Page 28

B eware of the maze. It will tamper with your mind and your power.

The moment I was transported to the forest, my sisters’ warnings rushed into my mind as if they had been repeating them over and over, hoping I might hear them before I entered the labyrinth.

Then, when Striker retrieved the box, they warned me again.

The runes on that box are ancient. So is the maze, and the creatures imprisoned within it. It is said that within the maze, you will find answers to questions that will change your fate, but the knowledge can cost you everything.

Walk carefully, sister , they warned. Above all, do not allow that box to fall into the wrong hands. Whether or not the bones are within it, that box is itself a powerful object.

I follow Jonah along the stone bridge, conscious of Striker walking at my back. Comforted by it, actually. I’m certain he won’t let anything come at me from that direction.

Our surroundings changed the moment we stepped through the light and onto the rock.

The river is gone, and so is the waterfall. Instead, there are only clouds all around us, making it impossible to see what is beneath the bridge or even above it.

I test my power, heeding my sisters’ warning that the maze will tamper with it. My senses certainly feel dulled, my ability to discern the emotions of those around me even less crisp than it was outside the maze.

I certainly can’t make out the details of our surroundings.

The stone bridge we’re standing on could be floating in space, for all I can tell.

Vanguard calls back to us as he hurries along the bridge, seemingly toward nothing more than mist. “Don’t believe what your eyes tell you!

This place is built to deceive you. Only believe what you feel .

The rock beneath your feet. The mist on your face.

” He stops abruptly two paces from the end of the bridge and swings to his right before kneeling and pressing his palm to the stone.

Jonah gives him space, keeping to the side while Vanguard mutters, “This place is made up of countless worlds.”

Vanguard closes his eyes, taking a moment before he continues, “There are worlds above us, worlds beneath us, and worlds within the very air we’re breathing. Even the tiniest drop of moisture can contain a world—ah! It moved. It’s the other way!”

I’m not sure what it is, but Vanguard rises to his feet and spins to his left instead.

“Here,” he says, pointing downward at the clouds on that side of the bridge. “There’s a staircase leading backward, not forward. This is the way we need to go.”

With that, he steps off the bridge and into the mist. I expect him to plummet out of sight, but his foot lands neatly on a stone ledge, a step down, which becomes visible the moment his foot touches it.

With each step he takes, the fog clears from the rocky staircase he’s descending.

“This way,” Vanguard calls. “Quickly, before the stone giants spot us.”

Jonah hurries after Vanguard, and I follow suit. The fog, too, clears around my next step down and then closes over the step I took.

I glance back to make sure Striker is following me, but he has paused at the edge of the bridge, his arm hooked around the box, his focus drawn to his right. “There’s something…”

“Striker?”

He shakes himself. “Must be nothing.”

He follows me down, and within moments, the steps begin to curve sharply before they straighten out again.

After what feels like an hour, but could have been minutes, Vanguard draws to a stop on a step that looks just like all the others we descended, the mist clinging to his form.

“This maze is made up of realms within realms,” he says, without explaining why he stopped so suddenly.

“Our destination is a realm that is hidden within another realm, which itself is hidden inside a realm that we will soon enter. Three layers, each one filled with danger before we reach our goal.” He glares up at Striker and me.

“From this point on, you must mirror my footsteps. Stay on the path I take. Do not stray from my path, or you will risk death.”

His worried tone makes me curious about his motivations. “It sounds as though you care if we die.”

“My care is self-serving,” he says. “I’m not unhappy you volunteered to come with me. I’ll need your strength and skills in the fight ahead.”

“What if we don’t wish to come to your aid?” I ask, although it’s because I’m curious about his answer, not because I wouldn’t help him.

“You will,” he says, his eyes meeting mine through the haze and his voice lowering, a deep sigh on his lips. “You may even become more determined to fight than I am.”

My brow creases at his certainty, but for now, I’ll let him have his riddles.

“Keep your eyes on the path,” he says. “Soon, it will become pebbles, and then it will become stepping stones. Here! We’re at the pebbles. Step only onto stone. Do not stray into the mist.”

I pick my way along the bumpy ground, keeping close to Jonah’s back while the mist thickens around us and our surroundings become eerily quiet.

Long minutes later, the pebbles end, and the stepping stones appear.

I follow them carefully, stretching my legs to reach each of them when they’re placed further apart.

I consider using my power of levitation, but I’m not about to ignore Vanguard’s warning to stay on the path and to only trust what I can physically feel.

Not to mention my sisters’ warning that the maze could tamper with my powers.

I don’t want to get sucked into the mist.

A sudden shriek breaks the quiet, making me flinch. It’s so jarring that I nearly misplace my step, my foot wobbling at the side of a stepping stone before I right myself.

An uncharacteristic jolt of fear rushes through me at the sound.

