder. The branches swayed, and the opening closed behind us.
Thorns scraped against my arms as the walls pressed inward. The passage narrowed until Wickett’s shoulder brushed mine. More than anything, I needed Silas in the sky so he could direct me forward. But obviously the damn dragon circling above kept him away, because he was nowhere to be found.
“Everything’s a trap,” Wickett warned. “The trick is springing other people’s, while avoiding your own.”
“It might surprise you to learn I don’t need advice on how to stay alive. I’ve got a lifetime of experience. And the first rule of survival? Never waste an opportunity. We need to take advantage of our head start.”
The moment the words left my mouth, my mind went elsewhere. Back to a thought that had nagged me for days—though I had sensed enough to know I was afraid of the answer. Still, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about other head starts. Bigger ones. More important ones.
“Hasn’t this whole Mortalis given the Phoenix days to run? While we’re busy entertaining the masses, we’ve probably already lost her,” I said, trying to keep my voice casual as we navigated deeper into the darkness, pushing away the rippling bushes that covered half the path.
Wickett snorted. “You think like prey. Always assuming the hunted has the advantage.”
“Don’t they?” I asked, knowing he’d hate it.
He paused, slicing through a vine that crept across the ground.
“Not when the hunters are competent. While every eye in the city watches us play games, my father’s men are sweeping the streets.
Lower districts, abandoned buildings, the docks.
The Phoenix could be in chains right now, and we’d never know until this theater ends. ”
This much I already knew, truly. But hearing it made it worse. Vitoria could already be captured. Tortured. Dead. And here I was, tied up in a maze while the real hunt happened beyond the arena walls. The hunt I thought I’d signed up for.
“How many hunters are out there?” I pressed.
Wickett’s pace never faltered, but his eyes found mine all the same. “Curious question from someone who claims no personal interest in the Phoenix.”
I managed a passable eye roll, coming to a stop beside him as we reached a dead end. “I’m curious about everything that might keep me alive. Including whether this whole spectacle is just a distraction while the real work gets done.”
“Clever. But if you can’t keep your mind on surviving the next hour, I suggest you hand over your life now and save us all the trouble of watching you die slowly.
” He linked his fingers together and knelt down.
“It’s a waste of time to go backward. This wall is short enough to go over.
Place your foot in my hands, and I’ll boost you. ”
I drew back. “You have no idea how thick this wall is, or what’s on the other side. No fucking way am I letting you launch me into—”
“Then look first.” His tone suggested I was being deliberately obtuse. “I’ll lift you high enough to see over. If it’s manageable, you go. If it’s not, we find another route. Unless you’d prefer to waste more time debating?”
Bastard had a point.
“Fine,” I snapped. “But if there’s a pit of spikes on the other side, I’m haunting you for eternity. I will literally make camp under the bed you claim you don’t sleep in and ruin every single moment of the rest of your shitty life, hunter.”
“Noted.”
I placed my boot in his linked hands, gripping his shoulders for balance as he lifted me with infuriating ease. The top of the hedge came into view, but more walls beyond this one, taller ones, blocked any clear path forward. The branches here weren’t so dense I couldn’t jump to the other side.
“Well?”
“It’s passable. Barely.” I hated admitting it. “Boost me over.”
He didn’t wait for me to brace myself. Just launched me upward like I weighed nothing.
The branches reached for me as I cleared the top, thorns grazing my hair, vines snapping at my wrists but missing by inches.
Apparently, going over pissed it off. I hit the ground on the other side hard, landing square on my ass with enough force to bruise places I’d forgotten existed.
“Made it,” I shouted back, pushing myself up and spitting out a leaf.
Silence.
Then Wickett appeared above the hedge, airborne, clearing ten feet like it was nothing, and landed beside me without so much as a stumble.
Because of course he fucking did.
Something rustled in the bushes surrounding us. Not wind. Something... hunting.
“Move,” Wickett said, already heading down the passage that curved ahead of us.
But the path split twenty feet later. Left led up a hill, through what looked like older growth. Right sloped down into deeper darkness.
“Left,” I said immediately.
He didn’t even slow down. “Right. Darker surroundings are tactically—”
“Reckless when you’re facing an earth witch.” I grabbed his arm, forcing him to stop. “The older growth means deeper roots, stronger foundation. Katarina can collapse newer plantings, but the ancient stuff takes more power.”
“Everything here is new.”
“No, it’s magically grown by one of your father’s earth witches. Think about that.”
He stepped closer, looming over me. “I’m not taking magical advice from—”
“The only fucking witch in your presence? Again, so smart.”
A roar echoed from somewhere in the maze.
“Right then,” Wickett said, already moving down the darker path.
