“I hate this Labyrinth,” I groan, sinking onto a stone bench once we come to a clearing. “Why is it so cursed endless? I swear we’ve passed that statue already.”
Bael’s eyes narrow as he brushes his enormous hand down the statue of a man cutting the heart from a woman who bears the horns of a deer. He turns to look back the way we’ve come, cursing under his breath. “That’s because we have.”
I barely have the energy to glare at him. “What do you mean? I’ve been following Kari’s trail exactly. How does that lead us in circles?”
Is Rhykus laying a false trail?
Does he know we’re coming?
Bael circles the glen. “We’ve passed through here before, but there were five passages leading out of here, and now there are only four.”
I cross to his side. The Labyrinth has been changing in steady intervals—the shift always preceded by that earth-deep grinding sound—but I don’t think we’ve had a shift since we last passed this way. “What does that mean?”
“That fucking prick.” Bael turns, pacing violently as he stares at the skies. “You think this is amusing?”
“Do you expect an answer from the moon?”
“Not the moon. The moon was always Amara’s sigil. But the void between? That belongs to that chuckling asshole. Kasaros is screwing with us.”
Laughter floats past us on the breeze, lifting all the little hairs down my neck. I spin around, but there’s no sign of the God.
“He can do that?” I whisper. “But why?”
Bael scrubs at his mouth. “He’s a God. Of course, he can do it. And he has a fucking terrible sense of humor, so of course hewilldo it. Maybe the hunt’s going too fast. Maybe Rhykus cut a deal with him. Maybe he wants to see mesuffer.”
It’s bad enough that Rhykus is our enemy, but to be dealing with a capricious God as well?
“What do we do?”
“We follow their tracks again, and keep our eyes open for anything we may have missed.” Bael shoulders the pack. “Come on.”
Twenty minutes later, we’re standing back in the same clearing, but this time, there are only three paths leading back into the Labyrinth.
“Motherless fucking bastard.” Bael starts cursing under his breath, glaring at the night skies.
I circle the walls as an owl hoots in the distance. If we’ve missed something it has to be here in the clearing. I examine the statue, then the walls that encircle us, peeling back the ivy that drips down the stone.
“What are you thinking?” Bael stalks my heels.
Ivy covers every wall but one. Instead, rose bushes cling to the ragged stones, a single rose blooming, its pale petals strangely translucent in the night. Little winged creatures buzz around the rose, hissing at us as I come closer.
Parting the brambles over a small alcove, I find an ancient rose symbol etched into the stone at the back of the alcove. It’s slick with moss, the lines barely visible.
Soft light comes from my side. From Bael’s knife.
I unsheathe it, spilling silvery light across my hands and arms. The symbol etched into the blade gleams as bright as the stars above, as if it’s reacting to its mirrored sigil. But what is even more revealing is the writing that suddenly appears on the wall, letters gleaming like bright silver beneath the light from my blade.
“Within thorns and briars, succour can be found,” I read. “The Labyrinth was created by Kasaros after the Goddess sacrificed herself to the stars, was it not?”
Bael rubs his hand over the wall, loosening moss. “It was.”
“Why then, are there rose symbols everywhere within this maze if they’re Amara’s sigil?” I hadn’t been paying attentionuntil now, but the moment I connect the riddle together, images flash into mind.
I’ve seen these stylized rose carvings several times today, embedded in the walls of the maze itself, carved into the manor rooms of the fleshmonger’s auction house, even folded of plaster on the ceilings of the room where Kari was held.
Bael’s piercing amber eyes focus on me. “The rose was Amara’s sigil. I can’t recall if I’ve seen it in here before.” He captures the rose that glows. “This is new too. The first time I entered the bride hunt, the Labyrinth was barren. The ivy sprouted first. Then a few of the more dangerous plants. But I’ve never seen a rose here before.”
Perhaps one of the long-lost brides carved the marks.
