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“Faster!”

Clark shouted. He was close on my heels, his wild red curls sticking to his forehead as sweat mingled with the grime smudging his face.

The low growl of the wolves sent chills crawling up my spine.

“They're gaining!”

I gasped. We veered sharply around a corner. The walls here seemed to close in tighter, the narrow pathway barely wide enough for us to run side by side. The familiar hedges were back, just like the kinds of labyrinth I’d grown up imagining. Never did my imaginations draw up the blood though. It hardened on my skin, blood from Harald, blood from me. Clark was coated in his and Astrid’s.

If we didn’t escape the wolves, there’d be more blood spilled.

My heart pounded in my ears as I spotted an alcove up ahead, its shadows dense and terrifying. Before I could turn the other direction, Clark grabbed my arm.

“This way!”

He yanked me toward the alcove.

We ducked into the crevice just as the pack thundered past. The wolves' massive paws pounded the stone like war drums. The lead wolf slowed, its nose skimming the ground as it sniffed for our trail, its growl reverberating through the confined space.

I pressed myself against the cold stone, trying to quiet my breathing. My heartbeat tattoo thundered wildly. Clark crouched beside me, his body tense, a dagger clenched tightly in his hand. His eyes met mine.

I saw nothing but calm confidence in them. Even with the snarling and snapping beside us.

My fingers closed around the necklace from Delilah. Shield us from them, I begged.

The lead wolf paused just feet from our hiding spot, its ears swiveling as its glowing eyes scanned the path. I bit my lip, tasting blood, and prayed it couldn’t hear the frantic hammering of my tattoo.

Clark shifted, slowly inching his dagger into a better grip, but I reached out. My fingers brushed his arm to stop him.

The wolf’s head snapped toward our hiding place. Its lip curled to reveal jagged teeth. My breath hitched as its growl deepened.

A howl echoed in the distance, and the wolf stiffened, ears pricked. Then, with a snarl, it turned and bolted after its pack, disappearing into the maze.

For a long moment, neither of us moved. My legs shook beneath me. I gripped the wall for support.

“That was too close,”

I whispered. My voice trembled.

Clark exhaled sharply, leaning his head back against the stone.

“They’re not done yet. We need to move before they double back.”

I nodded, swallowing my fear as I pulled myself upright.

We ran until I didn’t smell blood anymore.

Until I didn’t see the glint of the white stone of surrender in the sky.

Until I didn’t hear the ghost of Gunnar singing in the wind.

But when we stopped running, it all came back.

“If we’d only left the group earlier,”

I said. I bent over to get proper air. The labyrinth stretched endlessly ahead, its walls towering high like jagged stone teeth gnashing at the sky. Had we been here before? It all looked the same. Without the direction of east guiding us, I’d have gotten lost ten times over.

“We should have left earlier,”

I said again. My fingers fumbled with my flask but I couldn’t seem to make sense of it. The flask dropped and the last of my water spilled.

“We shouldn’t have come.”

I trembled, teeth clattering together and bones feeling too fragile to keep me upright.

A wolf howled, and I jumped a mile.

My back hit the cold, rough stone of the labyrinth wall, breaths coming fast and shallow. My chest heaved as a suffocating panic clawed its way through me. The dim light barely illuminated the twisting paths ahead, and every shadow seemed alive, shifting, waiting to pounce.

“I can’t—”

My voice broke, and I slid to the ground, clutching my knees to my chest.

“I can’t do this, Clark. I can’t.”

Clark knelt beside me, his own breathing uneven.

“Hey, hey,”

he murmured, his voice low and calm. He placed a gentle hand on my shoulder, squeezing lightly.

“You’re okay. We’re okay.”

My head snapped up, my wide, tear-filled eyes locking onto his.

“We’re not okay. We lost them, they’re hunting us, and—”

“Ren.”

His voice cut through my spiraling thoughts.

“Look at me.”

My chest hitched, but I obeyed. His dark eyes were steady, filled with something I hadn’t expected—certainty.

“We’re going to get out of this,”

he said firmly. He reached out, brushing a strand of damp hair from her face.

“I know you’re scared, but you’re not alone. I’m here. I’m not leaving you.”

Tears slid silently down my cheeks as I shook my head.

“But what if—”

“No ‘what ifs,’”

he interrupted, his hand finding mine and giving it a reassuring squeeze.

“You’re the bravest person I know, Ren. Braver than me, for sure.”

I let out a shaky laugh, more of a gasp than anything, but it was enough to break the ice in my chest.

He smiled faintly, tilting his head toward mine.

“See? There you are.”

My breathing slowed as his calm presence began to seep into me.

“I don’t feel brave,”

I whispered, my fingers tightening around his.

“Then borrow some of mine.”

He kissed me, the softness of his lips fitting in the spaces around mine, handing me courage that swelled in my chest. I let myself get lost in his touch. His hands tightened around the small of my back, his body warm next to mine, and his movements sure. There was no hesitation, no doubts. I clutched his shirt tight to draw him closer.

I’d always thought of Clark as the land while I was the water. I thought it made him less exciting than me, but now I realized how much I needed someone like him who grounded me when the storms raged. I would be the one to sweep him onto adventures and he’d be the one to carry me home.

When he pulled away, I felt braver.

“That worked pretty well,”

I whispered.

His green eyes glinted.

“We should try it more often then.”

I would have loved to stop for the night. But the sky darkened, the star came out, and we had gotten more turned around than I thought. We traveled for a few more hours before stopping to rest.

