I lunge forward with a scream, swiping at Prince Balior’s eyes. He sidesteps and tosses up a hand. A sphere of darkness leaps from his palm, hitting my chest and launching me backward. I crumple against the ground.
Slow, deliberate footsteps approach. A fresh wave of aches settles in my joints as I push upright, wary of this strange power he wields. I’ve never seen anything like it. How am I to fight against something I do not understand? “You can’t take Ammara from me,” I cry hoarsely. “I won’t allow it.”
Prince Balior peers down at me pityingly. “Sarai,” he says. “I already have.”
He gestures to a mirror leaning against the wall I’m positive wasn’t there previously. The surface fractures into a thousand ripples. When it settles, I watch, horrified, as Amir and Tuleen attempt to bar their bedroom door. Something slams against it. Through the crack that forms in the wood, a black wisp slinks into the room, extending toward Tuleen’s ankle. She screams and whacks it with the book she clutches.
Amir shoves her behind him, sword drawn. The door bows with a groan. A sharp crack precedes splintering wood. Tuleen retreats, quickly scanning the room for salt, the only means of protection against the darkwalkers, aside from runes. She finds none.
I watch as my sister-in-law races for the open window to peer below. She will jump. It is three stories high, but she will jump. Behind her, Amir braces his shoulder against the door, stabbing his sword at the beasts salivating on the other side.
Where are the guards? Dead? Souls sucked dry? As I watch Tuleen climb onto the windowsill, the mirror goes dark.
All at once, the breath leaves me.No.
I whirl around, diving toward Prince Balior with a ferocious cry, but he vanishes before I can reach him. I’m not certain how he manages to disappear. I only know that shadows enfold him, and he’s gone.
My breath shortens, my mind spirals. Tuleen and Amir: my only remaining family. Someone has to know Ammara’s monarchs are in peril. If not… if not, I must trust Amir’s proficiency with a sword. And pray that someone, somehow, comes to their aid until I can reach them.
But there is no way out. The shadows that Prince Balior escaped into have somehow sealed the tunnels of the labyrinth shut. As I search the room, my attention falls to Fahim’s violin. I have spent my entire life allowing others to dictate how I must live, what I must eat, what I should wear, how I should speak, where I may wander, and when, and with whom. But I remember Ibramin’s parting words to me all those weeks ago.
Music is grief, yet it is also healing and wonder and joy. Rememberthat. Remember the ways it has shaped you. Remember how it nurtures and heals.
My hands move before I’m aware of it, snapping open the case to brush the silver-wound strings, pulling the bow free of its recess and tightening the horsehair. Then, the violin itself. Its heft is familiar as my name is familiar, a knowing stitched alongside my heart.
Tucking the instrument beneath my chin, I drag the bow across the open strings, slowly tuning using the pegs. The strings are old, but they ring as if they have been recently broken in, resonating with a velvet depth. And then? I play.
Here is what I know: grief never truly lifts. It may alter its shape, it may shed its skin, but no matter the attempts to live your life around the hole of what was, inevitably, the pain penetrates the shield you have erected around yourself. I did not realize that in erecting that barrier, I barred my heart from joy and curiosity, awe and tenderness. I became stern, bitter, full of sharp stones. There was no remedy to smooth their edges. I did not wish for one. I did not ask.
But here, now, the shield crumbles. Music encases me in its soft presence, and flows without impediment. It soothes my weary, grief-stricken heart.
If I could speak to Fahim now, I would say this: I’m sorry. I love you. I understand you. I miss you.
As the melody crests, my fingers shifting higher, tears slip down my cheeks. And that, too, is healing.
I’ve nearly reached the end of the piece when something moves in my periphery. I turn, staring into the shadows. Nothing. Perhaps I only imagined it.
Yet when I continue the piece, the flash and flutter of light comes again. A door, arched and wooden, has materialized across the room. As soon as I halt my playing, however, it vanishes.
A sign? Is music the answer to escaping the labyrinth? If so, I’d like to think it is Fahim guiding me to freedom.
So I slip into a jaunty tune. The melody springs beyond my control,spiraling into one of the showpieces Fahim used to perform when we were young. By the time I reach its conclusion, my fingertips throb, tender to the touch. But the door remains clear, gleaming like a dawn-kissed mist. For too long, fear has kept me small. Whatever awaits me on the other side, I’m prepared to meet it.
Pushing open the door, I cross the threshold before my courage flees. And I take the violin with me.
27
SOMETHING STALKS ME.
I can’t say for certain how many hours have passed while I have wound through the crisscrossing passageways and broken corners of the labyrinth. Every so often, I hit a dead end and am forced to backtrack. Time moves strangely in the dark unknown. But it was not long after I began to explore that I first heard it, a steadyclop clop, like a metronome.
I clutch the violin case to my chest. Seeing as it has significant heft, it could be used as a weapon, if needed, though I fear harming the instrument nestled safely inside. Stupid, that I care more for this violin than I do my own life. The quicker I escape this place, the sooner I can help those I love.
Eventually, I reach a crossroads. Right, or left. The passage walls, carved with a language of the ancients, rise like highest cliffs, shielding what lies beyond the white stone. The sound fades, but always, it returns:clop, clop, clop.
My ears strain. It sounds closer than before. I turn right, my sweaty palm grasping the leather handle of the violin case. I veer around a corner, then another. Whatever stalks me—the beast?—it sounds enormous.
Ducking behind a wall, I spot an area in the stone that has been carved away, providing a crevice wide enough to offer a hiding place.I manage to squeeze myself into the cramped space, eyes fixed on the tunnel ahead. A quick scan of my surroundings reveals small stones lying against the base of the wall. I snatch one up, breath held.
