Chapter 3
Zyla
Hearth and home is what every dutiful Daughter of Malus must aspire to. One must be demure, and respect their husband’s wishes. One must obey. And one must never, ever defy their husband and master.”
— SERMON BY GRAND MASTER VAEMON OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALUS
“Idon’t understand what a… a… cursed bride hunt is!” Kari shakes, as if, now that we’ve finally escaped from danger, the shock of the situation has surfaced. “Another world? How do we return to our own worlds? How do I get home? Who are these men? These monsters? What—”
“Easy.” I kneel before her, squeezing her knee and lowering my voice. “I know it’s a shock to consider.” It’s easier for me because I was expecting to find this exact situation. My heart squeezes. Did my sister, Aylin, feel like this when she arrived here? Had she felt as lost and alone?
“This is a world where females are few, and their Laughing God imports them from other worlds in order to give his menfolk brides.”
Good. She’s listening to me. I can’t have her giving into shock.
“Did you hear that God back there? In the chambers we arrived in?
She shakes her head. “He just said I had to be a good girl and I would be rewarded.”
I frown. And then it strikes me—Kasaros is a God of Mischief and Chaos. Perhaps we all saw and heard different things when we arrived?
“This is a game,” I tell her slowly, repeating what Mariam told me all those years ago.
“Long ago, the feminine Goddess of this world was lost to the people here and with her loss began an era of barrenness. Sons were born, but rarely females. And ultimately, the world fell into imbalance. Wars were waged as females grew scarcer, and in order to stop the world from tearing itself apart, Kasaros, the Trickster God, offered the people here a chance. Once a year, he hosts the Bride Hunt, pulling fertile brides from his and other worlds. The males of this world can bid or fight for the chance to become hunters. Each kingdom is allowed to send its allotment of champions in order to steal or seduce a bride for their own. I don’t know how, exactly, they’re chosen.
But I do know there are never enough brides for all the hunters.
It’s a fight to the death for few resources. ”
Resources. The word makes me want to vomit. But that’s exactly how they see us.
Kari sinks her face into her hands. “Sweet merciful Goddess.” Her shoulders shake.
“Why me?” She looks up suddenly. “I translate scrolls! I’m the world’s clumsiest lady.
I once spilled tea on the queen, and was banished from court.
Nobody wants to marry me at home. Nobody.
My father curses the day I was born. We barely even have visitors, and even when Father offered 100 rigors for my dowry, not even a beggar lord would take him up on it.
Why would this cursed God do this to me?
” Her eyes bleed with desperation. “How do you know so much about this place?”
Because I made it my life’s mission to find out what happened to my sister.
“I wasn’t captured for this hunt. I volunteered.”
Kari’s mouth forms a soft ‘O’. “But why? Why would you do that?”
There’s no easy answer.
“Once upon a time,” I whisper, staring into the pond and seeing beyond my reflection to an enormous, screeching winged black monster, “I was happy. I had a sister. She was the most important person in the world to me… until the Knights of Malus took her from me and sacrificed her to this Labyrinth.”
“Sacrifice?”
“They claim it’s an ancient deal with a powerful God.
Every year a pristine virgin is chosen from their harem and offered to the shadow gates.
She’s never seen again. Or so they believe.
But I managed to track down rumors that spoke differently.
Some brides managed to return, though they keep such news secret from the knights.
The knights would most likely blame them for any disaster that befell us, and they would be burned alive as dissenters for failing in their duty to submit to the hunt. ”
Kari’s gasp softens some of the pain I’m feeling. “And your sister?”
“She never returned. I know she’s not dead.
I’d feel it somehow.” A world’s worth of distance might separate us, but every night I see Aylin in my dreams. On those rare nights when I cry myself to sleep, she slides into bed with me, wraps her arms around me and sings the lullabies Mother used to sing.
It feels so real that sometimes I wake with the sensation of her kiss still pressed to my forehead.
“She’s here on this world somewhere. I know it.
I plan to find her and murder the prick that claimed her. ”
“Oh, sweet ashes. You’re so… brave.”
“I’m not brave.” Stupid, possibly. Incredibly driven, definitely. “Aylin is all I have. And if I can do this one thing… If I can get her back and save her…”
Then maybe I’ll have a chance to forget that I’m the reason she’s here.
I wasn’t there when she was taken.
I was so fucking angry with her that I stormed off to hunt, and…
I force the thoughts away. This is no place to lose my focus.
“Every year I watched the Knights of Malus make their choice of tribute.
I watched them walk her to their keep through the streets, the crowd casting beautiful blue rose petals at her feet as they led their Chosen Bride to her doom.
Her sacrifice would bring the rains and the harvest, they claimed.
They would lead her down into their keep, deep into their cellars, where some whispered that a marble arch awaited the light of the Blood Moon.
It was a portal to another world, a place to make their sacrifice to the Trickster God.
“Nine years ago, they took my sister to that keep and that was the last time I ever saw her.”
