Chapter 15 #2
The animal life is just as incredible, maybe more so.
I spot a peacock in the distance, but when it turns, the sunlight catches and refracts.
Its feathers are shards of transparent crystal, each plume razor-edged and precise.
It looks like it could cut a person to ribbons if it got close.
A family of rabbits darts past the trail, their fur shimmering with what I first thought was dew at first, but is actually tiny moving scales, like fish or snake skin.
Above us, birds with tails longer than my arm chase each other from branch to branch, their songs piercing, their eyes ringed with a metallic shine.
Miles pass. The path narrows but we push through, my heart in my throat every time something moves in the underbrush.
Once, a herd of deer crosses the trail, only instead of antlers, they have boughs of silver and gold, and their hooves spark where they hit stone.
One pauses to stare at me, its eyes blank and endless, like looking into a well at midnight.
But the wolves are even more incredible.
They appeared as the sun moved higher in the sky, shadowing us from the trees.
From a distance they appeared to be regular wolves, but when one breaks cover to pace alongside me, I see the truth: it’s twice the size of any wolf I’ve ever seen, fur like burning amber, eyes molten gold.
Its teeth are too white, too long. Its lips peel back in a smile far too deliberate for a wolf, before it lopes off into the brush.
I shudder and press closer to the kings, but they don’t seem concerned. The only thing they look at, other than the road ahead, is me. Their gaze keeps darting back to me, as if making sure I haven’t run off. Which, to be fair, I absolutely would do if I thought I could get away with it.
King Sylvian glances back at me again, but when our eyes meet, he slows a bit on his horse until he drops back to ride beside me. My spine stiffens, and I look away, feeling like the big man is far too close. He’s far too handsome for his own good.
“You doing all right?” he asks over the pounding hooves of our horses.
I don’t know what to say. No, I’m not alright, but I’m not admitting that. “There are… a lot of unique creatures in the fae lands.”
He smiles, and I can tell it’s genuine. “If you see something and want to know what it is, ask me. I know every tree, every animal out here.” He sweeps a hand at the landscape as a flock of birds flies overhead. “My family has ruled this part of the world for centuries.”
It’s interesting to hear the pride in his voice. “What are those birds called? The ones with the silver tails?”
“Mirrowhawks,” he says instantly. “They steal shiny things. They’ll try to take your dagger if you don’t keep an eye on it.”
I slide my hand to the bone hilt, checking. It’s still there.
“What about the peacocks I saw? And the strange rabbits?”
He goes on, excited now, eager to share. “The glass peacocks are dangerous, but only if you chase them. They’re all males, and in mating season they’ll fight to the death. The rabbits are harmless, but their scales are poisonous if you try to eat them.” He glances at me. “Not that you’d try.”
“I’ve eaten worse,” I say. He blinks and looks impressed, before his expression falls into something sadder.
He’s about to say more, but King Ashton swoops in, sliding his horse between us, edging King Sylvian aside.
“Bored yet?” he asks, sunlight turning his hair an even richer gold.
I shake my head. “More like overwhelmed. Your lands and the creatures are… a lot.”
He leans over. “You get used to it. Want to know a secret?”
I don’t, but I know he’ll tell me anyway.
He drops his voice. “King Sylvian is terrified of bugs. Not the big ones—just the ones that sting. Last spring a colony of tick wasps moved into the palace and he slept outside until they were gone.”
King Sylvian groans, but there’s no real anger in it. “You’re such a child.”
King Ashton laughs. “Yet, I’m not afraid of wasps.”
King Cassius drops back to reach my other side, his posture perfect, his expression unreadable as always. “Try not to mind them,” he says. “They’ve been fighting like this since before they could walk.”
I glance at him. “And you?”
He shrugs. “I try not to get involved. The fae have enough to fight about.”
King Ashton leans back, a hand behind his head, riding one-handed. “Cassius once made an earth fae cry just by talking. He’s not as nice as he looks.”
“Really?” I’m not sure I believe it.
The back and forth goes on like this for hours.
They switch off, taking turns riding beside me, sometimes just to argue with each other, sometimes to share a fact or two.
Every so often, King Oberon will drop back, as if by accident, but he never says anything.
He just rides close enough to make sure I’m still there, then pushes ahead.
We stop only once, to water the horses and check our packs.
