Page 53 of Queen to the Sunless Court (Brides of Myth #2)

The Labyrinth

Theron

Although Theron had crossed Hades’ portal before, the sensation of walking through a sheet of water and remaining dry as he stepped to the other side still amused him.

The Roots greeted him with an unsettling chill—still a barren landscape with mists draping the Underworld’s vault, and the black, slick ground beneath them dotted with shiny white points like distant stars, playing with his sense of space.

When Calliste stepped through, he smiled at her. They walked in a profound stillness, loud in the ears until the landscape wavered, and they felt the shift of entering another dimension.

She gripped his hand tighter as the space around them transformed into Eris’ new invention. They now stood at the edge of a precipice.

On the other side, spiraling like a massive stone conch embedded in an immense crater, lay a labyrinth with towering walls crowned with spikes of broken glass.

Theron surveyed it with an impassive eye.

“She has outdone herself,” he noted wryly, trying to figure out what lay at the heart of the maze.

It should have been easy to see, as its curving body dipped lower, but he could only make out the shapes up to a certain point before the mists obscured the rest.

“She did,” Calliste scrutinized it, too. “The last time I was caught in her handiwork, she at least had the courtesy to make it look pretty—like Elysium, with golden flowers.”

“It’s refreshing that she’s honest about how she feels about us.” He scanned the edge of the precipice. “I wonder how we’re supposed to get there.”

As if on cue, the nearest swirl of mist thinned, revealing a narrow, arched stone bridge with no guardrails, stretching across the precipice to a tall, dark entrance of the labyrinth.

“She likes to be dramatic, huh?” Theron snorted, then noticed Calliste’s expression.

“You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”

“No,” she replied, her face pale. “But this would give anyone shivers.”

He stepped onto the first stone, testing its solidity, since Eris seemed in the mood for challenges. “It’s solid, but too narrow to walk side by side. I’ll go first and hold your hand.”

She glanced at the precipice on either side and quickly looked away. “There’s a river down there. Could be an illusion. But if it’s any of the Underworld’s rivers, especially Styx, and we fall in, we’re dead.”

“Hold onto my hand.” He moved sideways, keeping an eye on her. “If we fall, I’ll fly us to the other side.”

“Oh. I forgot you could do that.”

He squeezed her hand. “I could. But we don’t know what awaits us later, and Hades was concerned about using divine energy here. So I’ll save it until we truly need it.”

She nodded, her breathing lighter.

They moved slowly, and when they reached the top of the bridge, they heard a distant song behind them.

Theron glanced in its direction and froze.

At the far end of the bridge, where they had first set out, wavered a ghostly specter of a boy sitting at the edge of the drop and swinging his feet—the boy dearest to his heart. He looked up, smiling. “Father.”

“Kalias?” he asked, stunned. Seeing him alive, grinning with that air of mischief, made him swallow.

“Father,” he chirped. “Look what I can do!”

“Theron.” Calliste gripped his hand. “He’s not real. You know that.”

Deep down, Theron did know , but he couldn’t stop watching him.

A chill ran up his spine as Kalias stood, laughing, and spread his arms, then stepped onto the bridge, walking along its edge to show off his balance.

Just watching him sway above the endless depths made Theron feel queasy.

“Kalias,” he forced out from his tight throat. “Get off the bridge. Now.”

“Theron, look at me,” Calliste repeated, gripping his hand even tighter. “Theron!”

“Father, watch!” Kalias’s eerie laughter echoed in the dead air. “See?”

He will slip and fall. His muscles tensed, panic spreading through him like wildfire.

“Theron, please. It’s her trick.” The urgency in Calliste’s voice made him look down at her. She was pale, clearly fearing he’d push her away, as there was no other way he could get to Kalias other than shoving her into the abyss. She clasped his face with her hands. “Don’t look. He’s not real.”

“I know.” Yet he couldn’t tear his gaze away, breathing hard, his muscles tense with the effort to control himself—and then the whole bridge shivered. Kalias slipped, lost his balance, and tumbled, managing to grab the stone’s edge.

“Father!” His desperate cry echoed. “Help me! I’m falling!”

“Theron,” Calliste whispered urgently. “Kalias is in the palace, asleep. This is just a trick. You know I’d be the first to help him if he were real.”

The bridge shivered again, and a chunk of stone a step behind her crumbled and fell away with a crash.

“Father, help!” Kalias’ frantic scream echoed from behind her, accompanied by the hollow cracking of the stone again.

Biting down a scream, Theron grasped Calliste’s hand and turned away from the illusion, pulling her with him across the stones crumbling behind them. They ran, leaping over small gaps, the air rushing past their ears, and dashed into the shadows of a large gateway.

“Father, I can’t hold out any longer!” Kalias’ panicked voice twisted Theron’s heart, making him doubt himself and question whether he was abandoning his own child—but his thoughts drowned in the crashing of the bridge collapsing into the abyss, along with the specter of Kalias, still screaming.

He knelt on the stony ground inside the gate, bending over and covering his ears. Calliste embraced him, placing her hands over his, and he breathed in her scent, grounding himself.

It seemed like forever until the swirling dust dissipated. The bridge was gone, unwoven into mist and silence again. Only then did he take his hands away from his ears and rub his temples. “Gods,” he croaked. “That bitch knows what she’s doing.”

Calliste knelt beside him. “You didn’t fall for it.”

“No,” he sighed. “She overdid it. I only watched him because… because I hadn’t seen him awake, you know… for so long. But I knew it wasn’t him.”

“You did?” She let out a long breath.

“Kalias has always been careful—he wouldn’t do anything reckless to impress me, and he’d never call me Father, except in formal court situations. Not when it was just the two of us.”

“Oh, thank all the gods.” She also knelt, relief pouring out of her. “Because I almost believed it.”

He hugged her. “This is her game: she’s trying to tear us apart by playing on our fears. If we’re divided or there’s only one of us left, we can’t unite against her.” He took a deep breath, considering this. “That gives me hope, Calliste. It means she doesn’t believe she can confront us together.”

“Oh.” She looked up, her eyes shining. “It could be because she’s using a lot of energy to maintain this monstrosity.

” She nodded at the maze before them. “I remember now—when I faced her last time and she created that illusion of Elysium, she also had to cage Hypnos, likely because she couldn’t fight more than one opponent. ”

Theron released Calliste from his arms and rose, helping her up while glancing at the towering labyrinth and the three entryways behind the gateway.

“But she can exhaust us if we wander this maze too long. I bet she wasn’t considerate enough to plant any landmarks, since she wants us to split apart. ”

“There has to be a way to navigate this maze quickly.” Calliste slipped into her own thoughts, her gaze absent again as she mused until her pendant glowed softly, as if in anticipation.

She took it off and wrapped the chain around her hand, then looked up at him, her eyes bright.

“Kalias’ tree. Eris created this labyrinth to deter us, which means his tree is likely at its center.

I’ve been healing it for a long time, so it should still hold some of Epione’s energy…

If it does, this will be our guide.” She lifted the pendant toward one entryway, then another.

When she held it near the third, the pendant lit up.

Theron grinned and clasped her hand.