“The mist is full of terrors.” Vanguard’s voice floats back to me. “Believe only what you can feel.”

I don’t doubt it. A mere sound should not have caused my heart to hammer like it is.

This place…

My senses may feel dulled, but it’s clear to me that this maze truly doesn’t want us here…

A moment later, I come up behind Jonah, who has stopped on what appears to be a new path.

This stretch of stone extends left and right, like an intersection on a road.

Striker is only a step behind me, quietly moving up on my right, the box safely tucked under his arm.

The mist clears ahead of us, revealing Vanguard, who has paused in front of a solid stone wall that extends upward as well as to the left and right as far as I can see.

Within the wall are five identical arched openings, each one so narrow that we would need to turn sideways to get through them.

“Tunnels,” Vanguard says, glancing back at us before his forehead puckers. He scratches his chin as he turns back to the doors. “But they look different from this side.”

“I don’t like how narrow they are,” Jonah says. “Are you sure they aren’t dead ends? Traps?”

“I’m sure.” Vanguard nods rapidly. “Every path in the maze leads somewhere. It’s what you face on the journey along the path that you need to worry about.”

The only visible difference between each door is the symbol etched into the stone above them.

“Okay, then. Which do we choose?” Jonah points to each symbol in turn, left to right, apparently able to decipher them. “Bravery, loyalty, strength, perseverance, or…” He pauses, his head tilted and forehead creased. “I don’t recognize that last one.”

Vanguard squints at the symbol. “Hope?”

Jonah shakes his head. “The central strokes are different.”

“You’re right,” Vanguard says. “That fifth door is something else.”

I can’t help but glance at the box Striker’s holding. He has unhooked it from under his arm and is studying the runes across one side. They’re identical to each of the symbols above the doorways, matching even in their sequence from left to right.

I’m not sure what to make of this, but at least we can give some meaning to the symbols on the box now.

“Which tunnel should we pass through?” Jonah asks again.

Vanguard’s emotions are suddenly in turmoil, beating out at me in waves of frustration and anticipation so strong that even my subdued senses can pick them up.

Whatever he left behind here, he’s keen to get to it as quickly as he can.

I just hope it won’t cause him to make reckless choices.

He seems to make up his mind. “Strength.” He gestures us forward, where we huddle around the third door. “Stay close. The pass is narrow. We must stick together.”

Turning sideways, he angles into the gap, sliding along the stone.

Jonah prepares to follow him, but the minute Vanguard’s body is fully within the pass, the stone begins to close over at the entrance.

“Wait! No!” Vanguard’s shout echoes around us as he attempts to lurch back toward us, only for the stone to close completely.

The symbol above the door disappears, and the space where the opening was only moments ago is now nothing more than smooth rock.

Jonah curses beneath his breath before he smacks his hands against the rock, flames bursting around his fingertips. “Burn,” he snarls. “ Open .”

The rock face barely chars, and when he removes his hands, it’s perfectly smooth again.

“We have to go through,” Striker says, his focus on the box for a moment. “We each have to choose.”

Jonah rubs his temples, the heat around his body speaking to his frustration, although it takes him only a beat to choose his door.

“Loyalty,” he says, turning sideways and slipping into the pass.

Just like Vanguard’s tunnel, Jonah’s closes over the moment he’s fully within it.

“Striker?”

Striker studies the remaining doors, his gaze far away. “Choose carefully,” he murmurs to himself, an echo of my earlier warning to him. He points to the fifth door, the one whose symbol Jonah couldn’t decipher. “This is the one for me.”

“Are you sure?”

The energy around that tunnel is pushing me away. Hard. It concerns me that it’s drawing him in.

“I’m sure,” he says, not a hint of doubt in his expression.

Accepting his choice, I turn to the two remaining doors: bravery and perseverance.

My instincts tug me toward perseverance because it’s most aligned with my Fury nature, but I pause before I would step into it.

I have a sense that my former self was brave. She stared evil in the face and survived all of its manipulations, and there’s a part of me that…

My heart suddenly squeezes.

There’s a part of me that wants to feel what she felt.

Not the bad, but the good. The parts where she felt connections so strong that she fought for them.

Striker and I are now standing at the first and last doors, our paths as far away from each other as they could be.

His expression has smoothed out. Calm again. So much calm that it confuses me because it’s contrary to a hellhound’s nature. Even when he could have pummeled Jonah into a mushy pulp, he held back. Oh, it was with difficulty. He wanted to act out his pain and trauma.

But… he didn’t.

He steps toward the door he chose and slides into it; the box held firmly to his chest. I catch sight of his disappearing shoulder before I wedge myself into the bravery door.

I’m prepared to struggle against the closeness of the rock and the challenge of squeezing through it for however long the tunnel extends.

I’m not prepared for when the rock closes over, blocking out the misty landscape I’m leaving behind, and I discover that my surroundings have changed once more.