I take the opportunity to stretch my legs, pacing the clearing while the others bicker over the best route to take.
The forest here is impossibly dense, the trees growing so close together that only slivers of sunlight reach the ground.
I can hear something moving in the brush, but when I look, there’s nothing there.
The whole place is unsettling. The air tastes of metal, and I constantly feel like I’m being watched.
I walk over to where King Cassius is checking his saddle, just to get away from the other three. “Are we getting close?”
“We are.”
That sick feeling turns my gut. “Do you think we’ll really make it through the labyrinth?” I hate how small my voice sounds.
He glances up, pale blue eyes unreadable. “I don’t know,” he admits. “But if anyone can, it’ll be us. You, especially.”
“Why me?” The question comes out sharper than I mean it to.
He straightens, regarding me for a long time before answering. “Because you’re the only one the goddess isn’t trying to punish.”
He doesn’t explain, and I don’t ask. But I think about it as we mount up again.
Hours pass. After what feels like forever, the woods start to thin, the light growing stronger. We climb a low ridge, and I realize that the whole world has been sloping upward. The trail gets rockier, the air colder, and my hands ache on the reins.
Finally, we crest the last hill and stop.
No one says a word.
The world falls away before us, and we get a bird’s eye view of a valley so deep and wide it’s like staring into the mouth of a monster.
The labyrinth fills the whole space, packed tight as a city.
The walls are made of living green, some kind of vine or moss that writhes and pulses as I watch.
It stretches for miles—no, farther than that, because the far edge is lost in a swirling gray cloud that hangs low over the ground, churning like a thunderhead about to split open.
The cloud covers most of the view but you can still see through it to the labyrinth below.
Only the entrance is totally visible, a simple stone archway at the closest edge, so far away it looks like a child’s toy.
But I know, like the way the air changes before lightning finds the ground, that there is nothing simple about this place.
King Oberon points with his chin. “That’s it. The labyrinth.”
I swallow, the taste of fear heavy in my mouth. “How are we supposed to get through that?”
King Cassius stares at the maze, his face unreadable. “We don’t have a choice. Our people have been cursed to be cut off from their magic… and the fae need to be connected to their magic. The only way to free them, to get our magic back, is to make it through the labyrinth.”
King Ashton vaults off his horse gracefully, stretches, and wipes sweat from his brow. “It’s not such a bad thing. I’d rather die having an adventure than rot in that castle. Besides, we can be the first to survive the labyrinth. That’s something…”
“Or just another group that goes in and doesn’t come back out,” King Sylvian says softly.
I can’t help but ask, “Why did other people even try if the goddess said you needed your chosen one to make it through?”
King Cassius sighs. “Because there are… consequences if the fae are cut off from their magic for too long. So, as time passed with no chosen one, brave warriors risked their lives, thinking they were strong enough to beat the goddess at her own game.”
“They were wrong.” King Sylvian looks saddened.
“None of them even made it back out through the beginning?”
“None,” the water fae tells me quietly.
King Oberon dismounts and strides to the edge of the ridge, surveying the whole thing like a warlord planning a siege. “This won’t be that hard for a great king.”
“Four great kings,” King Ashton says, lifting a brow. Then, glancing at me, he adds, “And a little human.”
There's silence. I wonder if they’re thinking of the same thing I am: that none of us have any idea what’s inside. That none of us knows that we’ll survive this. There are five of us now. How many will there be when we reach the end of this maze?
King Oberon catches my gaze, and for the first time, I see something besides anger or contempt in his eyes. He looks tired. Maybe just resigned. “Get some rest,” he says. “It’ll take a few hours to reach the entrance, so we’ll spend the night here. We enter at dawn.”
They release all the horses in a small clearing just off the ridge, so they can make their way back to the castle.
King Oberon builds a fire, King Sylvian and King Ashton gather wood, and King Cassius checks the perimeter.
I unpack my few belongings and sit by myself, staring down at the maze, trying not to imagine what’s waiting inside.
No one speaks. We eat in silence, the food tasteless, King Oberon building the fire until it blazes.
When I finally crawl into my blankets and close my eyes, I see the labyrinth waiting for me, its heart pulsing like a wound. I want to cry, but I don’t.
Instead, I promise myself that I will survive this. If there’s one thing I am, I’m a survivor.