CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
EMMERY
As they wandered the labyrinth, Emmery’s chest tightened with each of Destonne’s ragged breaths.
His hand in hers teetered on new territory, and held such fragile trust between them that, even as her fingers numbed from his firm hold, she didn’t complain.
Instead, she let him borrow her strength and Brennen offered his too with each brush against the King’s pant leg.
In her other hand she cupped her fire, clinging to its light and warmth like a final drink of water before a drought. It seemed the farther they travelled into the labyrinth, the more her powers dulled and her flame dwindled. Her heart raced and palms slickened with sweat as it only worsened.
The hallways of the fortress stretched on and each twist and turn led them in a circle of doom. Only after hours of trudging through the stone corridors did the air shift and a faint waft of smoke penetrate the dampness.
Tugging Destonne along behind her, Emmery’s pace quickened. In her pursuit of that promising warmth of fire, she rounded a corner, only for her legs to freeze. Destonne nearly bowled her over but steadied her by her shoulders. They both gawked at what lay ahead.
The labyrinth opened into a high-ceilinged room, illuminated by two massive basins of fire in each corner.
On the far end, a figure lounged in a ridiculously highbacked chair carved from obsidian, shiny enough for the flames to reflect off the surface.
As the stranger lifted their head, Emmery’s breath snagged.
For all she knew, it could have been Guardian Kaah.
The only identifiable difference was this Guardian’s gray cloak shielded its face, rather than Kaah’s parchment-coloured one.
This Guardian’s antlers spiked through its hood, and its body bowed in a predatory way.
As the Guardian clicked its claws together, Emmery’s skin pebbled and she became a statue purely from fear.
Thankfully Senka was nowhere to be seen.
“Welcome children of Deimos and Kahlia. I am Guardian Feylan,” it said. Its deep, smoky voice rang in Emmery’s mind as its grin of sharp canines threaded a cold chill up her spine. “Shall we begin?”
When she met the Guardian’s milky-white eyes, Emmery’s flame died out, and the unnerving stare seemed to fixate on her.
Only her.
“The rules are simple,” the Guardian said. “If you wish to pass, answer three riddles, but you must all answer one. Understood?”
The three glanced at one another. Destonne and Brennen wore stiff, determined expressions while tension welled in Emmery’s chest. However, it could be so much worse than riddles.
They could have to crawl across spikes, or dip themselves in acid.
A little mind game wouldn’t be so bad. That’s what she attempted to tell herself even as her racing heart wouldn’t slow.
“What if we guess wrong?” Emmery asked, a tremble in her voice.
“You may not pass,” the Guardian replied.
Destonne swallowed, the sound almost painful. “You send us back into the labyrinth?”
A grotesque toothy smile lit the Guardian’s face. “Until we decide if we want to play with you again.”
Brennen stepped forward and the Guardian gave him a warning glare. His paws froze, seemingly glued to the stone. “So, if we fail, we die?”
Guardian Feylan tilted their head. “Perhaps. I suggest you answer wisely, as you have one guess per riddle.”
Wow, that was really not the answer Emmery wanted to hear.
“We shall begin. The King of Asaella shall answer first.”
Emmery deduced the Guardian knew their identities from the blood they’d offered to enter, though the prospect suffocated her with new fear.
Destonne rolled his shoulders back and stretched his neck to the side as if he readied to wrestle the beast, not answer a silly riddle. “Very well,” he drawled. “Let’s have it.”
The fiery basins flickered and died down to a red-orange glow as the air stilled. A damp, musky smell that reeked of death and graves and skeletal remains engulfed the space, perhaps from the labyrinth’s victims centuries ago. Emmery gagged and clamped a hand over her mouth.
They didn’t breathe as the Guardian recited the riddle, offering the words like shard of a greater treasure—worthless unless used whole.
“Once inside you, I take hold. Only the conniving can be so bold. I am a hidden weapon, one used at will. When a weak man is twisted, mouths do spill. I fester, I suffocate, I rule your life. And only when spoken can you wield the knife.”
Something clanged within the chamber and a clock chime rang out, then started to count down, and each tick stabbed Emmery like a spear to the gut. Hooked her panic with a shepherd’s crook and yanked it free.
The tick replicated Deimos’s mausoleum.
Every muscle in her body stiffened as if it could ward off the sound, chase away the images hunting her down, the ones she couldn’t escape no matter how fast she ran or how diligently she hid.
