Page 24

Whether Astrid hid during the fight, or Lady Luck shielded her, she wouldn’t say. Either way, Astrid appeared shortly after they peeled my bloody tunic over my head.

“Must be nice to have a Stone God on your side,”

Aiden grumbled.

Harald cut him a look.

“Leave her be.”

“Why should I? She’s the reason we came into the stone maze in the first place, instead of traveling under the cover of the forest. She’s why Ivar is dead, Barrett is gone, and Charlotte is a wolf.”

“Barrett is gone because he’s a coward,”

Astrid shot back.

Aiden threw himself at her, but Clark stepped in the way to grab his outstretched dagger and hold him fast.

“Control yourself,”

Clark shouted.

“We won’t win by killing each other.”

Maybe it was his words, but I suspected it was the fact that Clark shouted at all that had all our breaths in our throats.

Aiden jerked free, but tucked the blade away.

“Fine. But I’m not following Astrid anywhere again.”

“Good,”

she snarled.

“Find your own Stone God.”

Clark leveled them with a stare, then returned to my side. He swallowed hard as he looked over the wound. It wasn’t critical, but the cut dove deep into the flesh and tore a clean line across my side, as if Bjorn had been trying to split me in two.

“I’ll need to stitch it.”

Tove knelt at my side. She rove her tender hands over my skin to check the edges before dipping them into her satchel. When they emerged, they held thread and a needle.

I scrambled away.

Harald dropped to stop me.

“Tove studied with the healer aboard the Castillion. She knows what she’s doing.”

Tove was nine, but I had to admit I didn’t know anything about caring for wounds, and no one else offered information.

“Will it hurt?”

She didn’t answer.

Clark wrapped my hands between his, and nodded to Tove. “Do it.”

She threaded the needle.

“Hold her tight. And Ren? Try not to scream.”

Then she pierced my skin, and I drove my teeth together to stifle the guttural cry that rose in my throat.

Tove, to her credit, worked quickly. Her fingers were swift, her touch sure. But nothing she did could erase the fact that she was pulling a needle and thread through my skin. Everything in me wanted to fight back. I might have, if it weren’t for Clark on one side and Harald on the other, holding tight.

Aiden retreated to one side to pace, while Astrid went to the other. Gunnar, surprisingly, didn’t retreat with them. He crossed to my side to sit by my head, stroke my hair, and sing a quiet song about fields of flowers, still waters, and a life fully lived. I closed my eyes as he sang, pretending that I were in his song instead of in the labyrinth, and willing the pain away.

It helped a little. By the time Tove announced we were done, my heartbeat was almost normal.

“Thanks,”

I told them.

“All of you.”

“Of course,”

Gunnar said, and he said it so innocently as if there was no doubt in his mind that we would come through for one another. Like we were a family forged long ago, not held together by loose bonds of convenience.

Gunnar surprised me today. He’d entered the labyrinth merely because it appeared on his doorstep, and it’d been clear from the first day we met him that this was just a game in his mind—a maze to explore and nothing more. At any time he could have surrendered, but he didn’t. He stayed with the lot of us, even as our lines grew thin.

Our hands were coated in the blood of each other. Ivar’s blood as we whispered our goodbyes over his body. Charlotte’s blood before she’d become a wolf. My blood.

I suspected we’d acquire blood from the others before this all ended.

But I didn’t move to clean the blood, and neither did anyone else. I’d wear it like a proud memento of my alliance.

A small victory came when we checked the body of Bjorn and his companion to find they both carried deliciously full flasks of crisp water. We shared the water all around.

Before we left, I took Bjorn’s sword with me.

“Just like my father,”

I whispered to Clark.

“An axe and a sword.”

“He’ll be proud of you,”

Clark whispered back. His words snatched the warmth in the air, spreading it over my skin, nesting in my chest. I allowed myself to believe it, to imagine my father’s approval when at last we met.

Harald rallied us together with some speech about how perseverance would make us stronger, and pointed east.

“We will continue onward together.”

He started first, just as the sun came up to color the sky violet. Tove followed closely behind, trailed by Gunnar, Aiden, and Astrid.

I fastened my belt with my new weapon, then held out my arms for Clark.

“How do I look?”

His eyes soaked me in for longer than I intended. I dropped my arms as my face flushed.

“The others are getting ahead of us.”

His hand caught mine when I walked past.

