Chapter 9 #2
The wall has kept pace. Again. I try keeping my head turned, looking directly at it as I shove a foot out in front of me, and manage to put an entire pace between myself and it.
But when I face forward, then look back again, the wall has followed once more.
Panic sparks, heating me from the inside. What’s happening here? I can’t tell if the wall is moving, or if I’m not.
I keep walking, keep trying. I don’t know what else to do. But ten minutes later, a flash of brown draws my eye, and I stop, numbness trickling down my arms and collecting in my fingertips.
The lunch sack lies before me. The same one I tossed aside and walked away from fifteen minutes ago.
A sick feeling crawls up my throat, the birdsong turning harsh in my ears. I skirt around the fallen sack and break into a run. I can not be trapped here, going in circles without ever turning.
But clearly, I am, because ten minutes later, I pass the lunch sack again. This time, my feet catch in my hems, and I go down hard in the moss. Every bruise on my body shrieks in protest, but I just lie there, my thoughts whirling like the paper pinwheels Evelyn used to make when we were children.
It’s my first day in this labyrinth. My third hour. And already, I’ve been defeated by a wall.
“Help me, Ishanna,” I whimper, my hands finding my pendant. “Show me the way out of here.”
The metal warms faintly. I clutch at it, soaking up the goddess’s grace.
Branches shift overhead, sunlight lancing down to sting my eyes, but I ignore the assault.
If I just keep faith, Ishanna will protect me.
She won’t let me die like this, stuck in an eternal loop.
She won’t let me starve while a sinister wall chases me into eternity.
I pray. And pray. Until my nervous system calms and my breathing relaxes.
When I feel ready, I push myself upright. Flecks of moss cling to my palms, and I wipe them on my dress, then peer out at the forest. This time, I examine every branch, every trunk, every rounded stone and mossy hillock. I scour for any clues I might have missed.
My gaze slides across the scenery and stops.
I squint. There.
A tiny, arched door beckons in the distance. It’s made of wood and set into a tree trunk, nearly camouflaged by the bark, but the longer I look, the surer I become. That’s definitely a door, complete with a brass knob. And doors all open to somewhere. I just have to get to this one.
I slant a furtive glance at the wall behind me. Before, when I kept it in sight and took a step, it didn’t move. Only when I look away does it shift, trailing after me without ever letting me see it follow.
Maybe I can use that. If I keep the wall in sight and walk backward, it might hold still. I might actually get somewhere.
I try. With my back aimed at the distant door, I set out in reverse. The wall recedes, then recedes some more, and my heart lifts. Am I actually making progress? It seems so.
My breath saws in and out, harsh in the quiet. Then I realize. It’s…very quiet. Too quiet. A heavy silence flows between the trees, much like the one that blanketed my garden before the Shadow showed up.
My belly clenches, threatening to reject the meal I just choked down. Goddess, he’s coming, isn’t he? I can feel it. Not only in the thickening silence, but in the hairs that lift from my arms, the frantic hum that awakens in my bloodstream.
Run, it whispers.
A twig cracks, off to my left. My entire body jolts, but I can’t risk looking to see. If I break my view of the wall, I’ll have to start all over. Even now, its shadows ripple as if they’re laughing. Jeering at me.
Another crack rings through the forest, quickening my stride. I’m half-running, half-stumbling now, my hems tangling around my feet as I lurch backward.
I kick at my skirts with every step, but even when I hoist them, they still hamper my efforts. Goddess, was Amriel right? I hate to admit it—even to myself—but running backward in this dress is nearly impossible. Suddenly, dying for the sake of floor-length hems sounds like a humiliating way to go.
I hurry faster, a scream coiling in my throat, my hamstrings burning as I flee in reverse. Then an angry roar shatters the quiet.
Adrenaline punches through me. The Shadow is close. A minute away, at most.
I fall, clamber upright, and run again. Somehow, I manage to keep the wall in my sightline, my eyes watering with the strain. I don’t care if I ultimately crash backward into the door, I’ll do anything to reach it before the Shadow reaches me.
Another roar splits the air, close enough now to vibrate in my chest. A whimper squeezes through my rapidly narrowing airway, because the Shadow sounds maddened. Feral. Like now that he’s caught my scent, he can think of nothing else.
