Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
There are no celebrations for the final trial. Starsfall holds its breath. The crowd is somber—tense, reverent, as though the ground itself has decided to mourn. No one has ever reached the third trial. The Reaping has never allowed it.
The steps form an amphitheater that descends in solemn rings, each tier etched into the bones of the earth, as if the land itself bears witness to every trial it consumes.
Moss crawls between the stones, dark and thick as old blood, and at the lowest point, the iron gates yawn open like the jaws of some slumbering god.
And above it all looms the statue—twice my height, cloaked and faceless, one hand raised in warning, the other gripping a curved blade forever rusted by the offerings of the dead. She is the Reaping made stone, and she watches us all.
The tributes step forward beneath that eerie silence, and awe stirs like smoke through the gathered watchers.
Their attention finds Darian first. He bows, grinning, drinking in their stunned devotion.
He’s turned their opinions inside out. Rewritten everything they believed.
In a few short weeks, he’s changed the kingdom. Changed me.
The Larksbind men are like carved obsidian—still, dark, unreadable. Every motion is purposeful. Assured. As if survival isn’t a hope, but a fact already written.
Darian finds my gaze. That smile again. Warm, effortless, meant for me. The kind that silences the world and makes you believe in foolish things. It fits him too well. I hate how much I like it.
I descend the dais slowly. I can feel Mallen’s gaze on me, scorching the skin between my shoulder blades. The weight of him is unbearable and constant. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Doesn’t soften.
I don’t turn, but I know what expression is on his face. I’ve seen that flicker in his eyes too often lately—longing wrapped in control, jealousy concealed by practiced calm. A silent battle behind every breath. If this is another test, I don’t know what I’m meant to prove.
“Ignore him,” Darian murmurs, close enough for only me to hear.
“He’s staring.”
“Let him. He can’t stop us. And he can’t hear what matters.”
“Did he say anything?”
Darian’s smile sharpens. “He’s hoping that the labyrinth will do his work for him.”
The words land heavily.
No one has ever reached the labyrinth, let alone survived it.
And if Darian does, Mallen will be waiting for him.
The trial’s rules are deceptively simple: find the center, retrieve the banner.
The entrance is plain—a tunnel carved into the rock, no twists yet, no traps. But the danger isn’t at the door.
They say real horrors wait beneath. That the walls are impossibly thick, enchanted, unyielding, and the paths wind and fracture like a spider’s web. They say you forget time down there. Light too. And yourself.
Men say it shifts.
Not always. Not obviously. But enough. Enough to ensure no map can be trusted, no route repeated. It’s almost arrogant, the way it changes—like it knows it doesn’t have to do more than confuse you. That confusion is fatal.
Then there are the traps. Mallen said they’re few—but devastating.
Lethal, if he or my father have anything to do with it.
The rumors whisper of what waits beneath: not just machinery or spell work, but a feral instinct curled in the dark.
A presence that stalks the shifting halls with unnatural cunning, ancient and ravenous.
No one knows what it is. Only that it never leaves a body behind and its terror haunts the dreams of children and men alike.
Except Mallen. He isn’t afraid.
Darian, by contrast, still seems untouched by fear. He stands beside me like this is a midsummer festival, not a death sentence. His hair gleams where the sun strikes it. His smile never dims. That pale blue tunic is deliberate—it makes his eyes brighter, more innocent.
He steps closer. “You didn’t think I came without a plan, did you?”
”What plan?”
“One that lets me win the Reaping and carries you clear of Starsfall. Alive. Safe. Free from your father.”
I tense. The intimacy of his hand brushing my cheek is dizzying, too tender for the battlefield we’re on. For a moment, there’s nothing else—no crowd, no danger, just his eyes, his certainty. The way he looks at me like I’m not a prize but a future.
“You care about me,” I murmur, breath caught.
He leans in, voice hushed. “Azhara, this ends with either Mallen or me alive, not both. He’ll never let you go, and I won’t leave you behind unless you’ve already chosen him. But until you do, I’ll fight for you.”
His words leave a sharp ache in my chest. I don’t want Mallen hurt.
And gods, I know Mallen’s keeping things from me.
But Darian…there’s a polish to him that catches too much light.
A charm too deliberate, too well-honed. A mask so smooth I can’t see the cracks—but I know they’re there.
He always says exactly what I want to hear. And that’s what makes me flinch.
But at least he’s honest about wanting me.
“You promised me time.”
