Chapter 8
Bael
Gods cannot be trusted.”
— BAELFYRE THE BLACK
This is vengeance, plain and simple. Kasaros must be laughing at me, as I stalk behind my huntress, eyes returning to her again and again.
My gaze dips to the knife sheathed at her side, pure incredulousness running through me.
“You will know her by the mark of Blessed Amara’s rose,” Mother whispered, pressing her knife into my hands as she lay bleeding on the bed.
“Only your hand may touch this blade, until the moment another claims it. And in thus doing, shall she reveal herself to you. A mate, my beloved Baelfyre. Hope. For in these shadows there is always a burning star. Find her. Seek her out. Claim her. Know happiness, my son. But never forget that in this blood-stained world happiness can be lost as swiftly as it may be won.”
My mother believed in the old ways and lit candles for Amara, even hundreds of years after the Goddess vanished. She’d claimed the Goddess gave her the gift of seeing small flashes of the future, and I’d never believed her.
Until now.
Because the moment that cell door slammed shut and my huntress’s sweet scent filled my nostrils, I’d known the truth.
Mine.
My mate.
I’ve spent years imagining her, summoning thoughts of soft skin and a scent like sunshine on grass.
On the darkest of nights, when I found myself facing certain death, I would conjure her giggle, and imagine what the taste of her skin would be like as she dragged me into her arms, kissing my cheek nervously.
Even as I knew I could never have her.
My life is forsworn to my brothers, my soul not my own. I swore it on my mother’s deathbed, even as she begged me not to. I cut the oath into my skin and summoned Kasaros, pledging to him that if he aided me in my darkest hour, then I would forsake all others.
But it didn’t stop me from dreaming of her.
Hope is a capricious bitch, after all.
Instead, my mate smells like the wildest of forests, like blood and ash, and the second I realized who she was to me, she tried to cut a man’s throat.
Nervousness? The only hint I’ve caught of it is when I told her she would strip for me and she would like it.
Instead, she is pure defiance, caged in the body of a lethal lioness, and the rage I see in her eyes is like tinder to the beast within me.
It wants to consume her.
She is nothing like I imagined. The proud line of her shoulders reveals a woman confident in her self-worth, and every inch of her is lean and lightly muscled. She’s so fucking fierce and beautiful that I can barely contain myself.
The white shirt I stole for her clings to her faint curves, making my fingers curl into my palms in order to restrain the beast inside me.
Her breasts are a meagre handful, but my mouth yearns to taste them, and every time she shoots me a clever little rebuke I want to slam her back against the Labyrinth walls, pin her there and fuck that haughty little mouth with mine.
Fuck.
The beast twists within me, raw and ravenous with need.
Mine.
My fingers start to lengthen, becoming claws. I force the shift to halt. Not yet. If I lose control, then this hunt is done. I will become a creature of rage and fury, roaring through the Labyrinth like a world-destroying comet, reigning down fire and ash as I take what belongs to me.
I will break my oath, bringing a God’s vengeance down upon us.
And I will forget what I came here for.
I have one last bride to claim on my brother’s behalf. Kari would be perfect for Flynt. My huntress doesn’t fit into that narrative at all. Indeed, she derails my entire mission.
But I can’t let her go. Someone will try to kill her, and maybe they’ll succeed. The mere thought makes the beast inside me hiss with fury.
But if we stick to the plan and rescue her friend, then perhaps I can give her something she clearly cherishes above all else: Freedom.
I can send her home through the portal, send her back to safety.
She’ll live out her life in the arms of her family, and perhaps she’ll even think of me once or twice.
She’ll never know how close our paths came to being entwined.
But I will.
And yet, even if the thought burns like acid deep inside me, I can’t help realizing that this is the way it has to be.
Our fates were written in the stars, but she can never be mine.
Never.
Zyla
Hours pass. It feels like an endless night, our path lit by the bloodied moon.
There’s a vast difference between traveling with Bael as opposed to Kari. Despite our bickering start, he’s extremely professional.
He moves so silently for such a big man that it’s difficult to place him at times, and the uncertainty keeps me on edge.
Sometimes he’s merely a voice in the fog, the whisper of movement in the distance behind me.
Sometimes he’s almost on my heels, his winter-kissed scent settling over me like a cloak.
He could be a ghost, if not for the warmth I feel whenever his body presses closely to mine.