Her failures were always there. Lurking. Hiding. Waiting to strike.
Emmery squeezed her eyes shut, but her stomach roiled as the trauma saturated her eyelids, like parchment dropped into a fountain.
The crimson-soaked tan tile, sticky, warm, wetness between her fingers. The choking, gagging, breathless cries.
The phantom slice of her throat and bolt through her chest as she attempted to heal him. Took his pain. Held it inside herself. And the agony she’d taken from Vesper, held gladly, but now lived in her bones.
Emmery willed herself to focus, prayed for the images to release her, but she couldn’t banish them, and a small cry slipped free. She clamped her hands over her ears and focussed on keeping her shaking knees steady and not crumpling to the floor like a wilting flower.
Brennen’s cold snout pressed into the crook of her arm. Emmery allowed her eyes to open, just a slit, to glance at him. And all she found was unwavering strength in his burnt-orange gaze. I have you, it seemed to say. Seemed to cradle her in its safety.
Feeling him watching her, Emmery’s eyes slid to Destonne.
His brows knit together, a firm press to his lips.
Did he remember what she told him about the clocks?
It had to have been him that smashed the sitting room clock.
No one else knew about the ticking, though she hadn’t explained why it affected her so.
Destonne’s stare injected the words he’d said to her all those weeks ago into her mind. Don’t let your fears win. And don’t ever let your past make you feel inferior. Make it pay for feeding you doubt.
As he held her gaze like precious porcelain, he answered the riddle. “A secret.”
Guardian Feylan cackled an unearthly sound. “The first was simple.” It lounged back in the chair and clasped its gnarled claws together. “Do not expect the same for the others.”
The ticking paused, and Emmery gulped air like the sound had drowned her. With how her heart stuttered and her head swam, it sure felt like it.
The Guardian slid their attention to Brennen. “It is your turn, wolf.”
Brennen nodded his horned head in compliance.
Guardian Feylan drew out each word with unrivalled joy, possibly sure they would fail this one.
“I am one of two masks, one worn to weep, and one to bask. While my kin pulls north, I lean south, as I perish in warmth. My sister is sunshine and I her dark mirror, my presence makes the absence of her brightness clearer.”
An agonizing silence stifled the chamber before the ticking resumed.
Fire sparked at Emmery’s fingers and she debated setting this whole room ablaze if only to get out of this damn place.
But with these demonic games, if she did, they would surely be lost within these stone walls forever.
And she refused to fall apart like she had outside of Reize’s cottage.
Destonne was right. She was stronger than this.
Brennen’s eyes bulged like he hadn’t anticipated such a riddle. As his stare darted between the door and the Guardian, his massive pink tongue lolled in the most animalistic action Emmery had seen him make.
Destonne’s attention warred between the two, like he balanced each in one hand, and his limbs grew tired, yet he refused to drop either of them.
They all held their breath as Brennen finally answered proudly in all their minds, “A frown.”
Guardian Feylan made a disgruntled sound and their unseeing gaze stripped them bare. “One riddle remains.”
A cold sweep of fear passed over Emmery. The last was hers. “If I guess wrong, do they move on?”
“If you answer correctly, you all move forward together.” The Guardian gave a hideous grin. “But should you falter, you all stay.”
Emmery’s heart battered her ribcage. If she failed this, if she let Brennen and Destonne down, they would be completely fucked.
She could barely think.
Barely catch her breath.
Barely form a coherent thought as the Guardian recited the final riddle, the one that might mark this labyrinth as their grave.
“I appear only in rest or calm. A figment, hope, or vision of charm. In fear I grow teeth, and only in the dark I reveal what’s beneath.
I come and go as fleeting as a memory, a trick of the mind or history.
Am I false or am I true? Your mind lies to you. ”
Emmery’s mind wasn’t lying to her.
It was utterly blank.
The ticking resumed. As the shrill sound clanged inside her head, her breath thinned, quickened, and her knees weakened, trembled—
No. She would be strong.
She had to be.
But all she could see was Vesper. And how she’d let him down.
Panic gripped her and a cold sweat slid down her spine. The walls closed in on her by the second. She wanted to collapse, engulf herself in the safety of her khaos flame, and shield her body in the cocoon of magic.
But she had to answer.
So, desperately, Emmery searched and combed any coherent thought in her mind. Was it a monster? Teeth and darkness—and what was fleeting as a memory? Lies and secrets plagued her mind but they couldn’t be the answer since that was Destonne’s riddle.