The center of the floor suddenly split with a grinding roar. Both Kirk and I staggered backward as dust plumed up. A circular section sank away to reveal a jagged chasm lit by cold blue light. From its depths, two stone pillars rose like teeth.
Kaelric stood, bound on one, magical chains wrapped around his wrists and ankles, and a black blindfold over his eyes. His hands were tied above his head and hooked on a nail that was imbedded into the pillar. Across the gulf, the second pillar held another prisoner, Kirk’s broad-shouldered wolfkin. He was similarly bound. A woman’s cry pierced the hush, and it took a second to realize it was mine. Kirk Vexalor, however, was completely silent, uncaring that his wolfkin was standing over a void, bound and gagged. He stepped forward, his jaw set.
‘I’m okay,’Kaelric told me.‘Focus on the trial.’
Above the chasm, a giant clock unfurled out of thin air. Runes spun inside its glass face. The minute hand snapped to the twelve with an audible click. The hour hand shivered into place. Corvessa lifted her arm, and the dial flared with blue light.
“One hour,” she announced, her voice amplified by woven magic. “Two initiates. Two bonds.Onepath. The first to free their own wins the Arcane Trials and earns the mountain’sfavor.”
Her gaze cut to me. She smiled the kind of smile that promised nothing good.
“Begin.”
With that, a labyrinth sprang up around the chasm, as if rising from thin air, a spiral of glossy ten-foot black walls veined with light. The passages were narrow, barely wide enough for two to pass. It erected too fast for me to see anything or mark a path to the center, where Kaelric was bound.
I did not move. Not yet. I peered up over the top of the walls and found Kaelric in the center. He had lifted his head. The wind caught his hair, and he looked as if I let him loose that he would rip Corvessa’s head from her tiny body.
‘You’ve got this.’His voice brushed my mind like a palm to the cheek.
‘Hold on,’Ianswered,‘I’m coming.’
Valkaryn was warm in my grip. The sword’s wolf at the hilt gleamed, eyes lit with a hidden ember. The blade hummed, and I knew Valkaryn was ready to help me end this. Kirk was already inside.
‘Do not waste any time,’she murmured from somewhere behind the metal and the heat.‘Move, girl.’
I moved, no longer held by fear, or shock, or possible failure.
The first passage bent left, then right, then into a fork where a translucent gate of odd letteringshimmered. Kirk’s footfalls slapped stone in a parallel corridor to my right. I couldn’t see him, but I heard his breath as he drew in, sharp and measured. He moved as if he had trained for this since childhood, which he probably had. I tried not to think about that, or the way the magical bindings dug into Kaelric’s arms and legs as he hung somewhere above me.
The gate before me bore a triangle etched with a wolf's paw inside it, and beneath that, an old script. The characters felt familiar in the way a word can feel familiar on your tongue, even when you cannot say it. It took me a second to realize it was Vaskari, the wolfkin language Kaelric sometimes spoke.
‘It’s a puzzle. Kaelric can solve it,’Valkaryn told me.
‘I’m standing in front of Vaskari lettering. I don’t know what it says. It looks like three words,’Itold Kaelric.
‘Tell me,’he urged.
‘Vasketh, korath, sevarn.’I tried my best to pronounce it properly, but probably failed.
‘Bloodline, burden, vow!’he said quickly.
“Bloodline, burden, vow,” I whispered to the gate.
The sponsor mark at my collarbone pulsed, and I had the brief sensation of tingling down my spine. The gate dissolved in glittering light, revealing a new corridor beyond.
I sprinted through before the gate could close,which it did behind me, just in time for Kirk to pound on it, growling.
I followed a series of sharp turns, then went up a set of stairs that led nowhere, only to be led back down the way I came. I passed alcoves that emitted cold air and the stale smell of ancient magic. After about fifteen minutes of being stuck in the maze, the clock above chimed, and both wolfkins gave a cry of pain.
I skidded to a stop, peering up to see Kaelric standing on the stone column, his hands bound before him. The bindings were glowing a fiery orange, and smoke curled up from the skin on his wrists.
They were burning him? Because I was taking too long? They said we had an hour!
‘Let’s move quickly. Keep going. Don’t focus on him. He’s strong,’Valkaryn told me.
With a grunt, I ran faster, hugging the inside curves of the walls and counting under my breath to keep the panic from snagging my steps. Was I lost? Nine right turns, three left, a narrow squeeze between two pillars.
Somewhere behind me, stone groaned, and the realization hit me. The labyrinth was moving its bones.
