While it was blinded, I scrambled to my feet in a blink.
Before I had time to get away, the snake’s flames sputtered back to life. It lunged, and I leapt back to dodge its lethal teeth as they snapped at me.
I slammed into a hedge, the impact leaving me gasping, the bramble and thorns tearing at my skin and catching on the nightgown.
“Fuck,” I hissed at the pain, struggling to regain my footing. I pulled myself out of the hedge, leaving shreds of fabric behind, and dove out of the way as the monster lunged again.
I was almost fast enough, but one of the monster’s teeth snagged on my forearm, tearing through the skin before its head slammed into the maze wall. A stream of blood spilled down toward my wrist, dripping off my fingers. A quick glance down had nausea turning my stomach.
I hadn’t bled this badly in a while, and I couldn’t gauge how deep the cut was, nor did I have time to. I leaped over the monster’s body as it fought to dislodge itself from the bramble, and ran for the river, my legs moving as fast as they could.
The snake monster shifted, roaring behind me, and my heart crashed against my ribs. There were only a few feet between me and the river now, and I was running too fast to slow down in time. I’d have to jump and attempt to climb my way along the hedge to cross the river. It was my only option.
My feet left the ground and I was airborne for a brief moment, the crimson Styx flowing beneath me. I caught my breath, time seeming to slow to a crawl. Then, it sped up again and I slammed into the bramble, grabbing desperately at the knotted branches as pain exploded over every inch of my body.
I cried out, clinging to the hedge. All the thorns were stabbing into my flesh, the pain so intense my nerves shorted out for a moment. I had to hold on. Getting stabbed a thousand times over was still better than disappearing into the corpse-logged water below with no hope of escape. Still better than getting mauled by a bone monster.
I attempted to climb, reaching for another branch as my grip began to slip. My fingers were numb with pain, my arms already growing weak. I wasn’t going to make it…
Hands pushed out of the bramble, gripping me by my arms and legs. I started to scream, flashbacks of the oubliette rushing at me as fast as the current blow.
Then it hit me, the severed limbs weren’t greedily groping at my exposed flesh, they were holding me up.They were saving me.
I looked to the side to see a head, inches from me, instructing the limbs to keep me steady.
“You’re helping me?” I pushed out, my voice rife with both relief and disbelief.
“You’re the Lord’s queen to be. He wouldn’t want you to slip into the Styx where you might drift to devil lords far worse than him.”
I didn’t have time to dwell on his words before the serpent lunged, its movement flashing in the corner of my eye, and I screamed again. The limbs started passing me down the line of outstretched hands, all pushing out from the long hedge, and the snake’s fangs narrowly missed my skin. They snagged on the nightgown, ripping half of it off my body as it fell toward the river below.
The water rippled, jostling the decaying body parts where the snake had disappeared underwater. I expected to see it swimming upstream toward me, or even slithering out of the river to try again. What I saw instead had my mouth falling open.
The floating corpses that I’d assumed were mindless and unresponsive for how little they moved, came to life and grabbed for the monster as it attempted to reemerge. It hissed and growled as hands grabbed every inch of it, dragging it beneath the surface.
It didn’t reappear.
I choked on a sob, overcome with relief at escaping the beast, every inch of my body screaming in pain as the adrenaline began to subside.
I’d survived, barely.
The limbs passed me up over the ledge onto a higher level of the labyrinth, allowing me to see all the ground I’d covered.
“You’re halfway through,” one of the helpful heads told me.
Unlike times before, I believed this one.
I dropped to my knees, overcome with exhaustion and a myriad of emotions. I was bleeding everywhere, tiny cuts decorating my skin like morbid confetti. The gash in my forearm, the arm opposite from the mark the Lord of Bones had given me, had stopped bleeding. It wasn’t very deep, but seeing it still made my stomach turn.
Fuck.
I was hurt even more than before. I needed a bath. A good meal. Bandages. Company. Nothing that I would find out here in the maze. Not without Belial’s help.
I seemed to be heading in the right direction. Maybe I could make it out of here after all.
But that meant I wouldn’t get to see him again.
As eager as I was to get the hell out of this place, I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.