Fatigue starts to set in. I can’t remember the last time I slept, and the constant adrenaline spike every time a distant scream catches my ears is exhausting.
“I hate this Labyrinth,” I groan, sinking onto a stone bench once we come to a clearing. “Why is it so cursed endless? I swear we’ve passed that statue already.”
Bael’s eyes narrow as he brushes his enormous hand down the statue of a man cutting the heart from a woman who bears the horns of a deer. He turns to look back the way we’ve come, cursing under his breath. “That’s because we have.”
I barely have the energy to glare at him. “What do you mean? I’ve been following Kari’s trail exactly. How does that lead us in circles?”
Is Rhykus laying a false trail?
Does he know we’re coming?
Bael circles the glen. “We’ve passed through here before, but there were five passages leading out of here, and now there are only four.”
I cross to his side. The Labyrinth has been changing in steady intervals—the shift always preceded by that earth-deep grinding sound—but I don’t think we’ve had a shift since we last passed this way. “What does that mean?”
“That fucking prick.” Bael turns, pacing violently as he stares at the skies. “You think this is amusing?”
“Do you expect an answer from the moon?”
“Not the moon. The moon was always Amara’s sigil. But the void between? That belongs to that chuckling asshole. Kasaros is screwing with us.”
Laughter floats past us on the breeze, lifting all the little hairs down my neck. I spin around, but there’s no sign of the God.
“He can do that?” I whisper. “But why?”
Bael scrubs at his mouth. “He’s a God. Of course, he can do it. And he has a fucking terrible sense of humor, so of course he will do it. Maybe the hunt’s going too fast. Maybe Rhykus cut a deal with him. Maybe he wants to see me suffer.”
It’s bad enough that Rhykus is our enemy, but to be dealing with a capricious God as well?
“What do we do?”
“We follow their tracks again, and keep our eyes open for anything we may have missed.” Bael shoulders the pack. “Come on.”
Twenty minutes later, we’re standing back in the same clearing, but this time, there are only three paths leading back into the Labyrinth.
“Motherless fucking bastard.” Bael starts cursing under his breath, glaring at the night skies.
I circle the walls as an owl hoots in the distance. If we’ve missed something it has to be here in the clearing. I examine the statue, then the walls that encircle us, peeling back the ivy that drips down the stone.
“What are you thinking?” Bael stalks my heels.
Ivy covers every wall but one. Instead, rose bushes cling to the ragged stones, a single rose blooming, its pale petals strangely translucent in the night. Little winged creatures buzz around the rose, hissing at us as I come closer.
Parting the brambles over a small alcove, I find an ancient rose symbol etched into the stone at the back of the alcove. It’s slick with moss, the lines barely visible.
Soft light comes from my side. From Bael’s knife.
I unsheathe it, spilling silvery light across my hands and arms. The symbol etched into the blade gleams as bright as the stars above, as if it’s reacting to its mirrored sigil.
But what is even more revealing is the writing that suddenly appears on the wall, letters gleaming like bright silver beneath the light from my blade.
“Within thorns and briars, succour can be found,” I read. “The Labyrinth was created by Kasaros after the Goddess sacrificed herself to the stars, was it not?”
Bael rubs his hand over the wall, loosening moss. “It was.”
“Why then, are there rose symbols everywhere within this maze if they’re Amara’s sigil?” I hadn’t been paying attention until now, but the moment I connect the riddle together, images flash into mind.
I’ve seen these stylized rose carvings several times today, embedded in the walls of the maze itself, carved into the manor rooms of the fleshmonger’s auction house, even folded of plaster on the ceilings of the room where Kari was held.
Bael’s piercing amber eyes focus on me. “The rose was Amara’s sigil.
I can’t recall if I’ve seen it in here before.
” He captures the rose that glows. “This is new too. The first time I entered the bride hunt, the Labyrinth was barren. The ivy sprouted first. Then a few of the more dangerous plants. But I’ve never seen a rose here before. ”
Perhaps one of the long-lost brides carved the marks.
“Your world has limited women, does it not? Particularly fertile ones. And every year Kasaros summons new brides to this world, fertile brides. What if that is tipping the balance? What if it’s having an effect on the Labyrinth itself?”
“Perhaps.” Bael’s fingers cup the delicate flower, his voice soft with longing. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a rose.”
I trace my fingers over the sigil, then realize the stone it’s etched on gives beneath my touch. “Wait. There’s a…” I press the sigil and the stone depresses with a click.