He nods, this time slower. “And I meant it. But time’s gone. The Reaping ends today. Your father—or Mallen—won’t let us walk away. After the labyrinth, we leave Starsfall. Larksbind will be waiting.”
My breath catches.
They’re going to flee. It makes sense. They’re outnumbered here. If they run, they can choose the battlefield and shape their odds. It’s strategic. Smart.
I glance back—Mallen is conferring with a palace guard in low tones, jaw tight. His gaze hasn’t left me. There’s a wound in that look. Pain, and no longer hidden. The quiet control that has always caged him—it’s fraying. And I’m the one who’s pulling it loose.
“Choose me,” Darian says, voice quieter now, but insistent. “Not because you’re afraid. Because you want to. Because I want you.”
My heart slams against my ribs.
He means it. He’s certain. He’s asking.
And I’m terrified. Not of him—but of choosing.
Of being wrong. Of giving my yes and watching the ground open beneath me anyway.
I can’t undo this. I can’t run back. And yet—I want to move forward without asking permission.
For once—just once—I want to choose something before it’s chosen for me. I want to want.
I nod.
It’s more than agreement. It’s defiance. A vow. A quiet rebellion whispered in the breath between heartbeats. For once, I’m not a daughter or a pawn or a prize in someone else’s war. I’m a girl who wants, who chooses, who claims her own ruin. And this, whatever it becomes, is mine.
Relief floods me, sharp and sweet. I’ve made so few decisions that were truly mine. This one is monumental—and mine alone. It tastes like freedom. It tastes like the life I’ve never been allowed to live.
“There’ll be men ready near the exit,” Darian says. “Meet me after sunset. We won’t have long.”
“Mallen?” My voice is barely audible.
“I’ll handle him. Don’t worry.”
He steps back, offering a courtly bow—every inch the noble hero performing for the crowd. It’s a perfect mask, crafted to hide everything we’ve just decided. The escape. The betrayal.
The choice.
The silence that follows swallows everything.
The world forgets how to move.
Even my own heart hesitates, as if it knows it has no right to beat for anyone now.
Tension knots in my throat. The moment fractures under its own pressure—too loud, too still. I am like a thread pulled taut past breaking, caught between the past I betrayed and the future I dared to choose. There’s no turning back. No undoing this.
I’ve made my choice. And now, I will carry it.
I back away from Darian in a daze. I’m too numb to feel and too bewildered to think. My feet move of their own accord, despite the heaviness weighing them down and the weariness pulling at my bones like anchors in the tide.
I turn. And my eyes meet Mallen’s.
He isn’t jealous. He isn’t angry.
He’s worse than that.
He’s empty. Still. Staring at me without a trace of emotion, like I’m the shattered remnants of a porcelain vase, worthy of being studied instead of understood.
Like he’s trying to find all the pieces of me he once knew and realizing, one by one, that I’ve broken them and can never be the same again.
I refuse to look away.
I walk toward him with my chin lifted, spine braced, and the smallest tremor in my hands tucked neatly into the folds of my cloak. This is what I chose. I have to remember that. I’ve got to if I’m going to pull this off. If I’m going to get Darian out alive.
“Princess,” he says quietly. No anger. No judgment. Just that word. Like it’s all I’ll ever be.
“Commander.” I take my place beside him and face the tributes.
The air is full of whispered prayers and unspoken fear. Their mouths shape hope like it’s currency, but we all know the gods don’t barter in mercy.
I whisper a prayer anyway. Not to the gods. To the part of me that still believes Darian might survive this.
Mallen watches the tributes with the same calm detachment I once mistook for strength. “Are you going to tell me what the two of you said?”
“He asked how I was after the fall,” I say, keeping my gaze forward. “I wished him luck. He didn’t ask me for help, and I haven’t offered him any.”
He nods slowly. His jaw tightens, but his posture stays rigid and cold. The only movement comes from his hands, which clench and unclench at his sides. “I hope your parting gave you what you need, Azhara.”
“He might survive.”
“No one survives the labyrinth,” he says.
Darian and the tributes move as one, stepping through the gates and descending into the yawning tunnel beneath the arena. Their footsteps echo like drumbeats in a funeral march.
I watch the rusting iron gate swing shut behind them, and listen to the long, aching groan of metal meeting metal—an old sound, and a final one.
“That’s not quite true, is it, Mallen?” I turn to him. His face darkens with each breath. “You’ve survived.”
He freezes.
Whatever he expected me to say, it wasn’t that.