My Dray…
Striking blue eyes flash in my memory, alive with mischief. And that handsome face…
My chest constricts.
Gods, the ache of missing Drayven never fades.
I miss his casual optimism in the face of despair. Miss the trouble that always followed that crooked smile of his. Miss how his fingers would brush my wrist in our game of Shadow Stalker. That final chase when he finally caught me… how I’d felt hot, tight things low down that I’d never known before.
Sometimes, I dream he’s not dead, I’m not here, and we’ve run off to join the military. We’d laugh, have adventures, drink,steal a few cheeky apples, and then, at the end of it all, we’d fall into the same bed and make love. My cheeks heat at the fantasy.
Does love paint him more beautiful in my memory? Or was he truly that good-looking? Or maybe he was just my sexual awakening, unsatisfied, and now nothing will ever compare.
Before grief can drown me, I force my gaze back to the Labyrinth. I should stop fantasizing about it. Women like me don’t get to fall in love. Kasaros might have chosen Lenora for this year’s hunt, but my luck will run out soon. I feel it in my blood.
Hunters swarm the gates while having their entry tokens checked. I count them—twenty-five more than last year. That makes almost two hundred. Oh, and what a variety of participants we have this year. Warriors bearing war scars stand beside merchants in fine clothing. Magic touched creatures, some more serpentine than man. Feral men prowl the edges—too cunning to be here by chance. They must have killed or bribed their way in.
My breath catches at the sight of a familiar figure. The Huntsman looms by the Labyrinth’s wrought-iron gate, one hand caressing his curved sword, the other fondling an apple. The fruit is still rare to find—the fertility of orchards dried up along with the women of this world.
His shadowed hood turns my way. It’s impossible—he can’t see us through the mirrored glass. Yet certainty crawls up my spine, my muscles seizing as his macabre masked smile flutters with his breath.
Every year, he stands guard like a faithful hound, escorting Kasaros’s chosen bride through the lecherous rabble and deep into the Labyrinth to the nemeton. He returns alone, looks up at the Pen as if to revel in our continued suffering, and then vanishes as the Hunt begins, leaving his untouched apple behind—taunting us with a piece of freedom we’ll never taste again.
Hundreds of hunters. Twelve brides.
The trees are definitely laughing.
Lenora’s renewed wailing pierces the silence. She is waxed bare now, and her face is being painted.
“Do you think she’ll make it?” A whisper slithers across the room.
“No one ever has,” comes the reply.
“What do you mean, make it?” Lenora’s raw voice splits the air.
She speaks.
Nervous glances dart between us. Even the priestess fumbles with the paint beneath Lenora’s eyes. A smear runs down her cheekbone. No one wants to answer. Almost everyone in the room looks to me for guidance, and I rage at the injustice of this place. Maybe if I spent less time schooling the Vespers into obedience and more lessons on courage, more of us would be free.
“You’re free,” I say, rising to shake out the veil, “if you reach the Labyrinth’s end before a hunter sullies your womb with his?—”
The priestess’s hand cracks across my face. My head snaps sideways, skin blazing.
“Do you feel no guilt, Vesper Florienne?” she snarls.
“P-pardon?” I touch my throbbing jaw.
“Your skin bears ninety-nine mastery badges while hers is unmarked.”
She says that as if it’s something to be proud of. My fingers trace the thorns etched around my wrist—proof of gracefully enduring pain. The swooping swallow beneath speaks of a darker lesson.
Acid burns my throat at the memory of the sterile education chamber.
A man waits with his pants down, sack over his head. His erection juts out, hard and ready for worshipping. It reminds me of a bulbous, poisonous snake.
“Excellent jaw-span, Vesper Florienne. Now hold that form. No—don’t rise. Kneel as if in prayer. Let him guide you. Good girl. No?—”
“These symbols are nothing to celebrate,” I spit.
