It feels like it takes hours, but eventually, I stop shivering.
But I don’t sleep. I just lay there, Cassius’s arm a line of fire across my body, and try to figure out why every cell in me is fighting so hard not to be wanted. Is being wanted really such a bad thing? Is enjoying these fae kings just while we’re in the labyrinth really so bad?
When all of this is over, I’ll be back home. Probably being sold off to a horrible man.What’s stopping me?The answer comes easily.If I feel what it is to be wanted, if I can fool myself into thinking I’m loved, even for a little time, how will I ever go back to my cold and lonely life?
18
Alette
We’ve been traveling for days now. Long enough that they’ve started to blur together, just a sea of footfalls and nothing else. The world shrinks to a corridor of sky, moss, and the pulsing ache of dehydration. We walk until our legs shake, then walk more, driven by the sick certainty that if we stop, we won’t make it out alive. We sleep when it gets dark, eat when Sylvian manages to grow something edible out of the weeds beneath the hedges or Ashton scares up a clutch of eggs from under a root or in a branch.
Mostly, though, we march.
Nobody says it, but we’re out of water, and we’ve been out of water for too long. At first, we were able to depend on the water that we filled up from the lake. Then, Cassius was able to pull water from the very air. Now, however, that’s stopped working. Something about the water in the air not listening to him anymore.
It’s probably just another way for the goddess to punish us.
Even the morning dew is bitter and does nothing to cut the tongue-thick thirst, which has a negative effect on all of us. Oberon is the worst, always a step ahead, always scowling,but every day his eyes get darker and his steps move slower. Sylvian’s jokes are quieter, like he’s always needed water to power them. Ashton still finds ways to smile, even if his smiles don’t meet his eyes.
Cassius is the only one who doesn’t change in too obvious of a way. If he’s suffering, it’s behind a wall I can’t see through. Sometimes he walks next to me, silent, our arms brushing, and the only hint he’s not a walking corpse is the pulse at his neck and the way his fingers twitch like they want to reach out for me.
Me? I just keep going. I remember what it was like to haul water in the summer, how a single drop could drive a whole day’s work. This is the same. I just have to keep my head down, keep moving, and believe that eventually we’ll find water again.
What’s new is the way they treat me. Ever since that night, the one with the confessions and the near-hypothermia, there’s a tenderness in the way they talk to me. Not that it’s always sweet. Oberon still barks his orders, and Sylvian is a disaster with boundaries, but it’s like they’re wooing me without gifts, without compliments and false promises, just through their actions and gentle words.
Which scares me. Getting close to them is absolutely terrifying, and I have no idea why. But every time I find myself softening to them, a wall goes up inside of me. Something soul-deep seems to know that these men could hurt me in a way I could never recover from.
And that shakes me to my core.
Still, they ask me things. They ask about my world, about humans. Sylvian wants to know whether it’s true that our pigs will eat a man if you leave him in the pen long enough. Oberon scoffs at the stories, but sometimes he’ll mutter questions when he thinks I can’t hear, about the machines we build, or why humans paint pictures of the sky. Cassius is the most direct. He’ll come right out and say, “Why do you wear your hair thatway?” or “Did you ever think about leaving your grandparents and your farm behind?” and then stare at me until I answer.
But mostly, it’s Ashton. He never lets a silence sit too long. He’ll prod me with a stick, or walk a few steps backwards just to watch me roll my eyes. His questions are lighter, but there are more of them. “Did you ever have a favorite tree?” he asks, or “What’s the worst thing you ever ate?”
It’s ridiculous, but it’s working. The cold in me is softening. I catch myself laughing at Ashton’s jokes, or leaning into Sylvian’s shoulder when I’m too tired to walk straight. Sometimes I even look forward to Cassius’s silent company, the way he never pushes but always waits, ready to catch me if I slip.
None of it makes sense. These men, these fae, are supposed to be monsters. They’re supposed to be selfish, scheming, too beautiful to care about anything but themselves. But here, in the endless green, they’re just tired and thirsty and a little bit lost. Like me.
It’s on the third day with hardly a drop to drink that we round a corner and the world changes. It’s so sudden that we all stop at once, a five-person pileup, staring at the impossible. Ahead, the maze opens. Not just into a clearing, but a valley, or maybe a gorge, a dip in the earth so wide it could swallow a city. The walls are smooth and vertical, like the inside of a bowl, and the bottom is carpeted in flowers.
But it’s not just some flowers. It’s a field of them, stretching for miles, a perfect skin of color. They’re every color I’ve ever seen, and half a dozen more I haven’t. They grow in clusters, in swirls, in shapes that defy reason. Some of them are the size of my thumb, others as big as my head. Some have petals like knives, others like velvet. It’s beautiful in a way I could never properly describe. Beautiful, and probably dangerous, since this place is part of the labyrinth.
We stand at the edge for a long time, nobody wanting to be the first to move.
Finally, Sylvian says, “Well, that’s not ominous at all.”
Oberon grunts, “It’s a trap.”
Cassius squats to get a better look. “If it’s a trap, it’s a good one. I don’t see any movement. No scent of blood or rot.”
Sylvian kneels down beside Cassius and rests his palms on the earth. Roots erupt from the soil like living things, writhing like snakes as they dance over his hands. All of us hold our breath, and then Sylvian opens his eyes, frowning. “I can’t quite read them. They’re like nothing I’ve encountered before.”
Ashton looks at me, eyebrows raised. “What do you think, Alette? Is this the part where we all die beautifully?”
I scan the field. I expect to see the telltale signs of danger, things like webs, black mud, the shimmer of predator scales, but there’s nothing. Just color. “I think it’s the only way forward,” I say, because there’s no way we’re doubling back after coming this far.
Oberon is already unsheathing his sword, and Cassius is checking his knives. Sylvian, on the other hand, stands and says, “If we have to die, I hope at least some of them are edible.”
Ashton laughs. “Bet you two silver marks the pink ones taste like soap.”
