XXI
The string sat heavy in Corin’s hand as it led him forward.
The corridor sloped downward for a long time, the air growing warmer with every footfall. Then, it shot up into a steep stone stairwell, forcing Corin and Ariadne to climb countless steps.
The golden veins that had disappeared through much of their journey began to glow so brightly once again, allowing Corin to clearly see where the string was leading them.
The light was more bright than he had seen it before, pulsing softly through the walls as if the Labyrinth itself was pulling him forward.
Corin noticed immediately. He wasn’t sure if Ariadne recognized it or even cared—she had been eerily silent since she chose to follow him. She never seemed to have minded the golden veins, so he wasn’t sure if it meant anything to her.
But Corin understood.
His chest tightened. Not with fear, but with certainty.
He was right.
This was the way. The Labyrinth was no longer resisting them—it was guiding them. The veined glow traced the path forward, leading him deeper, closer to the heart. Toward the place where everything converged.
Toward the Minotaur.
The hard truth settled in him as the light grew ever stronger. The maze didn’t seek cleverness from him; it didn’t need it. It didn’t want his brute strength. It didn’t want something any heir could give it. It wanted something far simpler and far crueler.
His sacrifice.
And not just any sacrifice.
Corin’s gaze flickered to Ariadne walking beside him, her expression guarded. Her steps were slower now. She followed dutifully behind, casting her eyes towards the string in Corin’s hands after a handful of steps.
His heart ached at the sight of her, at the knowledge pressing heavier with each step.
It wasn’t enough for him to be a coward; he couldn’t just sacrifice his pride like his uncle.
He knew it wasn’t the sacrifice of something inside him that he needed to give because he would have given that long ago.
The Labyrinth demanded something harsher. Something that would not only haunt him the rest of his life, but would likely do the same to her.
It commanded him to break her heart.
Her heart that she had resisted giving him, and still was. Her heart that distrusted so many yet had opened for him after hiding from his kin. She had a right to be cautious around him, guarding herself, her heart, and her sanity from the likes of another male ready to break her.
But it had to be done.
And to break her? He would kill the Minotaur—her brother. The one being who provided her some comfort during her centuries underground.
Corin remembered the pain in her words when she begged him not to fight the Minotaur the first time. He knew it would break her heart to watch him kill her kin, just as other heirs had done countless times.
The realization had hit him hard. It hurt him more than any wound he’d taken so far. His chest felt hollow and raw, as if something inside him had already been torn away.
But he supposed that was the curse of the Labyrinth. He would never forget this sacrifice, just as his uncle and father had never seemed to forget theirs. It would haunt him forever, how he hurt the woman who helped him so greatly in his time of need.
He tried to steady himself by thinking not of Ariadne—of anything except for Ariadne.
He thought of the world above—of sunlight on his face, of open skies that didn’t end in walls.
Of Mirelle, his oldest friend and confidant, likely waiting for him with bated breath in a court that smelled of incense and gold.
Of his uncle, who was no doubt eagerly awaiting his return to fully take the throne.
Of his people, anxiously awaiting their future king’s return.
Of duty. Of escape.
None of it eased his ache.
So he tried not to look at Ariadne.
He didn’t want to see her eyes when the realization crashed upon her.
He tried hard to look away, to not see as his intentions dawned on her. He didn’t want to see her heart break. Because he knew that it would break his own. Yet his eyes wouldn’t stray too far from her, always seeking to lay upon her after some time. He couldn’t help himself.
When the corridor flattened and the walls widened into the familiar, scarred room, she stopped suddenly and threw out an arm to stop him.
“No,” she said, breathless. “Wait, please.”
Corin halted, not able to stop himself from listening to her words. “What is it?”
She turned to face him fully, searching his expression with a sharpness that made his stomach twist uncomfortably. “You still think this is what you have to do.”
He glanced down at the string in his hand, not saying a word. She followed suit, seeing the string leading directly into the middle of the room and stopping.
Her jaw tightened. “You do not,” she stated. “You do not have to kill him. There is another way. I know there is.”
The Labyrinth groaned around her words. The sound rolled through the chamber ahead, deep and displeased. The golden veins dimmed in argument to her. The stone beneath them shuddered, as if rejecting her words outright.
Corin closed his eyes for a brief moment.
His heart was beating into his throat, forcing him to swallow past an uncomfortable lump. His gut twisted painfully, but it also pushed him forward. His body knew, just as his mind and the thread did, that this was the way he needed to go to return to Knossos.
That action would have been answer enough, but he spoke anyway, “This is what it wants.”
Ariadne recoiled as if he’d struck her. “No,” she whispered. “You do not know that.”
Guilt and resolve warred in his chest. “I do,” he admitted. He tilted his head as he stared into her eyes, begging her to trust him, though he knew this would betray any trust they had built. “I’m sorry.”
The look on her face—hurt, disbelief, and something broken—cut deeper than he’d expected. “You promised.”
Corin went to respond—to say what, he wasn’t sure—but she continued on with a broken voice. “You said you would not use me. You said you did not see me like the other heirs before you did.”
He ached to see the light in her eyes again, but they had gone so dark, so cold, that he wasn’t sure they would heal.
“I’m not using you,” he breathed out, though the words felt hollow even to his own ears.
