Movement flickered at the corner of my vision, and I whipped around. A vacant-eyed man shuffled, dragging his feet. Another female stumbled into view. She didn’t even notice us.
“Are those the villagers?”
“Probably.” Kairos stepped in front of me as more people emerged from the shadows. Dozens of them, wandering aimlessly. We could end up like them.
We edged along, and the shambling fae parted around us, their mouths moving soundlessly. The wall curved sharply, opening into a narrow archway.
I drew in a shaky breath and walked through. Straight ahead, the path immediately forked, both corridors identical and stretching into darkness. Three steps in, the trail split again. Then again. Each corridor exactly like the last; endless gray stone, no markers, no way to tell which direction we’d come from.
My chest tightened. “It’s a maze.”
“We’ll find ourway through.”
“What if we don’t?” My voice cracked. “What if we just wander in here forever?”
“Use your gift.” He gripped my shoulder. “Every time you sense a rune, you’re feeling where the magic is strongest. This is the same. Feel for it.”
I obeyed him, trying to block out my pounding heart.
Magic suffocated the air and crawled up the walls like vines, humming under our feet. It pressed against my skin. I rotated, reaching out with my mind.
There.
Heat baked my face, like standing too close to a forge. I opened my eyes and took the left path, Kairos on my heels.
The walls groaned—a deep sound that made my teeth ache. I glanced back and my blood chilled. The corridor was collapsing, stones sliding together, sealing the path behind us.
The passage forked again. Left or right?
I felt for that pull. I veered left and Kairos followed, the walls tightening. We broke into a run, but it was closing in too fast. My shoulders scraped stone on both sides. I stumbled through the opening, gasping. Kairos emerged a second later, and the walls behind him slammed shut.
I turned the corner and froze.
Steel gleamed in the sickly light. A troop of Skaldir soldiers blocked the way, blades raised, but their edges shimmered like a haze and their faces were blank.
“Constructs,” Kairos snarled. “The rune’s trying to stop us.”
My fingers itched for a weapon I didn’t have.
Steel met steel with a scream. The first soldier lunged, blade sweeping low. Kairos dropped his weight, blocking, and the impact rattled my teeth. He shoved hard, forcingthe enemy back, then stabbed upward. The soldier burst apart like smoke.
Another construct swung high. Kairos pivoted, sparks showering as he parried. He smashed his shoulder into its chest, crushing it into the wall, then slashed. It dissolved with a sound like tearing fabric.
Kairos flung out his free hand, and white tendrils wrapped a soldier’s head. It clawed at its face, then crumbled. The male rushed him, and the mist coiled its legs. The construct folded in on itself and vanished.
Then the walls shuddered.
“Kairos!”
“I see it,” he barked.
I hustled past dissolving ash, toward that relentless heat that felt like a small sun, but the walls kept shrinking. Then a jagged seam split open ahead.
“This way!” I shouted.
Kairos’s blade clanged, and his opponent flung him against the wall, its sword sliding closer to his throat. His teeth bared, muscles straining.
I hurled a loose rock at the construct. It struck its face and the thing reeled. Kairos wrenched free and swept his blade through it. It burst into smoke.