That loss left a gaping wound inside me that sent me reeling from one tavern to the next, searching for a reason to keep living after the loss of my entire family.
“Three years after Aylin disappeared, I heard a whisper that one of the sacrificed brides had returned. It was the first time I’d felt hope.
” The little flutter of that emotion lights up inside me, even now.
“Mariam didn’t want to be found—especially by the knights—but I tracked her down after a year or two, and she told me of this world.
She was living with her lover, Serissa, in a tiny cottage on the edge of the Beldt forest. The two of them had found each other in the Labyrinth, fallen in love and escaped. ”
It was Serissa who had given me the greatest hope.
She’d been stuck in the Labyrinth for two years when Mariam had been sent there, and had bartered with the Trickster God to return to Mariam’s world with her, once they had found the portal at the end of the Labyrinth.
But she had also been sacrificed the same year as Aylin, and remembered a plump brunette with bronze skin, a strong nose, and a scar through her eyebrow.
“The Beast took her,” Serissa had whispered. “The Beast of Kerawan. He was a monstrous creature with wings as black as night, and eyes like the fires of a forge. He plucked her from the Labyrinth and flew away with her. I can still remember her screams…”
“I knew what I needed to do. The knight’s keep was impenetrable, their ranks overwhelming.
And there is only one way to access the portal inside their deepest cellars.
” Sheathing my knife, I look down at Kari.
“I volunteered to be sacrificed. I passed their tests. I curtsied and pressed my head to the floor, and whispered of how desperately I wished to make my family proud, how much honor I would bring to the knights if I were chosen. They will only choose from their anointed girls. And on the night that the sacrifice was to be made, I helped all the other women escape, and made myself the only choice of Bride.”
“I’m not going to take those words back,” Kari says primly. “You are brave. And you are kind.” She bites her lip. “If not for me you’d probably be miles away by now, quick on the heels of your wretched monster.”
It’s an uncomfortable feeling because she’s right. If I left her behind, I’d be so much faster, unencumbered by the need to protect her as well as fight.
“You’re always running away to the woods,” Aylin yelled. “What’s so wrong with this place? With me? Why do you always want to get away from me?”
“It’s not you. I just need space to clear my head.
Time alone.” The weight of everything we’d survived kept pressing on upon me.
The only time I could clear my head was when I was hunting.
And then there was the link between us, that ever-present reminder of what she’d done to me.
“I feel trapped when I’m here with you. I can feel you inside my head all the time.
Feel you pressing in around me. I just need some space to be me again. ”
“Then go,” Aylin had spat. “Go and run with your precious wolves... if I’m such a burden to you.”
The memories fade, leaving behind their aching scars.
I hold out my hand. “You’re not a burden, Kari. Never that. Maybe we can travel together? I’ll need to sleep sometime, and I can help you find the end of the maze. If you reach it unclaimed, then there’s a chance you can use the portal to return home.”
Kari squeezes my fingers. “Are you sure?”
“You’re not the only one in an unfamiliar world. And I’ll bet that you know more than you think you do. Surely you’ve learned a few things, translating those scrolls? Perhaps that will come in handy? Now, are you ready to continue?”
“Hunting that enormous winged beast?” She uses my hand to pull herself to her feet. “Well, I guess I cannot say that I’m not going to have an adventure if I’m by your side. Which way?”
Grabbing the spear, I turn to consider the four exits facing us. I can’t track him when he’s in the air. I need higher ground so that I can see the layout of the Labyrinth, and perhaps a chance to spy him if he’s flying.
“Want to help me climb to the top of the hedge, so I can get a better look?”
Kari grabs her voluminous white skirts and crosses toward the hedge, then cups her hands. “I am strong.”
“Excellent.” I place my foot in her cupped hands, then cock my head, tension sliding down my spine like the icy trail of a knife.
The maze is silent.
At every intersection we’ve paused at, I’ve always heard the chitter of some bird or creature. And I hadn’t realized the absence of that background noise until now.
We’re not alone.
“Stay behind me,” I warn as a handful of savages exit the maze, grinning as if they’ve just found a pot of gold.
“Well, well,” says the largest man, and my heart sinks when I see his armor. “Come on, ladies, lay down your weapons.”
They’re all wearing similar versions of the same armor, a striking hawk embossed on the front. Hard steel is sheathed at their sides, and their hands are covered in metal-plated gauntlets.
Six-to-two.
The odds aren’t in our favor.
And as I turn around, I realize another two men have slipped from the exit behind us.
“Stay back!” Kari calls. “Or my friend here will gut you like a fish!”
A wince wrinkles my brow. Possibly not the best time for Kari to find her courage, even if it’s flattering that she thinks I can handle six warriors like this.
I weigh it all up in a glance, then slowly lower the spear and hold it out in surrender. Fighting now is futile. But the first thing a hunter learns is patience. The right moment will come, a chance when their guard lowers and we can make our escape.
And I don’t need a knife or spear to be dangerous.
“Actually,” I tell her. “I think we might have to listen this one time.”
As long as they keep their hands to themselves.