XVI
It must have been an hour later when Corin’s steps slowed without meaning, each footfall echoing longer than it should have.
Ahead, the passage opened into a vast chamber.
Corin crossed the threshold and felt it immediately: a pressure like memory settling over his shoulders.
The room was circular, its ceiling lost to shadow and walls scored with deep gouges that looked less like tool marks and more like the aftermath of claws and horns.
The stone floor was darkened in irregular patches, worn smooth in places and cracked in others.
It was as though the room itself had tried to forget what had happened here and failed.
Ariadne stopped short behind him. When he noticed, Corin turned. She stood just inside the corridor as well, fingers pulling at each other in front of her. Whatever light that filtered into the room from the veins seemed to shy away from her, leaving her half in shadow.
But her gaze. It was fixed on the chamber, at the walls, without truly looking at it. It was as if her mind had completely curled in on itself to run away from a memory.
He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he felt a strong urge to protect her from this place. “You don’t have to come in.”
The words seemed to spook her out of her state, but she didn’t answer right away. She ran her eyes over the walls quickly. “This is where it happened.”
Corin wasn’t sure what she meant, but he watched her take a step inside the corridor, tentative and light.
“This is where those that intended to harm him had entered,” she explained. When Corin blinked in confusion, she continued, “This is where my brother was killed. The first time.” Her voice was steady, but there was something brittle behind it, like glass under strain. “By him.”
Understanding raced through him as he observed the room in front of him. He tried to imagine it as it must have been—alive with movement and chaos, the air ringing with breath and fury, blood hot and fresh instead of long soaked into stone.
When Ariadne had entered the Labyrinth to chase down Theseus, she surely would have seen this room in the near aftermath of chaos.
The evidence of pain had been long washed away through the ages, but he could imagine how painful it was while she waited for the Minotaur to come back to the Labyrinth so that she wouldn’t be alone—if she even knew he would.
What had happened then was a mere memory haunting the walls and the woman he was journeying with.
The thought made his skin prickle.
“This room…” Ariadne shook her head once. “I tend to avoid it if I can.”
“Why?” he asked, though he had a strong feeling he understood her reasons.
The chamber seemed to listen to them, more than the maze had previously if that were even possible. The silence around them stretched thickly, a sense of expectation surrounding them. Corin felt the Labyrinth’s attention sharpen as if to thank him for something.
He stepped back toward Ariadne, stopping just short of touching her. “Then we won’t stay.”
It was then that he noticed the redness of her eyes. He wished he could resolve her pain, strike away any bad memory that had ever plagued her. To see the hurt lacing through her features nearly killed him.
She offered him a silent thanks as they began moving quickly through the chamber.
They had taken no more than a few steps before the Labyrinth rebelled.
The air thickened suddenly, fog bleeding up from the cracks in the stone like breath from something buried too deep. Corin’s skin prickled as the chamber dimmed even more, the shadows stretching and folding in on themselves.
It was a mist appearing as if intending to attack. It raced around the two, enveloping them in a cool yet damp cloak. Corin watched as his feet were completely covered in the mist before it raced up his body, swirling and curling around him but never staying in one place too long.
Slowly, it transformed. The mist moved from coiling around them to barging into one mass. It twisted and released a sharp hissing sound before forming something difficult to define. An outline, at first. Then, more details emerging. Broad shoulders. A crown.
It was a human—a man.
A man that seemed familiar to Corin, though he wasn’t sure how. He had never seen this figure before, his features unrecognizable entirely, but he was recognizable enough. Yet still, Corin could not place him.
Ariadne, though, gasped and staggered backward as if she had been struck.
“No,” she whispered.
An older man was standing before them, solid as a memory but still clearly built of mist. His deep brown, almost black, eyes were sharp and disappointed and unbearably real as he kept his steady gaze marked on Ariadne.
“My daughter,” he croaked, pleading with his hands open and reaching for her, “help me!”
Daughter?
Before Corin could react or question the misted figure, the mist that remained around them shifted again, forming into another solid mass.
Instead of steadily forming, this one was violent as the figure seemed to tear through.
It revealed a young man, no older than Corin.
He seemed crueler in his beauty as he stepped forward with a sickly sweet smile and practiced remorse.
If the first figure in the mist was her father, Corin was scared to know exactly who this was.
“I should not have left you,” the second figure said gently and torturously sweet. “I need you now. Please.”
Ariadne’s breath hitched. She didn’t move towards the figures, but she didn’t move away either. Her feet were planted so stiffly she was sure she had to have been stuck in place. Her hands trembled at her sides, her eyes wide, glassy, and fixed.
Corin watched as many emotions raced over her face—fear, longing, guilt. They came over her in waves as she remained still. Her body fought against any sort of movement or acknowledgement.
Corin didn’t know what was happening, but he knew he needed to get her away from these misted figures before they damaged her beyond repair.
“Hey,” Corin interrupted urgently. The figures continued to beg her for something and everything all at once, and she was too fixated on the pair to acknowledge Corin. He touched her shoulder, but her body was ice cold.
“You are such a disappointment,” her father’s figure spat.
“You cannot even get yourself out of the Labyrinth,” the younger figure added.
Corin blinked, hearing the horrid words of these figures and not understanding what was happening. If this was his trial, why were the figures so intent on causing harm to Ariadne? What had she done to the Labyrinth to deserve this torture?
The chamber erupted then.