“You are.”
“I just–” He stopped, running his hand through his disheveled hair. “The thread knows.”
“You have got to–” Ariadne groaned in frustration, taking the ball of thread from his hands and throwing it into the chamber. “The thread means nothing! It has for centuries!”
“Please…”
“No, heir, you do not understand!” Her voice was rising, nearly shouting. “That ball of thread helped the hero, yes, but it has sat here for centuries not leading any being to any sort of exit. All it does is taunt me!”
Corin gulped, knowing he was right in trusting the thread but unsure how to explain it to her. “I do understand, but–”
She shook her head, stepping back as if she no longer recognized him. “I should not have to explain to you.”
Corin blinked once, twice, then shook his head. “Please, listen to me. This is the way.”
Ariadne scoffed and crossed her arms against her chest, squeezing tight. “You have already chosen.”
Corin didn’t trust himself to respond. The hurt on her face would haunt him forever, and if he stood there another moment, he would likely abandon everything he knew to protect her feelings.
Instead, he turned and crossed into the chamber.
The empty chamber.
He wasn’t sure what he expected at that moment—perhaps that the Minotaur had been listening to their argument and remained quiet while hearing the hurt in his kin’s voice. It was unlikely, but he at least hoped the Minotaur would be there, poised to attack.
But the space where the Minotaur should have been loomed silent and still. The air was heavy with anticipation but completely devoid of movement or any life beyond his own. No hooves scraped the stone. No breath thundered through the dark.
Corin followed the thread, seeing where Ariadne had thrown the ball across the room. It led right to the center, clipped short. This was exactly where the thread had led him, and it had done that for a reason.
A reason that was half bull and half man.
Corin frowned and cast a look to Ariadne. “Where is he?”
She stood rigid at the entrance with her arms wrapped tightly around herself. “I do not know.”
“That’s not true,” he argued as softly as he could. “Please.”
She looked away. It took several moments of her hesitation and his gut squeezing painfully for her to finally, reluctantly, say something. “He wanders. He always does. He will come back soon.”
“When?”
Her voice dropped. “Soon.”
Corin gulped and nodded once. “I’ll wait, then.”
The golden veins flashed brighter than he had ever seen, as if the Labyrinth was approving of his actions.
Slowly, he lowered himself onto a stone ledge near the center, setting his jaw.
He could hear his heart pounding, echoing in his ears and nearly overwhelming him.
His body was warring with him. Half of him screamed at him to turn back and return to a pathway, to avoid this upcoming duel if he could.
The other half reminded him that Knossos was so close—that he could return to his land with a simple bloody fight.
Ariadne remained at the threshold, watching him with an expression he could not bear to name. He could see the anguish on her face, coursing through her body. Anguish that he had brought about.
After a few moments, she slid down the wall behind her to sit, wrapping her arms around her knees as if to protect herself from the upcoming heartbreak she knew was coming.
If it hadn’t already hit.
The chamber felt wrong without the Minotaur in it. Too quiet. Too open.
The golden veins in the walls seemed to be just as restless as Corin felt with their pulsing. And the longer he waited, the more his heart squeezed. He counted his heart beats. One. Two. Three… until counting became laboring.
Something caught his eye.
For a moment, he simply stared.
Then he crossed the chamber slowly, every step heavy with memory and questioning. The sword he had entered the Labyrinth with was knocked along the edge of the room where it had struck the Minotaur. And beside it was his father’s dagger, its hilt darkened from where his hand gripped it with blood.
He crouched to pick them up, testing their weight. The comfort of familiarity settled instinctively into his grip.
Both weapons that had been helpful at the start of his trial but had been long lost. He wasn’t sure he would ever see them again, but holding them now felt… wrong.
He turned.
Ariadne was watching him closely.
Her gaze flickered first to the weapons, then to his face. Something unreadable passed between them—fear, disappointment, hope, all tangled together. Corin felt it twist painfully inside his chest.
The weight of the borrowed blade caught his attention next. Heavy at his side and sitting expectantly. A gift from Ariadne. A gifted blade from the man that betrayed and abandoned her.
He hesitated.
Then, deliberately, he knelt and placed his sword and dagger back where he’d found them. He stood there empty-handed for a breath, as if daring himself to waver.
Instead, he reached for the smaller gifted blade at his hip.
It fit his hand differently. Lighter. Older. Less certain. He drew it slowly, the metal whispering as it left its sheath. It felt… honest. Unpretentious. Not the weapon of a hero sung about in halls, but something far more intimate.
He met Ariadne’s eyes again.
“I’m ready,” he said quietly. So quiet he was unsure if she even heard him.
When she didn’t offer a response—no glance away or twinge of an arm—Corin turned back toward the center of the chamber and steadied his breathing. He planted his feet, blade low but firm in his grip, and every sense sharpened to a fine edge.
For a long moment, nothing happened.
Then the stone trembled.
A deep rhythmic sound echoed through the passage beyond—the unmistakable thunder of hooves striking stone. Each step was slow and deliberate, heavy with inevitability. The air grew thick as it vibrated with the approach of something vast and powerful.
Ariadne rose from her spot against the wall.
Corin tightened his grip on the blade.
The Minotaur was coming.