Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
The gods require royal blood in the week before the Reaping.
Not much. Just a drop. A whisper of devotion to prove we remember who we belong to. A symbol, nothing more—unless you believe the stories that say it binds our will to theirs. And even then, you’d have to believe the gods are listening.
I don’t.
My father derides this rite as superstition and refuses to attend because even he cannot make standing at my side when my blood is taken look like strength.
So this morning I follow Mallen through Threnos’s streets before dawn, our boots crunching through the splintered remnants of yesterday’s celebration—trampled garlands, wine-stained ribbons, crushed wax from guttering lanterns.
The scent of char and old flowers clings to the air like a warning.
The capital is still asleep. Everything is hushed, bruised violet in the half-light.
The shrine at the labyrinth’s entrance must be visited at first light. That’s when the dark is thinnest. That’s when the gods remember.
“You’re quiet,” he says.
I glance sideways. His cloak is dusted in pale ash, the hem dark with dew. The man is nearly a shadow beside me, all stillness and steel. But his eyes don’t match his body. They’re restless, flickering toward me like he’s scanning for wounds he isn’t allowed to dress.
“I don’t have anything to say,” I murmur.
He nods once. Accepts it without flinching. And that’s the worst of it—how easy it is to be angry near him. How he gives me space to bleed and doesn’t demand I sew myself back together. I hate how grateful that makes me.
The sun is rising when we reach the steps, its midnight paling into pinks and golds.
The entrance to the labyrinth is older than the palace, older than the city itself. A circle of worn stone descends like an amphitheater into the earth, each ring lower than the last, until it meets the iron gates that seal off the labyrinth mouth. And above those gates stands the statue.
She’s twice my height, cloaked and hooded, one arm raised in warning. The other holds a curved blade, rusted at the tip where generations of offerings have dripped. Her face is lost beneath the cowl, only the faint suggestion of features beneath the veil of weathered stone.
The gods have no faces. Only hungers.
I step forward, pulling off my glove. My palm is already marked—my father made sure of that, slicing it open in front of the court like the ceremony had meaning. I press the cut against the rusted blade and feel the sting as fresh blood joins the stains of centuries.
It’s always cold here. Even in summer, even when the festival fires are still smoldering in the streets behind us. This place belongs to something older. Something that doesn’t care for the sun. And this year, it seems darker than before. Less stable. Like it too is changing.
Mallen waits beside me, silent. Watching.
“I thought you didn’t believe,” he says softly.
“I don’t,” I say. “I know how to follow orders.”
He hums low in his throat. Not quite agreement. Not mockery either.
We linger.
The gates are sealed shut by thick iron vines—interlocking curves like thorns or talons, impossible to bend by mortal hands. A faint shimmer pulses behind them. The magic of the Reaping hasn’t awakened yet. But it will.
This is the tenth Reaping I’ve endured.
I know its rules and rituals—or what they’ve always been until now. I know what waits beyond those gates. And I know what they say about the monster in the labyrinth.
Mallen shifts, not touching me, but close enough that I feel it.
That low hum beneath his skin. The restless containment.
It radiates off him like heat from a furnace its keeper forgot to extinguish.
There’s always been an unnamed pull contained within him—a darkness that’s luminous, like a night lit by too many stars.
I’ve spent years not letting myself look too closely.
But here, near the labyrinth, it dazzles. And I look.
Heavens, I look.
Darkness stirs beneath my skin—burning, silent, restrained.
My magic. It shouldn’t be surfacing, not yet, not until the Reaping begins in earnest. But here, at the threshold, it coils like smoke in my veins.
A presence more felt than seen, pressing up against the wards that bind it, the way water presses against glass.
It doesn’t burn. It hums. Not in pain. In anticipation.
It remembers this place and the people who perished.
It remembers the gates and the gods that bound it. And though it’s leashed, it wants out.
We look at the iron bars too long. Like they’re a nightmare that will not let us wake.
“Have you ever gone in?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer at first. His jaw tenses. “You know I have.”
“Will the gates open?”
He finally looks at me, and shadows twist through his sharp features. Not cruel. Not tender. Just dark. Old. There.
“If you ask them to.”
I pull my glove back on, fingers tight, throat tighter.
The stillness between us isn’t still at all.
Not really. It’s laden with what we do not say but both feel.
It’s stirring, disturbed, as if it’s an ocean whose smooth surface conceals turbulent currents in its depths.
