Chapter 27
The journey back to the Labyrinth was quicker than I had dared to hope.
Part of it was the horses, their powerful strides eating away at the distance beneath us, but part of it was something harder to name.
A sense of inevitability, perhaps, or the way fear sharpened time until every moment felt urgent.
We rode hard, rarely stopping. Theron’s soldiers flanking us in disciplined silence, their presence a living shield that wrapped around us and refused to break formation no matter how treacherous the land became.
No one spoke unless necessary, no laughter or idle noise. Just the thunder of hooves and the faint clink of steel, as if even sound itself had been placed under command.
I felt safer than I had since the Rift reopened.
That knowledge alone unsettled me.
The Badlands rolled past in grim, predatory beauty, the ground still bearing the scars of petrified death, twisted roots gripping ancient bones, stone shaped by what had once been living things.
Yet with the Gorgon King’s guard riding alongside us, the land felt…
subdued. As though it recognized the authority moving through it and chose, for once, not to bear its teeth.
The rhythm of my horse’s gait lulled me into thought despite my nerves. My mind was drifting no matter how desperately I tried to keep it fixed on the present. I kept seeing Theron’s face when he handed me the torch. Kept hearing his calm voice echoing in my head.
Our bargain is absolute.
I had never imagined that meeting the Gorgon King would end with anything resembling friendship. If anything, I had expected to leave his lands terrified, scarred, and desperate to forget him altogether. Instead, I rode away carrying something far heavier than the Way Weaver’s Torch.
Respect.
Affection.
And the unsettling certainty that our paths were not finished with one another.
It was foolish, I knew that. Kings like him did not become entangled in the lives of mortals without reason. And yet I could not shake the sense that something had changed between us, something quiet but lasting.
I glanced sideways at Aster as he rode beside me, his jaw tight, eyes fixed ahead.
Every line of his body coiled with the same urgency that twisted through my own chest. He had barely spoken since we left the hidden treasury, but I could feel his eagerness like heat radiating from him.
Home was close now. Atlas was close. Or at least closer than we ever had been before.
Please don’t let us be too late.
The escort slowed as the land ahead began to change, showing us the presence of the darkness that the Badlands didn’t experience. My heart kicked hard against my ribs as stone walls came into view.
The Labyrinth.
Even from afar, it felt alive, its presence pressing against my senses.
Aster let out a breath that sounded almost like a growl of relief. The soldier leading the escort raised a hand to signal a halt, then turned to Aster and dipped his head respectfully.
“Our duty ends here,” he said. “You have the King’s protection no further than this threshold.”
“Thank you,” Aster replied without hesitation, sincerity roughening his voice. “For all of it.”
The soldiers turned as one, wheeling their horses and riding back the way they had come, their presence dissolving in the distance on their way back to the Badlands until it was as though they had never been there at all.
The space they left behind felt abruptly hollow, as though something vital had been stripped from us.
I exhaled shakily, and Aster shifted beside me, his horse stamping once as he rolled his shoulders, tension tightening his frame like a drawn bowstring ready to be released.
“They kept their word,” he said quietly, almost to himself.
“They did,” I agreed, though my gaze lingered on the horizon long after the last shadow vanished. “I didn’t think… I don’t know… I didn’t think I’d feel this way when we left him.”
Aster glanced at me then, a flicker of something unreadable crossing his face.
“The King?”
I nodded, fingers tightening on the reins.
“I thought I’d be relieved. Or terrified. Or angry. I didn’t expect to feel safer riding through the Badlands or The?kós, because his soldiers were beside us.”
Aster huffed out a breath that might have been a laugh.
“You’re not the only one. I don’t trust easily, Alex. You know that. But he did not need to protect us. That was never part of the deal. He chose to.”
“That’s what scares me,” I admitted. “How easily that choice mattered to him.”
Aster was quiet for a moment, then inclined his head.
“Whatever else he is, he is a man who keeps his word. That alone makes him dangerous.”
“And human,” I murmured before I could stop myself.
Aster shot me a look.
“Careful.”
“I know,” I said quickly. “I just… I don’t think we were meant to meet him and walk away unchanged.”
His jaw tightened, gaze shifting forward again as the Labyrinth drew closer.
“Fate has a habit of doing that.”
