Quickened footsteps. I turn toward the door in relief, tears wetting my cheeks, but it is Fahim who steps inside, not Father. My heart sinks.
“Another nightmare?” my brother asks as he crosses toward my bedside. He’s young, but not for much longer, toeing the threshold between boy and man.
“Where’s Papa?”
“He’s busy, Sarai.” Fahim wipes my face with the sleeve of his robe. “Lie down. I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep.”
For the third time, the image alters. I’m running toward the dining room, pale columns flickering past. The moment I burst through the doors, King Halim turns toward me from his seat at the table, expression twisted in frustration. “You’re late.”
Amir and Fahim hunch further over their plates, attempting to make themselves as small as possible.
I dab the sweat from my brow, struggling to stifle my heavy breathing. “I’m sorry, my lesson ran long—”
“Sit down,” the king snaps.
I look to my brothers for support, but they know what happens when one speaks against the king: nothing good.
My mouth clamps shut. I take my seat, as instructed, and I do not speak for the rest of the meal.
Sarai, please. You have to push through!
Why does that sound like Notus? Why would I conjure his voice now, of all times? Except I realize that the dining room looks different, as though I view it through a filter, fogged behind lost time. The smell of damp is real. It doesn’t belong to the image spread before me.
Notus. The labyrinth.
I blink, and the dining room vanishes.
The bull stands at the opposite end of the shadowy passage, its bulky shoulders and towering height filling the space. Yellow eyes boil like feverish pustules. In them, I see its sorrow and its wrath, this immortal unfairly imprisoned through no fault of its own. An old pain rises in me, a kaleidoscope of memories emerging from the earth in which I’d buried them, and Father at the core of it all.
“Not now, Sarai.”
“A princess must never show weakness.”
“Go.”
“Stop that.”
“What did I tell you?”
“I don’t have time for this.”
Steam is expelled from the creature’s wide, slitted nostrils. For a moment, I’m almost certain I glimpse something human in its face.
A sharp crack of air blasts the bull backward. It rears, hooves wheeling, and charges the South Wind, who has appeared at the other end of the corridor, dripping sweat and looking incredibly relieved to find me unharmed. In seconds, he smothers the beast with a column of wind that whips and shreds and flays, immobilizing it briefly. My hair tangles in the rush of moving air, and I have to brace myself against the wall.
You must conquer the darkness of your own heart if you wish to escape the labyrinth alive.
Of course. I’m not sure how I didn’t see it sooner. This is no beast, I realize. It is a manifestation of our shadow selves, what we become when we allow others to dictate our character, our fate. So long as I continue to run, it will give chase. I will hit yet more walls. I will find my way barred. I will travel this maze end to end, my mind torn apart in attempting to rid myself of all the brokenness, the woe and resentment and bitterness, the agony and the strife.
I glance at the violin in my hand as the South Wind continues to pummel the bull with his power to no avail. Music is my protection, but ultimately, even if we kill the beast, it won’t help us escape the labyrinth.I think… I think I discovered Fahim’s violin to remind myself that I’m still here, still fighting. I had dreams, once. I believed they’d died with my brother, but really, they’d died with me.
Because I did not fight for myself. Because I accepted my circumstances. Because I allowed others to write my beginning and middle and end.
“Sarai, help me!”
Notus won’t be able to maintain that power indefinitely. He is waiting for my performance, the creation of melody and countermelody that will build some contraption strong enough to trap the bull a second time. But as his eyes meet mine through the dim, I gently tuck the violin beneath my chin and play not Fahim’s melody, but the pain and grief locked away inside my heart. The music that is Sarai, just Sarai.
The South Wind cuts at the creature to no avail, his features twisted in horror. “What are you doing?” He swears and blasts the beast against the wall. It slams into the stone with a bellow.