“I don’t know what I would do if I lose you,”

he said. The heat in his breath washed over me. His control lost its footing, slipping into something dangerous and raw.

It was that feeling that had led him to kill Bjorn for me. The same thing that led me to kill for him early in the labyrinth. The one that bound us together, no matter where we were, keeping us whole. Clark had always been there…and perhaps I didn’t see it because it felt too easy. Like falling for your best friend only happened in storybooks. But this morning, I wanted to know what it felt like to fall.

I lifted my chin to see his face close to mine.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

He wasn’t asking for my heart again. He’d asked enough.

But for the first time, I wasn’t saying no.

I wondered if he sensed the shift. From the tremor of hope in his green eyes, he did. His hand brushed mine, a fleeting touch that sent a shiver through my bone-tired body. Clark hesitated, his eyes searching mine, looking for the rejection that always followed.

I smiled softly, a quiet reassurance, and stepped closer. The faint scent of him filled the space between us as his hand rose, trembling slightly, to gently cup my cheek. His skin was warm beneath his fingers, and I leaned into his touch, my gaze never wavering.

His arms dropped to slip around my waist, taking care not to near my wound. They captured me, holding me close to him. Exploring me for the first time.

When his mouth came to mine, I met him in the middle.

Clark had never been kissed, and neither had I. Still, with nothing to compare it to, it thrilled me. His lips were soft, his touches gentle. The curve of them fit against mine so well, it was as if they were meant to be there. I pressed into the feeling, giving it permission to devour me.

To destroy me, if it wished.

I ran my hands through the tangles of his red hair, down the length of his jaw, around the back of his neck. I soaked in the touch of him like it were the water I desperately needed.

For this moment in time, I needed nothing else.

His lips parted softly before coming together again. His hands roved the expanse of my back. When I pulled away, everything else returned. The labyrinth, the stone gods, the howl of wolves, my missing father. But the ache in my chest didn’t hurt as much, and my need to find my place in this world felt less urgent. He’d taken it away, if only a little bit.

“Thank you,”

Clark breathed. He stepped away and ran his hands through his hair. He straightened his body, fixed his shirt, and removed all evidence that I’d been there. It looked very much like a man putting his armor back on.

“I suppose we should follow the others before they come looking.”

I tried to sort my own emotions as we rejoined the group. I had all day of traveling to sort them, and the best I came up with was how safe I felt. Clark was a harbor far from jagged rocks, a sea without storms, a mast that would never crack.

He was the security I didn’t know I needed.

We made it through the stone maze as the sun began to set, spilling into another forest surrounding the ruins of a castle. We didn’t dare go inside. Wolves howled there.

“Thank the Stone Gods for a bit of shade,”

Gunnar declared, wiping sweat from his forehead. We were all drenched in it. My throat went hoarse hours ago, and my mouth couldn’t summon saliva anymore. I saw heat in waves—coming from the ground, rippling like ghosts, warning me that we grew too hot. We needed water. We needed rest. We needed to get out of this labyrinth.

As the sky darkened, Harald and I both looked to the star in the east.

His knowing gaze caught on mine. We didn’t speak of it, but we knew the path to follow. And we were getting closer. By my estimate, we were over halfway there.

It might take a week more, but we’d reach the center.

Astrid dropped to her knees.

“No more. Let’s rest here.”

None argued. No one had the strength to.

Aiden dropped furthest away from Astrid to hug his knees close. He seemed to take up less space now than he had when Barrett and Charlotte were at his sides, and shrunk further into himself as the day went by. Clark had wagered me three coppers that Aiden would surrender before the day finished.

A few hours left, and Aiden remained. But he flinched with each wolf howl we heard.

Astrid stayed quiet as well. Gunnar took the silence as an invitation to fill the hollow spaces between us, until he was single-handedly holding the group together.

He leaned against a tree trunk to stretch his long leg before him and asked.

“So, what are you all going to do if you win?”

Harald answered first. He’d found a patch of leaves which he fluffed into something soft for Tove to lay her head on beside him, and he stroked her hair while her eyes fluttered shut.

“You all know we don’t intend to win. It’d be nice if we did, but Tove and I are just here to search for magic that can free us from our contracts, otherwise we will be slaves our whole life.”

The silence that followed was bitter.

“Welp, you’re depressing. Aiden?”

Gunnar looked hopefully at the boy with dark hair.

“I’d sell it,”

Aiden replied. He plucked strands of grass to curl them around his finger.