Sounds erupt in the forest around me—branches snapping, leaves flailing, the thunder of something massive tearing through the undergrowth.
Panic thrashes beneath my skin. The shadowy wall has faded into the distance, but I don’t know whether I’ve escaped its influence yet.
My foot catches on a root, and I stumble. When I scramble up again, a dark blot fills my vision, off to my left. The Shadow, just seconds away now.
Instinct takes over, my gaze snapping sideways. The Shadow charges on all fours, his claws tearing at the ground, his golden eyes empty of anything but hunger.
For a split second, hesitation binds me to the earth. Surely he’ll recognize me—I’m his mate. But the goblin I know has vanished. In his place is a monster, fangs snapping, froth dripping from his jaws.
Run, my mind screams.
I spin on my heel and bolt.
I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t see the door from earlier, and now I flee blindly. I know nothing but my burning legs, my screaming lungs. That at any moment, sharp teeth will sink into my nape and snap my spine in two.
My frantic gaze ricochets in every direction. I need safety. A place to hide. My attention snags on a nearby tree, where a tangle of roots rises above the moss. A gap beckons between them—an underground hollow, just large enough to admit me. Small enough to keep the Shadow out.
I veer toward it, my legs pumping. Another roar. Heat blasts against my neck. He’s behind me, now. He’s right there.
I dive for the roots. My satchel lifts, becomes weightless. It follows me through the gap, but I don’t make the plunge cleanly. Something catches at my leg, claws raking down my thigh.
A scream erupts from my throat. I land hard in the dirt and roll sideways, shielding myself beneath a cage of roots. Claws scrabble overhead. Soil rains across my face, stinging my eyes.
Goddess. I have only seconds before he breaks through. I need out. I need to escape this deadly maze.
I grope in my satchel, searching past the orb, then the vial. The Shadow roars as I yank the gyre free.
His clawed hand punches through, slamming into the soil beside me. I yelp, my hands shaking so violently I can barely hang on to my means of escape.
“Away,” I scream. “Take me away.”
Nothing happens.
Razor-tipped claws rummage in the dirt. I try to wriggle away from their reach, but the space is too small, too tight. My throat closes up. Ishanna, please don’t let me die like this.
I shake the gyre, hoping to jar it to life. Then Amriel’s words come rushing back. I have to think about leaving. Focus.
My slippery hands tighten around the metal. My leg is on fire, hot wetness seeping from my leg and soaking my ruined skirts, but I block it out. My mind fills with a castle made of glowing pink trees. With its stupid, intolerable king and his stupid, intolerable white hair.
Light flares between my fingers, illuminating the soil just inches from my face.
Relief floods me, but it doesn’t last, because the Shadow hooks his claws into my skirts and yanks.
I go sliding across the dirt, bumping over roots as he drags me toward the opening.
I lash out with a foot, which only increases his efforts.
But my wanting increases, too. I need to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. The castle. Amriel. Safety. Please.
Light pours from the gyre as reality buckles. The Shadow roars his fury, but the sound goes whooshing away, sucked into a vacuum as I go tumbling through the void.
Nothingness screams past.
A few moments later, I slam into solid ground, the impact driving the breath from my body. For long heartbeats, I can’t move, can’t think. I can only lie there, gasping like a beached fish, my leg throbbing with a fiery ache.
Then air spears into my lungs, reinflating my chest. My surroundings come to me in pieces—the soft, uneven floor beneath me. The ripple of blue light across the ceiling. Late afternoon rays, slanting through the window, and the scent of greenery, thicker here than in the Wildwood.
Because I’ve made it. I’m back in Amriel’s castle. Back in my room.
A sob wrenches from my throat, relief and terror tangled together. Violent shivers wrack my body, and I don’t resist. They’re proof that I survived.
When the tremors finally run their course, I raise my head. The gyre still hums between my fingers, its rings spinning lazily. All except the innermost one, which sits dark and inert. A black film coats the metal.
I frown at it, but I’ve used it up, of course. I went into the labyrinth, got precisely nowhere, injured myself in the process, and burned up one of my escape attempts.
My head thunks back down, my battered body going limp enough to meld with the floor. I have only two more return journeys left. Two more chances to reach the hourglass.
But after what just happened, I know they won’t be nearly enough.