My heart beats not from habit, nor of its own accord.
My father’s words still echo behind my ribs, bitter and poisonous.
You are a girl with no choice left but one.
You belong to your bloodline. To the court. To me.
You owe me.
But standing here, with Mallen, I don’t feel small. I feel dangerous. Not because the chains are gone. The Reaping still waits and the gods still count, yet I can place my next step where I choose and watch the pattern change. Even the possibility is new, and I intend to see how far it carries me.
The wind shifts—barely a breath—but it lifts a lock of hair across my cheek, and I don’t brush it away. The moment is balanced on a blade’s edge. One move could break it. Or change everything.
“Thank you,” I say.
He frowns. “For what?”
“For not trying to fix it.”
He nods. So simple.
“I’m not here to mend you, Azhara.” His voice is steady. Constant. “I’m here to make sure no one else breaks you.”
The way he says it is tender and terrifying. Not a promise. A certainty. A warning.
A shadow moves at the top of the steps, and I glance up just in time to see the priestess who oversees the shrine as she turns away. She’s always here for the blood. For the prayers. But she leaves us alone now, her white robes catching the wind as she slips back toward the palace walls.
The gods have no faces. But their servants know when not to interfere.
We are alone at the labyrinth’s entrance.
I should walk away. The offering is done. Dawn has broken. There’s nothing left to say. But I don’t move. And neither does he.
Mallen watches me with that impossible patience. The kind that isn’t passive at all—it’s feral, coiled, waiting for permission. It burns through his stare, in every little glance he gives me. Not lust. Something hungrier.
“I hate this,” I say at last.
He nods.
“I hate the Reaping.”
He nods again.
I take a breath, and it comes out crooked. “But I hate being afraid more.”
He exhales. And inclines his head.
The silence stretches. I let it.
The cold sinks deeper now that the ritual is over. My blood still stains the shrine blade. A single droplet trails from my wrist, winding down the curve of my palm, catching at the edge of my dress. I don’t wipe it away. The gods are greedy. Let them take what they want.
A gull cries high above the palace walls, ragged and sharp. In the clearing below the statue, the wind shifts, drawing through the iron bars of the labyrinth gate. It makes a low sound—half breath, half sigh.
“I used to fear this place,” I say.
Mallen doesn’t look at me. “You still should.”
“I don’t.”
He glances down, eyes unreadable. “Then you’ve forgotten what waits inside.”
“No,” I murmur. “I learned to bleed slower.”
His eyes narrow, barely. His jaw ticks, just. The flicker of understanding that flashes over his face is not gentle, nor comforting, but it is real.
He sees me—as he’s always seen me. A girl gifted violence for a spine, who has the discipline to hold it back.
A woman who could become ruin, if I chose to stop pretending.
The princess who beat Darian without blinking, not the daughter my father kept in velvet cages.
I am not soft. I am not tame. I am not afraid of monsters.
The rusted gate looms in front of us, every bar twisted into a shape that suggests movement—like barbs mid-thrash, like teeth about to bite.
The shimmer of the royal seal is barely visible now, but its presence pulses behind my eyes, crawling down my spine like a thought I didn’t choose.
It’s old magic. Labyrinth magic. And it’s waking. Maybe it’s changing.
I step closer, until the iron is only inches from my skin.
“Azhara,” Mallen says behind me, a warning curling through my name.
“I’m not touching it,” I say.
But I could.
I could press my fingers to the lock and know if it pulses for me.
I could speak the names they gave me at my first Reaping and see if the gates answer.
I could offer more than blood.
But I don’t.
The power is in the restraint.
The clearing is still empty but for us. The priestess has retreated. The guards won’t come until midday. No one is meant to witness this hour. This half-light. This soft shift between sleep and memory.
The wind cuts colder now, curling around my bare wrist, biting through the fabric at my throat.
The amphitheater clearing is still steeped in the dawn, but the line of sun is creeping up over the palace behind us, gilding the edges of the highest stones.
Soon, the labyrinth will be fully awake. Soon, the Reaping will begin.
I remember my first one. I was ten. The first trial drowned in blood. The next year, the screams lasted longer than the fire. They told me not to look away.
I didn’t.
I watched. I learned.
No one ever survives the labyrinth.
“I dreamed about this place last night,” I say. “I’ve never dreamed of the labyrinth before.”