“Sell every ship, take the money, and retire on a small island where no one will bother me.”

Gunnar chuckle.

“Greedy, I like it. Astrid?”

She was tracing the fish tattoo on her ankle, the one that marked her as Lady Luck’s chosen competitor. From how she retreated in on herself today, I wondered if Lady Luck regretted her choice.

I also wondered who Lady Luck’s other competitor was, the one who was meant to be an obvious winner.

“Sail, I suppose. It’d be nice to be in charge of something.”

The way she said it was as if she didn’t truly care about the Silver Wings, or know anything about navigating the Shallows. It wasn’t uncommon. Most everyone in this labyrinth intended to enter no matter what the prize was. They’d been like Bjorn, bag packed and ready to sail as soon as the scroll on their island had unrolled, or like Aksel who paid heavily for a clue to the location.

Speaking of, we saw his ship in the harbor. But he’d yet to reveal himself.

My point was proven when Astrid added.

“In truth, I’d hoped for a different prize. The man who won last labyrinth made a fortune off selling vials of his tonic that cures all sicknesses.”

“I’d only make the Pearls pay for it. The Seaweeds would get the tonic for free,”

Gunnar declared.

Astrid shot him a look.

“Okay, all-righteous-one. What will you do if you win?”

Gunnar shrugged. His chocolate brown hair frizzed in the humidity, tightening into little coils that framed his sharp face, and he tugged on one of the strands as he thought.

“You all know I just got in because the labyrinth landed on my island. Orphan boys don’t usually get an adventure, especially not one like this, so I was just looking for a bit of fun. Now…”

his voice trailed off.

I hadn’t realized he was an orphan. A few days ago, I didn’t want to know. As little as I knew about them, the better. But Gunnar, Harald, Tove, even Aiden and Astrid were becoming familiar travel mates.

If Clark and I didn’t win, I hoped someone from this group did.

We waited until Gunnar found his voice.

“Sure, if I win, I’m going to captain the Silver Wings. And you know what—”

he lifted his hand as if holding an invisible tankard—“I’ll bring each of you with me.”

We cheered, only quieting when Tove stirred.

Once she’d fallen back asleep, Harald spoke.

“What about you two?”

He looked at us.

I uniquely knew that I wouldn’t win. I glanced at Clark. If he won, he planned to give the ships to me. I planned to run the trade business as well as my father did, and use all resources necessary to track down my father until my family were whole once more.

Those words stuck in my throat. Clark answered instead.

“If we win, us Seaweeds are going to rule the world.”

Guilt came in debilitating waves. I was using him. Attempting to make him reach the center first so he could give me the Silver Wings, so I could become their captain and he could go back to whatever life suited him—a life I’d spent years making clear wouldn’t include me. Yet he was willing to give me this anyway.

I ought to tell him I’d changed my mind. Beg him to take control of the trade vessels himself if he won. Tell him his dreams—whatever they might be—were worth just as much as mine.

That night, as we lay to rest, I laid beside him. “Clark,”

I whispered.

He rolled to see me. His eyes were half-closed. “Huh?”

But the words wouldn’t come. He was my last chance to win the Silver Wings. And some things were too hard to let go of.

Instead, I said.

“Thank you for saving me earlier.”

“Always,”

he replied.

I fell asleep with my heart in my throat.

August grew up in the wealthy heart of the Hundred Islands, apprenticing under the most renowned apothecary while engaged to the prettiest girl on the seas.

When the labyrinth opened, he sought his fortune just like many others. But August had tricks up his sleeves.

Poisons.

He slipped through the night, slaying all he came across with a simple sniff of his tonics. Never has the death toll been as high as it was that year.

Yet August failed to realize that his beloved had followed him into the labyrinth. Seeing his tricks, she turned her back on him, leaving her ring behind. August won that year, and took home his prize to reclaim his girl.

But she’d married another already.

Rejected, August threw himself into his work. He became even more renowned than his master, and the Hundred Islands had never seen a more talented apothecary. But he’d lost his taste for the world.

When the labyrinth opened next, August abandoned the mortal land to throw himself into the labyrinth. This time, his potions weren’t designed to kill, they were to aid the competitors. Seeing a place for him in the walls, Dimitri asked him to stay, and now he makes potions to either aid or to hinder the competitors.

August is not as calloused as the others.

But you never know whose side he’s truly on .