I reach up with shaking fingers and tug the mask free.
The face beneath is a stranger’s. Scarred. Hard-edged. More brutal than I ever imagined. But it’s him.
Drayven.
My Drayven.
Older. Tanned, golden skin. Two slashes for brows pulled tight in a grimace of pain. Long lashes closed. Lips, still a little swollen and rosy from when he feasted on me through the mask. He is weathered and scarred from years of war, yes, but still… him. Still breathtakingly handsome. Even more.
Somehow alive.
I suck in a sharp breath, memories flashing like lightning in my mind. The boy who once promised we’d escape together. The boy who stood outside the Labyrinth gates as a man, silent and unshakable, before walking away—leaving an apple behind.
He never left me.
“You absolute bastard,” I choke out, tears burning hot down my cheeks. “How could you let me think you were dead?”
His lips part, but no words come. Blood stains his mouth, his chin, his throat. He tries to speak, but it comes out a strangled gasp. My hands tremble as I press down on his wound.
He won’t die.He can’t die.
The Baron stirs.
“Come on,” I grunt, hooking my arms under Dray’s and heaving with all my strength. “We need to… get you… somewhere safe…”
But he’s too heavy, too big. His muscular body is a dead weight against mine. I scream my frustration, my rage at the uncaring sky. Why now? Why, after all we’ve been through, all we’ve suffered? Haven’t we paid enough? Haven’t we bled enough for this Gods-forsaken game?
The Labyrinth shifts around us as if in answer, ancient stones grinding and groaning. The briars at the altar’s base shudder, then part. Roses grow from nothing and bloom, unfurling like a sigh. And there, beneath their thorny embrace… a hidden passage, a descending stairwell yawning, dark and deep.
My heart pounds. Every instinct screams danger and warns of traps and treachery. But what choice do I have? What choice has this place ever given me, given any of us?
“Looks like you’re getting your wish,” I mutter, tightening my grip on Drayven’s limp form. “Somewhere safe… or the closest this cursed place can manage.”
With a last, desperate prayer, I haul my good-for-nothing friend into the waiting dark until shadows swallow us whole. The stone steps tremble beneath our feet.
I exhale, tears in my eyes. Of course, this is a trap. Of course, we’ve been tricked. I should have used my blood to kill the Baron instead of saving it to heal Dray. Now I’ll never?—
The ground gives way, and we plummet into the earth, the wind roaring in our ears as we tumble down. The ancient steps must have crumbled or come loose. I can’t tell. We’re weightless. Drayven won’t survive… whatever this is. Stone and soil rush past in a dizzying blur, the wind of our passage tearing the breath from my lungs. I cling to him, determined not to lose him, not again, not ever again.
And then, as suddenly as it began, it’s over. We hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud, rolling to a stop in a tangle of limbs and labored breaths. Dirt and debris fall on our heads. I shield him with my arms until the shower ends.
When it does, I just lie there, blinking up at the distant circle of faint red light above. Mist drizzles through but grows smaller by the second as briars grow over it.
We’re tossed into darkness again and I tense, stretching my senses for signs of danger. I hear trickling and dripping water echoing. Insects chirping. Frogs. Birds.
How would birds survive in here?
As if in answer to my question, sconces around us burst alight with holy flame and reveal our surroundings. Lush foliage, verdant and green. It spills between ruins and shelters us with a canopy. The walls are thick with vines and the cloying scent of roses, but I can’t see any flowers blooming. Above us, further into the chamber, another hole in the ceiling opens to let in the drizzle and moonlight. A beam lands on a statue of a woman with blue hair wreathed in thorny briars. Her face wears a serene smile, directed at the swollen belly clutched in her hands.
“Amara,” I breathe, the name echoing in the stillness like a prayer. “We’re in a lost temple of Amara.”
It seems impossible, unreal, like a fever dream conjured by a dying mind.
But the pain is real enough, the ache in my bones, the burn of my muscles. And Drayven… Drayven is real, solid and warm beneath my hands, his chest rising and falling in shallow, shuddering breaths.
“Alright, you bastard,” I mutter, shifting Drayven carefully onto his back. “You don’t get to die on me now. You have some explaining to do.”
My hands shake as I peel open his jacket and push up his shirt, revealing the ruin of his torso. The fresh sword wound is ghastly, pulsing with each labored beat of his heart, but it’s the other scars that steal my breath. Dozens of them, hundreds, some old and silvered, others raw and red. The way they’re made, deep at one end and shallow at another, all angled similarly… as if made by his own hand.
