Tuleen stands pillar-tall. “I was.”
The candle. All this time I thought Prince Balior had searched the small, deserted office. How wrong I had been.
“Did you take any books?” the South Wind demands, eyebrows snapped over his straight nose.
Tuleen smiles as she says, “As many as I could carry. And I cleared the room following the darkwalker attack. I would rather the information not fall into the wrong hands.”
Amir looks between them. Sweat wends down the side of his face and dampens the collar of his robe. “What is he talking about?” He angles toward his wife. “Tuleen?”
A warm flutter of hope swells inside my chest as she motions toward the office, leading the two men to its impressive collection of wall-to-wall bookshelves. One by one, she removes fat tomes, bound documents, the occasional scroll, to place them on the desk. “King Halim claimed the Lord of the Mountain would return to take Sarai’s life,” she says. “But as you can see, Sarai’s nameday has passed, and there is no body to be found. Which makes me believe the curse has altered course—or has been misinterpreted.”
Misinterpreted.I hadn’t considered that. Is this not the afterlife, this mirror a means to observe what develops in the living realm? But she makes an excellent argument. If I were truly dead, where is my body?
“What do you meanmisinterpreted?” Notus demands.
“It’s clear from my research that there is a connection between Sarai and the labyrinth,” she responds, flipping through one of the documents. “But I stumbled upon a translation that makes me wonder if King Halim possibly misunderstood the bargain that was struck.” She pins her finger against a page. “In this translation, it’s stated not that the Lord of the Mountain would return to take Sarai’s life. It’s that he would return to takeher. Which makes me believe that Sarai is not, in fact, dead.”
“If she’s not dead,” Amir cuts in, “then where is she?”
Tuleen lifts her head, face grave. “She’s trapped in the labyrinth.”
26
THIS IS THE LABYRINTH?
I turn in place, scanning the area, hemmed in by solid walls. Darkness brushes my skin with its primordial chill. It smells of the earth in decay, the arid perfume of the desert air smothered by rot.
I press a hand to my breastbone. Fear twines so tightly with relief that I’m not entirely surewhatto feel. I’m not dead, as I had believed: relief. There’s still time to save Ishmah: relief. I’m trapped in the labyrinth: fear. And the heaviest, the most potent: I don’t know if I will make it out alive.
I return to studying the mirror. Notus has begun to pace. “How can you be certain Sarai is trapped in the labyrinth?” he asks Tuleen.
Amir, however, continues to stare at his wife with a mixture of confusion and betrayal. “Why didn’t you inform me of this sooner?” he insists. “Why would you keep this from me?”
Tuleen is a small woman, bird-boned, and—I had thought—brittle. But she appears to grow three feet in the span of a single breath. “Your father was ill. I did not want to place yet another worry onto your shoulders.” She begins to cough, blinking rapidly through the thickening smoke. “We haven’t time for your dramatics, darling. Darkwalkers are turning the city to rubble—the forges to the west have already collapsed. Ishmah is burning down as we speak. You know now. Let that be enough.”
Agreed. There are more pressing matters.
Ammara’s new queen turns to the South Wind with a keen eye. “What do you know of the labyrinth, Notus? You yourself have walked its passages, have you not?”
He crosses toward the window, pivots, and returns to the door, head dipped in thought. “I know that the labyrinth was built to contain the beast, which hails from the City of Gods. A sacrifice was made to the beast every ten years.”
“Yes, a sacrifice.” Tuleen glances between Notus and Amir pensively, the latter of whom looks utterly befuddled by the conversation. “Have you ever noticed the ruby that marks the labyrinth entrance?”
Amir frowns, but Notus says, “I have.” He continues his anxious pacing, hands linked behind his back, tired boots appearing out of place against the opulent rugs embellishing the floor. “What of it?”
“According to my findings, the ruby is supposedly linked to the beast’s hunger.” She opens a small journal, where she has jotted down some of her notes. “The greater the hunger,” she says, scanning her handwriting, “the brighter it gleams. But yesterday, when I passed by the entrance, I found the ruby dull and lightless. I believe something was placed inside the labyrinth to feed the beast.”
My stomach drops. Or someone.
Gods. Was this to be my fate all along? Locked in this tomb with no hope of escape? For reasons unknown, I’ve always been drawn toward the labyrinth. If the curse was truly misinterpreted, I was destined for this prison regardless.
“You think Sarai was taken into the labyrinth as a sacrifice for the beast?” Amir says lowly. “Is that what I’m hearing?” He dabs the sweat from his forehead. When another fitful cough explodes from his wife, he passes his headscarf to her. Tuleen wraps it around her face for protection.
“Yes, darling,” she wheezes, the back of her hand pressed to her mouth. “That is exactly what I’m saying.”
Nervous laughter tickles the back of my throat. It’s not funny. It is the farthest thing from funny. But if I don’t laugh, I’m afraid I’ll break, and that is simply unacceptable.
My brother swears, and shoves the heels of his palms into his eyes, and sags onto the edge of his massive bed, red silk robes already kissed by falling ash. “So what do we do?” His hands drop. His eyes are wet. “I can’t leave Sarai to die in the labyrinth, but Prince Balior has unleashed his army upon Ishmah, and darkwalkers are ravaging the lower ring. People will be looking toward Tuleen and I to guide them to safety.”