More figures clawed their way out of the mist, voices overlapping. Figures he didn’t quite recognize but all seemed regal and intent on torturing Ariadne. They rang out in pleas, begs, and accusations. Ariadne’s eyes bounced between them all as she remained frozen in place.
They circled around her, ensuring their harsh words met her ears without a single beat of silence. Each word, each taunt, was followed by another from a figure across from her.
Though still, her father and the second figure’s words rang out heaviest.
Corin reached out to shake her, but his hands were pushed away by the mists. They directed his hands in the other direction, forcing him to spin so his back was to her, and Corin blinked as realization dawned on him.
It wasn’t only just figures to torture Ariadne.
“Mirelle?”
His friend’s clear figure stood near the wall, glowing faintly as she offered him a sad smile. Her face was pale and tear-streaked in a way Corin had never seen before. She reached out for him slowly as if yearning for him, wishing for him to help her.
“Corin,” she whimpered. “Please! You promised you’d protect me!”
His heart slammed against his ribs. He opened his mouth to respond, but as soon as he did, another shape stepped forward from the coiling mist. This one taller and broader. And male.
His father.
Dead and unmistakable. He stood as regal as ever, as if speaking to Knossos in a formal address, but behind that, he was sad. His face broke into an angry solemness.
Just seeing his father crushed the air from Corin’s lungs. It had been so long since his father had passed, and the emotions coming from the mist ate at the weight of that loss.
“You let me die,” his father accused quietly.
Corin blinked once. Twice. “Let you… what?”
“Are you going to let me die, too?” Mirelle shot out.
Waves of confusion rushed over Corin. This couldn’t be real. Mirelle was safe and sound in Knossos, probably in some council meeting as his representative or enjoying a nice meal with their people. There was no danger to her.
And his father… his father was long gone. It had been so many years since he passed, and it was something Corin had nothing to do with. He was only five years old when it happened. There was nothing he could have done to fight the sickness.
Yet, here the two of them were, clear as anything else he had seen in the Labyrinth.
More figures followed from the mist. Faces he knew. Faces he loved. Faces he… had failed. His cook, a soldier he had fought with, a woman in town who made his favorite bread, Horal.
They surrounded him with their pleas, each of them reaching his ears louder and louder. The chamber roared with need, with grief, with the impossible demand to save them all.
“Stop!” Corin demanded hoarsely. “This isn’t real!”
The Labyrinth laughed without sound as the walls rumbled and the mist pushed forward even more, growing thicker at the second.
“This is your fault,” his father spat at him. “You couldn’t save me!”
“Save me, my future king!” Mirelle called out, desperation bleeding into her voice.
“You don’t deserve our admiration,” Horal shot.
Corin shook his head, not understanding what he needed to do to stop this chaos, when he caught sight of Ariadne out of the corner of his eyes. She had fallen to her knees, surrounded by her torturous misted figures.
But while Corin had an inkling of understanding that these misted figures torturing them were just illusions of the Labyrinth, she seemed to believe the opposite. She clutched at her dark hair, breath coming in shallow and broken gasps. Her eyes were solidly locked on the figures before her.
“I tried,” she whispered with a broken voice. “I stayed. I endured. I kept it open. I did everything I could.”
The young man knelt before her, reaching out but not quite touching her. “Then do one more thing for me.”
She broke.
Corin moved in without thinking. He pushed through the illusions in front of him, forcing himself forward even as misted hands grasped at him. Voices shouted his name, causing a fresh wave of guilt to crawl up his spine. Guilt that he pushed away as soon as he reached Ariadne.
He dropped to his knees beside her, gripping her shoulders. “Hey,” he started. “Look at me.”
She didn’t. Her eyes were trained on the young man in front of her with the sick smile.
Corin cursed. He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her tight against his chest as the chaos swelled around them. She was shaking violently now. Tears raced down her face, and her breaths were coming out uneven and panicked.
“You’re here,” he murmured into her hair. “You’re not alone. They’re not here. I’ve got you.”
The illusions pressed closer at his words, desperate and furious.
A nervous whine erupted from behind him, startling him for a moment. It was louder and clearer than the haunted voices coming from the misted figures around them.
He froze for a moment before shifting his head to look behind him.
There stood a small bundle of mess cowered in the corner, haunches raised and teeth snarled as if set to protect him and Ariadne from the figures in the room.
Bristle.
It barked once, twice, before bounding over to Corin and snapping at any of the misted figures that floated close enough to warrant a threat. Its tail was whipping furiously, shoving away some of the mist from around them.
“Unhand her and come to your betrothed!” Mirelle demanded of Corin, pulling his attention away from the small creature.
“Did you replace me?” The young man that had tortured Ariadne spat out. “How dare you?!”
“I-I…” Ariadne stuttered, not understanding what was happening but feeling the crushing sense of guilt that wrapped around her shoulders.
He had to get her out of there.
Corin stood, lifting her fully into his arms. She gasped then as instinct seemed to kick in. Furiously, she clutched at his body, her fingers fisting his tunic and pulling herself ever closer.
“Bristle, let’s go!” Corin called out.
The beast leapt closer, barking once in agreement. He hoped that meant the monster would follow him.
“I am sorry!” she sobbed. The sound nearly broke Corin’s heart. “I am s-so sorry!”
“You gave him my sword!” the same figure shouted.
“I know,” Corin whispered back to her, his voice rough but steady. “You don’t owe them anything. Not anymore.”
He ran.