The fear I’d felt before simmered into a dull anger that drove me. Anger for the ones we’d lost, for how we’d lost them, and for everything that’d come to pass. We were meant to slip into the labyrinth, find the end, and then reveal my identity to the world. I’d take my place with the Silver Wings. Nothing lost, everything gained.

The unveiling of my identity hadn’t gone the way I’d planned.

I’d always envisioned the excitement at my father’s announcement. Here is Serenity Montclair, my daughter and the rightful heir to the Silver Wings. His crew would cheer, and I’d get to work the deck among them while learning the ropes. We’d be a family. Mother would get to leave Haven and strength would return to her bones. I’d think of the labyrinth only in passing.

No one was meant to die.

“I really would have taken them with me to give everyone a home aboard my crew,”

I said as we dug into the edge of the hedges for a safe place to sleep. I wiped my brow as I sat back with a sigh.

“Maybe we should have left them once autumn came, just like we’d planned.”

“If we’d left earlier, you wouldn’t have woken Harald and Tove before Astrid killed them too.”

Clark took a drink from his flask before offering it to me.

I shook my head.

“But Astrid might not have been so spooked without people and wolves hunting me.”

“There’s no way to know for sure.”

He offered his flask again.

I relented, but I knew I’d be going over every memory of her, looking for signs I might have missed that she’d lost her mind. Aiden and Gunnar’s death would haunt me forever.

A more pressing issue wiggled its way to the front of my thoughts.

“Lady Luck will be after you,”

I told Clark.

“You just killed one of her competitors.”

He shrugged.

“I’ll be fine.”

August’s words came to mind. In return, I change Clark’s fate.

Would his fate come at the hand of a scorned Lady Luck? I might’ve brought it up to him, but wolves howled, and we stayed quiet until they’d passed in the distance.

Our second meal of autumn came, bringing the weight of our emotions crashing down all over again. We had no one to share the meal with this time. The food filled our bellies more than they had been in weeks, but the hollow ache of absence remained. We ate in silence, each bite tasting of solitude.

Twice, the eerie howls of wolves echoed through the labyrinth, raising the hair on the back of my neck. Once, we caught faint voices from other competitors. Our paths never crossed. I couldn’t say whether it was thanks to Delilah’s magic or sheer luck, but either way, I was grateful.

The silence stretched on, thick and heavy, until our plates were empty. Only then did Clark break it.

“We did the best we could.”

And yet, I couldn’t get Gunnar’s singing out of my head.

“Do you regret coming?”

Clark asked.

“I don’t know. I regret things that have happened. I’ll forever wonder what I could have done to make things go differently. But I’m more determined to win now so it all had a purpose.”

Aiden and Gunnar’s deaths would be a fuel within me that drove me to finish as well as I could. Even Charlotte who became a wolf, Barrett who surrendered, and Ivar whose quiet strength never wavered as he died—I’d keep memory of them all. I’d be thinking of them as I fought all the more for the future we envisioned. I glanced at Clark.

“Do you think we should have stayed on Haven?”

“No,”

Clark said with more certainty than I felt.

“At least, I shouldn’t have. You were right. I needed to leave the island. If I would have stayed, I’d never become anything.”

“You were always something.”

“And yet, you only kiss me now.”

I had no answer for that. He didn’t press for a reason. He slid into the hiding place he’d made, and tucked his pack beside him.

“We’ll keep our head down from here on out and count on Delilah’s protection to get us to the end. No loud noises. No fighting. Just quietly get through as fast as we can.”

“Don’t have to convince me,”

I said as I buried myself into my own prickly cove. The soil was cold under my arms and the hedges were sharp at my back, but I’d be hidden from other’s sight. I could hardly even see Clark, and I knew exactly where to look. As others ran by, they’d never find us.

“We need to move faster too,”

Clark said.

“The air grows cold. Autumn is almost over.”

“We will move quickly and quietly,”

I promised.

“And Ren? When we get out, let’s hold a funeral for those we lost.”

Right now, I just hoped that we were both there—alive—to hold that funeral, and not saying goodbye to one or the other.

Long ago, Lawson dwelled on an island too small, too fragile to weather the vast and hungry sea.

The tides grew restless, clawing at the land, pulling it piece by piece into the deep.

Desperation drove him to gather a band of men. They ventured into the labyrinth—a twisting maw of shadow and stone—seeking the prize: a ship blessed never to sink.

Lawson dreamed of salvation.

If they tethered the ship to their crumbling home, perhaps the magic might hold, anchoring their island against the sea’s wrath.

And it might have worked.

But greed is a poison that festers in the hearts of men. The others, blind to loyalty, craved the ship for themselves. They sought to flee, to leave the island to its fate. Brother turned against brother, blades clashed in the dark,

And in the end, Lawson fell, betrayed by those he’d led.

The survivors, drunk on their hollow victory, scattered through the labyrinth’s endless halls. One by one, they died in the labyrinth. The ship was lost to them, and their island sank beneath the waves.

Doomed by the greed of those who might have saved it.

As Lawson lay dying, he called out to Dimitri for mercy.

And mercy came.

Dimitri made Lawson a Stone God, a keeper of the labyrinth, charged with guiding selfless souls to their prize. Yet grief runs deep, and Lawson’s heart turned cold. He grew weary of mortal folly, their endless grasping and loss.

Now, every four years, when the labyrinth opens its gates, Lawson hides among the stones,

A ghost in the maze he was meant to guard.

It is said he still lingers, but it is just as likely you’ll never see him.