His shoulders shift almost imperceptibly. “What did you see?”
“Nothing. I was alone.”
“That’s not nothing.”
I shake my head. “It was dark. I knew I was inside, though I could barely see anything. I stayed still and something moved. Something came.”
Mallen doesn’t respond right away. Doesn’t try to soften it.
Finally, he says, “You stayed still?”
“Yes.”
“That’s how it finds you.”
I nod. “I know.”
The wind picks up again, funneling through the circular steps and catching the edge of my cloak. I don’t reach to fix it. I let the cold bite. I let the gods see I’m not afraid of a little pain. I’ve lived with worse.
Mallen shifts beside me, his voice quiet now. “That dream wasn’t just a dream.”
“I know.”
“Something’s changing.”
I don’t ask how he knows. I can feel it too. The labyrinth’s breath is heavier this year. It’s hunger more awake. The seal on the gate pulses once, faint but real, like the monster caged inside just turned in its sleep.
“No one’s ever made it to the final trial,” I murmur. “Everyone else died in an arena before they went into the labyrinth.”
Mallen’s expression doesn’t change. But I see his dark eyes darken further. “They won’t make it through this year either.”
He says it like a fact. Like a warning. Like the Reaping is already rigged, and the ten men from Larksbind have no hope. Like their prince is leading them to certain death.
A glint of rose-gold catches on the statue’s blade, and I pause. It’s the dawn—it must be—but for a moment, the edge gleams wet, like fresh blood rather than rust. I blink, and it’s gone. Just morning light on old iron. Still, an unpleasant cold slides down my spine.
“We should go,” I say, my voice quieter than I intended.
He inclines his head. He doesn’t look back at the statue, doesn’t ask what I saw. He knows better. We scale the stone steps together, side by side, and the wind does not follow. It stays behind us, caught in the ribs of the labyrinth, as if reluctant to let us leave.
The streets are still empty when we reach them. No carriages yet. No bells. Just the abandoned aftermath of celebration, scattered like bones across the flagstones. I sidestep a broken wine cup, its lip stained red, and brush my fingers against the wall beside me for balance.
Mallen doesn’t speak, but his nearness speaks for him. Every step he takes is perfectly matched to mine. Not dominating. Not deferent. Just...aligned.
I feel him look at me, once. I don’t return it. I don’t need to. His gaze is a gravity I’ve already surrendered to—and it steadies me more than any wall beneath my hand.
“Why do you come with me? Every year?” I ask, finally turning to him. “You could send your guards instead. I don’t understand why you insist on this.”
“I don’t take orders from your father,” he says simply.
“Everyone takes orders from my father.”
His gaze settles on mine. His eyes are so dark in the shadow of his hood that they look like they’re brown or black or a color far colder than the green I know them to be.
“Because you are here,” he says. “That’s why I come.”
He says it like it’s a truth he doesn’t need to defend. Like it’s reason enough.
And maybe it should be. But I’ve heard too many pretty lies dressed up as loyalty. I’ve seen too many promises rot before they bloomed.
“Do you make a habit of following girls into holy places at dawn?” I ask, a brittle edge to the words.
His mouth curves—barely.
“Only the dangerous ones.”
We don’t speak again until the palace rises into view, its pale towers catching the dawn like spears of light. The silence is no longer quiet. It hums with a different tune—one that’s low and rising and refuses to be suppressed.
I stop. So does he. His face is inches from mine, the hood shadowing his sharp cheekbones. Tension knots his jaw; I see the effort it takes not to move.
Not to reach.
Not to claim.
“Your father wouldn’t approve of more,” Mallen says at last.
“No,” I reply. “He wouldn’t.”
Another pause passes.
“That’s not a no.” He presses his lips together.
“Maybe it should be,” I whisper.
His eyes search mine, his green and gleaming in the shifting light. “If that’s what you want, why don’t you run?”
I shouldn’t answer. I shouldn’t say anything. But I do.
“Because I’ve already been caught.”
It happens slowly. Deliberately. His hand brushes mine—just enough to ground me, not enough to risk being seen. His fingers curl, faintly, as if asking permission.
I don’t pull away.
We walk the rest of the distance like that—never looking at each other, never touching fully, but tethered all the same.
When we reach the back gate of the palace, he lets go first.
He doesn’t speak. Neither do I.
We say nothing, but in the silence, I hear myself making a choice.