We continued on, and my lungs began to fatigue. The maze was blistering, the sun hot on my scalp, the path bone-dry. I knew Dorian could run faster and longer, but he stayed close. Above us, the sun was a few hours past its apex; it was around three in the afternoon. Beneath us, only pale dirt and rock. Nothing grew here except the hedge.
Another break appeared on the right, and I didn’t question it. If the first presented an ambush, then the second one would be the path everyone else took. If I understood Dorian at all, then we would take the third break.
Soon enough, the hedge broke a second time. Dorian said, “This one.”
We veered left. Here another path continued for some time before the hedge would force a turn. We kept running and came to a T. Dorian pulled me left again, and here the hedge became tighter, narrower, and twenty paces on we came to an almost perfectly circular alcove.
We rushed into it, and only then did Dorian let go of my hand. My fingers ached from his grip, and I doubled over, breathing through white pinpricks in my sight. I coughed and nearly retched. After the hour’s ride on the horses and our sprint, I could have dropped here. Only adrenaline kept me upright.
“Catch your breath,” he said. “We won’t stay long.”
When my stomach had settled and my vision wasn’t full of sprites, I eyed the alcove—and the walls that hemmed us in.
The hedge here wasn’t the soft, gardened kind I’d seen in drawings. It was made of brambles thick as my wrist, black-green and glossy with sap, their thorns long and sharp enough to pierce clean through bone.
Leaves clustered in dense spirals, veined in purple and shot through with faint, silvery mold. They rustled even without wind, as if murmuring to one another. At their roots, the soil steamed faintly, and I caught the smell of something damp and ancient. The entire wall pulsed faintly with heat, like something alive was breathing just beyond the green.
I knew instinctively: this hedge could not be climbed through or up. Our only option was to navigate through to the other side.
“Don’t touch the hedge,” Dorian said beside me, almost in a murmur. His footsteps were light over the dirt as he paced to the alcove’s opening. “It’s razorleaf. Every part of it is designed to draw blood. And to poison.”
As if I longed to prick my fingers on that.
I straightened, wiping sweat from my brow. “Let’s go.”
We moved on, jogging down the path until we came to a sharp right turn. From there we continued down more paths, taking turns that followed no logic except to avoid being found by the others.
As we moved, Dorian explained the trial. “We have to find the maze’s end,” he said. “It’s the only way to pass the trial.”
“What about the center?”
He ventured a quick glance at me. “The center?”
“A maze’s center is said to be a special place.” I remembered thatfrom the rumors of the royal maze in my kingdom. “What’s in the center of the Eldermaze?”
“There’s lore about this place. In it lies life and death,” he said. “Maybe at the center. The last time fae were sent into the Eldermaze was during the first trials hundreds of years ago, and none emerged.”
My chest constricted. “So how do you know there’s a way out?”
“I don’t.” His eyes met mine as we ran. “But it would be a pretty terrible maze if there wasn’t.”
I would take any sprig of hope right now.
“But to find out,” Dorian said, “we have to avoid the others. And anything else roaming this place. And…”
“Yes? Does the hedge come alive at night?”
He let out a one-note, bitter laugh. “Irin, I pray not.” Then, after a beat, “The Eldermaze is vast.”
“How vast?”
“Unfathomable. We’re as likely to die of thirst or hunger as we are to the other fae.”
As he said it, we came around a corner and nearly stumbled over a skeleton sprawled across our path. It had the appearance of a human, but it must be fae.Same bones as us.The death had occurred so long ago even the clothes were gone; only gleaming porcelain bones remained.
I paused, but Dorian stepped over it. “Get used to this.”
The weight of Dorian’s words settled over me as I stared down at the skeleton’s eyeholes. The back of its skull was missing. A searing realization heated my neck and face.
