“Maybe it’s supposed to do this,” I add, more to convince myself than anyone else.
“Or maybe it’s reacting to something in here,” King Oberon mutters darkly, expressing my own thought aloud.
We walk in silence. The labyrinth is straight for a while before we start finding twists, splits in direction, and dead ends. It’s not that we need the glow of the dagger to keep the darkness at bay, but something about this place makes me feel like we need the light, like the light can chase away the evil entrapped within the hedges, and even then, it doesn’t feel like enough.This place is dangerous. I can feel it.
King Oberon asks, “Should I make a torch?”
The warm light of a torch sounds good, but, again, I don’t know if we need it, or if we just want it. Shadows are darker here. Deeper. And yet, we can clearly see where we’re going.
“Maybe save it for when the sun goes down,” King Cassius suggests. The others echo their agreement, even though I think I would’ve liked for him to make a torch.
Then, an earth-shattering scream echoes from all around us.
“What the heck is that?” I ask, alert for danger, but nothing comes.
King Cassius answers easily. “My guess? Something being tortured. Something like one of the fae warriors who came here before us.”
“That’s comforting,” I whisper.
King Sylvian squeezes my shoulder, giving me a gentle smile. “Not to worry, you’re here with one of the top warriors in the fae lands… oh, and those three.”
The fire fae snorts and keeps walking.
King Cassius shakes his head and follows the fire fae.
“He means I’m the great warrior,” King Ashton argues, “and he’s here along with me.”
I smile a little and keep walking. These fae and their bickering are starting to become more amusing than frightening, which is nice. Being with them when they’re like this is like being around small children who are fighting.
As we continue deeper into the maze, we hear more screams. Cries of pain echo through the labyrinth, drifting from nowhere and everywhere at once, erasing all traces of my amusement. They rise and fall without pattern, sometimes distant, sometimes close enough to feel like breath against my neck. There is no source. No bodies. Only suffering, suspended in the shadows.
Every time it happens, I freeze, gripping the dagger like a lifeline. The others tense, too, but no one speaks. There’s nothing to say.
The further we go, winding through paths that split and curve, the more treacherous the labyrinth becomes. Vines snake across the ground, thick and gnarled, some as thin as thread and others as wide as my arm. They look harmless enough, but there’s a subtle movement to them, a slow, almost imperceptible shift that makes my skin crawl.
“Let me try my powers, to see if it might help to clear them out of the way,” King Sylvian says.
He lifts his hand and narrows his eyes as he focuses on the vines. Everyone holds very still, but time passes and nothing happens. There’s not even a memory of the spectacular power he has over plants.
“What’s going on?” King Ashton asks, frowning.
King Sylvian shakes his head, his hand dropping. “These must be magicked by the gods. My powers aren’t working on them.”
“Let me see,” King Oberon says, kneeling down. Flames leap into his hand.
“Stop!” King Cassius shouts.
All eyes turn to him.
“Should we really start by approaching these with violence? Wouldn’t it be smarter to just pass them without trouble?”
“He’s right,” King Ashton says. “We don’t know what will happen if we start burning things. We could light the whole labyrinth on fire, or just piss off a bunch of creepy vines.”
“Fuck,” King Oberson mutters, standing up. “I wonder how much of the labyrinth we won’t be able to use our magic on.”
“Probably too much,” King Cassius says. “We should be prepared for as much, and we should be prepared for these vines to be trouble. Better to be prepared for something that will never happen than not be prepared for something that will.”
“Says the philosopher,” King Ashton comments under his breath.
