Dimitri grins widely and offers his hand. “Come with me.”
She doesn’t hesitate. She takes his hand, giving him a soft smile.
My stomach churns as I watch him lead her away. Right before they get to the door, he stops, turning to her. He slowly reaches for her cheek, caressing it softly. He kisses her. She lets him. I see red. My jaw is clenched so hard it hurts.
When they break apart, breathless, he looks directly at me and smirks before leading her out.
After the door closes behind them, it vanishes.
Looking to the couch, I see that the pink-haired vampire has also disappeared.
I’m left alone.
Is that where she was?All those days when no one would tell me where she’d gone—when they only said she was “resting.” Was she here? In some hidden palace, laughing withhim,kissing him, while I tore myself apart worrying?
I shake my head violently.Doesn’t matter. None of it matters. I just need to focus and find her.
The corridors stretch endlessly, hours of illusions. Hours of battles I’ve never fought, moments with her I’ve never lived. My dreams these past weeks have hardened me. I push through them, refusing to falter.
That is…until I hear a scream.
Her scream.
I break into a sprint, every muscle burning. Another scream splits the air, more raw. The sound of someone breaking.
A door looms ahead. I throw it open, and the world stills as I step into a ballroom. Vast, but meaningless. I don’t see it.
All I see is Serenya.
Kneeling in the center of the floor, hunched over, hands covering her face. Shadows coil around her like living chains, whispering with every breath.
I step forward slowly. Afraid that if I move too fast, she’ll vanish again.
“Serenya?” I say softly.
No response. Only her whisper, broken, repeating over and over: “Please not him. Not Koen. Not again.”
My heart stops.
“Little shadow…”
Still nothing.
I crouch in front of her, reach for her, desperate to be her anchor.
She vanishes into smoke.
I grind my teeth, fists clenched so tight my knuckleshurt, fighting to steady the wild rhythm of my heart. It kills me to see her like that, even if I know it wasn’t truly her. Relief and sorrow twist inside me until I can’t tell them apart.
The Labyrinth shows no mercy. It doesn’t grant me time to gather myself, to breathe. The ground beneath me ripples like disturbed water, and before I can react, it swallows me whole. I plunge downward, weightless for a heartbeat, then crash against stone. Pain flares up my wrists and shoulders as I land hard on my hands and knees. I bite back a groan, rising slowly.
Stone walls close in around me, towering higher than I can see. There is no ceiling, only a strip of open sky above—dark and heavy, like a storm waiting to break. The air is thick with the bitter taste of stone dust, damp and stale. My boots scrape over uneven rock as I push forward, twisting through narrow corridors. Twice, three times, I slam into dead ends, forced to double back.
I turn a corner and freeze.
Mawless. Not one.Two.
Both wear stolen faces. Aren’s sharp features. Aleric’s soft eyes. The sight hits like a fist to the gut. I barely survived my last fight with one of these creatures, and that was against a single mawless. Now two close in, silent and merciless.