The entrance to the Labyrinth soon came into view, the one we had left from when saying goodbye to Stava.
We dismounted quickly, urgency snapping back into place as soon as my boots hit the ground. Stava was already there, like she had anticipated our return.
And with her, the Way Weaver.
The sight of her stopped me short.
She looked smaller than I remembered, her frame more fragile, the weight of time pressing visibly upon her shoulders. Two Minotaur’s stood close on either side of her, steadying her as she waited, her silver eyes fixed on the torch in my hands.
My grip tightened around the staff.
This was it.
Every step I took toward her felt like walking toward the edge of something immense and mysterious. The knowledge settled deep in my bones that whatever happened next would change everything. Not just for Atlas. Not just for their world.
For mine too.
I stopped in front of her, swallowing hard, suddenly acutely aware of how unworthy I felt to be holding something so powerful, so ancient.
The Way Weaver’s silver eyes met mine, and my cheeks flushed hot with shame at the thoughts I had harbored earlier. Yes, she was old, her body fragile and bent with years, her movements slow, but that did not make her weak.
It did not make her incapable. She knew exactly what was at stake here, had known it long before we ever stumbled into her care. And she had never once faltered in her certainty that she could help us, if only we could bring her the torch. And now here she stood, ready to do exactly that.
When I looked at her again, truly looked this time, I saw it in her eyes, the quiet understanding, the forgiveness. I did not need to speak for her to know that I was sorry. She could read it in my mind.
She patted the thick forearms of the two Minotaurs who had helped her stand, dismissing them with gentle insistence rather than words. Until they stepped back, bowing their heads. Her gaze never wavered as it fixed on the object in my hands.
“The torch of Hecate,” she said, reverence threading her voice.
I frowned slightly, glancing down at the unassuming length of wood, then back to her face.
“Isn’t this the torch of the Way Weavers?” I asked, confusion slipping into my tone.
The Way Weaver nodded slowly.
“Yes,” she said. “But it once belonged to the goddess.” Her voice strengthened as she spoke, as though the name itself lent her power.
“Hecate carried it at crossroads and thresholds, when there were no roads, when the spaces between worlds had no names. Its light does not banish darkness. It never has.” Her gaze sharpened, intent and knowing. “It reveals what already waits there.”
She reached out and rested her weight lightly against Aster, his broad frame steadying her without question.
“Way Weavers understand this truth better than most,” she continued. “The torch does not create doors. It exposes them. It shows us the places where the world has thinned, where a seam has formed, where a path might be pulled open if one knows how to look.”
Her attention drifted back to the torch, her expression softening, almost wistful, as though she were peering through it into the past.
“When I was younger,” she said quietly, “I did not need it. I could tear a way through by force alone and pay the price later with my body. Strength, time, beauty, it did not matter. I had all of them then, and I spent them freely.”
A faint, sad smile curved her mouth.
“Now,” she went on, her fingers tightening against Aster’s muscled forearm as a tremor betrayed her effort, “I do not.” I nodded in understanding and respect.
“The torch doesn’t make me stronger,” she said.
“It is simply a helping hand. It shows me the seam, instead of asking me to rip the cloth apart.”
She lifted her gaze to mine, silver eyes bright and unwavering.
“Now that I have the torch, I can weave the way you need.” A pause, heavy with meaning. “And hopefully live long enough to close it.”
With Aster’s help, she stepped closer.
The closer I came to the Way Weaver, the heavier the torch felt in my hands, as though it had begun to recognize where it was meant to be and resented the delay. A faint warmth pulsed through the wood beneath my palms, sending a strange vibration up my arms.
I swallowed hard.
For a fleeting, irrational moment, I hesitated.
Suddenly, I was back at the edge of the Rift all over again. The memory slammed into me. The sound, the pressure, the way reality had felt thin and wrong. Like stretched skin about to tear. I remembered the pain, the fear, the certainty that whatever stepped through would never truly belong.
What if this was a mistake?
What if I were about to reopen something that should have stayed closed?
My fingers flexed against the torch, heart hammering as the scars along my wrist prickled, a sharp, warning sensation that made my breath hitch. I could almost feel the seam the Way Weaver had spoken of, not in the world, but in myself, a place that had never quite healed, never quite closed.