“I said left!”
“And I’m team leader.”
“Team leader?” I stopped walking, planting my damn feet, which yanked him backward. “When exactly did we vote on that?”
“When I claimed your life with a Hunter’s Promise. Everything about you belongs to me now, witch. Including your choices.”
“Glacies vinculum,” I snarled, drawing moisture from the damp earth beneath us. Ice formed around his boots, locking him to the ground. “Everything about me belongs to you? Funny. Right now, it looks like you belong to me.”
We stood there glaring at each other while precious seconds ticked away. The walls moved like waves in the sea, vines growing inward like grasping fingers.
“Let me go.”
I tsked, shaking my head. “Your anger is pissing off the maze. Say you’re sorry, hunter.”
“I’d rather rot in the dead vines. But you’re forgetting.” He yanked his arm down, forcing me to collide with his bulky chest. “If I can’t move, neither can you.”
The heat from his body made me pause, and from the way his breathing changed, he’d noticed. He brushed a curl out of my face, tangling his fingers in the hair at the back of my neck as he tugged, forcing me to look up at him. “Still think you’re in control, witch?”
He was supposed to be the threat. So why did my pulse forget the difference between fear and something far worse? This had to be a tactic.
“Fine,” I snapped, stepping away. “Right it is. But when Katarina turns this place into our tomb, don’t say I didn’t fucking warn you.”
We hurried down the sloping path, both mad but moving. The air grew damper, heavy with the scent of rich earth and something that made my magic stir restlessly. As if whichever witches the Magistrate had pulled from his offices were working overtime to remind the crowd why they should be feared.
“There,” Wickett pointed ahead where the path was completely blocked by a wall of twisted roots. “Can you—”
“Glacies vinculum,” I whispered, tugging on Silas’s power. Water spiraled around the root barrier, seeping into every crack and crevice. The liquid expanded in the wood until the barrier split with sharp cracks.
We pushed through the broken roots and into a wider chamber beyond.
“Useful,” Wickett acknowledged, though he sounded annoyed to admit it.
I shoved a branch out of my face, catching my breath. “I’m telling everyone you said that.”
He studied the ruined barrier. “How did you know the water would—”
“Because I pay attention to how things work instead of assuming I can just cut through my problems with a blade.”
“And why didn’t you use that tactic before I threw you over the last wall?”
“Because that hedge wasn’t going to kill us. These roots were actively trying to. I’m not wasting magic on convenience when I might need it for survival. Especially when we have no idea how long we’re going to be stuck in here.”
The crowd came alive. As promised, we couldn’t see them beyond some kind of magical haze above, but there was stomping and roaring and that was enough of a sign.
The others had undoubtedly joined the race.
Shouts of coordination came from behind us, then a roar that could only come from Marcus in beast form.
“Time’s up,” Wickett said, picking up his pace. “From here, it’s kill or be killed. No more arguing.”
We ran. And ran, letting our arms become shredded beneath the angry maze, keeping our emotions in check to keep the path as clear as possible.
On and on it went. Sharp left turns, steep declines, up one way only to find dead ends, just to turn the other way and be stopped again.
The hedge was shifting. Making it impossible to really get anywhere logically.
Even when we tried to map it out, things shifted too quickly, and we were lost again.
Beyond our walls, the crowd’s screams alluded to whatever the others were facing. The roars of excitement and bouts of disappointment came in an almost clockwork fashion.
Until we landed in a clearing we hadn’t found before.
Five paths branched out like the fingers of a dead hand before us. Five options. The walls here were thicker, twisted with thorns the size of daggers. But in the distance, barely visible through the fog rolling in, a crown waited on a pedestal.
All we needed to do was get the crown and then get the hell out of here. Let the others spill their blood. Except that wasn’t how this would really end.
Only one witch, one shifter and one hunter could walk away. The trial wasn’t the maze. It wasn’t the item we were about to choose. It was kill or be killed. If not in this nightmare, then another. Simple as that.
I took a step toward the center path, and the ground trembled.
“Wickett—”
The trembling intensified. Around us, the hedge walls began to groan and shift.
But this was different from the maze’s natural movement—violent, angry, like two opposing forces fighting for control.
Thorns grew from daggers to swords. Flowers bloomed that hadn’t been there moments before.
Beautiful, deadly things that smelled like rotting meat.
“Someone’s hijacking the maze,” Wickett breathed, pulling the second sword from his back. “Taking control from whoever built it.”
The five passages around us started to close. Not gradually. Violently. Branches crashed together like jaws snapping shut. The path we’d just taken sealed. And from somewhere in the maze came Katarina’s voice. “Found you, Rune Weaver.”
The ground split open beneath our feet.