Page 34

M y legs buckle, and I’m headed to the ground when a hand closes around my shoulder.

I look up into Striker’s eyes, and the weight lifts, my legs straightening.

“Will you hold on to me?” he asks as I drag air into my chest and try to understand why he is far less affected by this environment than I am.

Even with the reduced pressure, I can’t speak.

I answer him by taking his hand.

He promptly shifts the box to the crook of the arm I’m holding before he steps between me and Vanguard and rests his free hand on Vanguard’s shoulder.

A glance tells me Jonah is already pressing his palm to Striker’s back, maintaining contact.

Then we walk, all of us staying close to Striker as he pushes through the mire toward the misty door.

The cold fog touches my skin, and then we’re through.

I gasp a breath so loud, it feels like a scream. The release of pressure from my body is so significant that I have to grab the wall next to me to stop my levitation power from triggering and floating me up into the air against my will.

At the same time, my hand is still wrapped in Striker’s hand and… for a long moment… I don’t want to let go.

Even when my focus is drawn to the box.

Facing outward is one of the sides that wasn’t glowing before, but now it is. Two symbols are carved on that side that I can’t read, but they’ve somehow now lit up.

Striker doesn’t appear aware of it. His hand remains clasped around mine as he focuses on the field of carnivorous roses. “Let’s go.”

Within minutes, we cross the field, and then we’re facing the tunnels. Or, rather, what appears to be a single tunnel this time, since there’s only one entrance on this side.

“Is it possible the tunnel will only allow one of us through?” I ask, speaking the question I’m certain the others are thinking.

If only I could read their thoughts.

“What if we all stay in contact?” Jonah asks. “The same way we got through the last realm.”

Vanguard is quiet, but even without my power to read emotions, I discern the desperate press of his lips and the increasing tension around his eyes.

“You promised me it wouldn’t be you,” he murmurs, holding Rebella closer, pressing his cheek to hers. “You promised me.”

I take a soft breath. “Vanguard and Rebella need to go through first. We can stay in contact just in case it makes a difference, but they need to go first.”

Striker and Jonah give me firm nods of approval, and we shuffle around Vanguard, who seems only vaguely aware of us as he stumbles forward.

I brace for what could happen as we enter the tunnel, but as we step further through it and the arched doorway behind us gets further away, our surroundings remain as they are.

Darker the further we go, but the rock walls stay the same.

Even so, none of us breaks contact.

Finally, it’s so dark that the only light is the illumination from the box.

Every now and then, as Striker moves, the soft glow picks up the rock walls in more detail.

“Claw marks,” he suddenly murmurs.

Striker can’t point without either dropping my hand or breaking his hold on Vanguard’s shoulder, but I follow his line of sight to the left.

Giant scratches disfigure the rock in multiple places as we pass.

The sight of them causes my stomach to swirl. When we entered the third realm and retrieved Rebella, my sense of panic had lessened.

Now, it returns in full force, and again, I can’t pinpoint why.

They’re just claw marks, for fuck’s sake. I’ve seen far worse.

I don’t understand this dread settling within me.

Especially when an opening becomes visible in the distance, and the feeling only gets worse, not better.

At that moment, from within the darkness, comes a whisper: Got… Out…

“What?” I speak aloud, only registering when my voice sounds, that I heard the whisper within my mind.

“Peyton?” Striker’s amber eyes meet mine. “What’s wrong?”

My focus snaps to Rebella, but her countenance hasn’t changed. She hasn’t stirred.

Was it her voice I heard? Or someone else’s?

It’s impossible for me to know.

“We need to hurry,” I say. “We need to run.”

I don’t need to speak twice. Vanguard cradles Rebella closer to his chest, supporting her head as he breaks into a jog. Striker and I keep pace with him while Jonah brings up the rear. Somehow, not once losing contact with each other.

We burst through the arched exit and into the misty environment beyond it, forced into single file so we can stay on the stones. But at least we don’t need to worry about letting go of each other.

A shriek sounds through the mist, making me jolt and nearly miss my step.

Then another scream sounds, this one even more shrill, from the other side of the path.

I sense beating wings and movement within the fog, but I can’t see what’s out there.

Finally, we reach the stairs and begin to ascend.

The higher we go, the more my power returns to me.

It isn’t the blessing I wanted it to be.

Vanguard’s grief is overwhelming, his self-hatred billowing out from him in waves.

He should have been there beside her during the battle.

He should have been the one to risk his life.

He should have found a way back sooner. He should have tried harder.

He shouldn’t have given up. What kind of monster gives up like he did?

At the back of the line, Jonah’s emotions are in equal turmoil.

His hands are burning with a physical pain he’s never felt before.

Scraping back the lava of his family’s bodies was like tearing their bones apart.

Like them, Rebella gave her life for what she believed in, but the cost was too fucking high…

Only Striker is quiet.

There’s a stillness about him that makes my heart thump painfully in my chest and feeds the awful dread that continues to build in the base of my stomach.

I need to know his thoughts and feelings. I need him to open his mind to me, but when I extend my power toward him, I’m met with a wall I can’t get past.

It felt like it took us hours to descend these stairs, but the trip up them takes mere minutes.

We hurry onto the bridge, our surroundings filled with clouds, the wide stone ledge stretching out before us.

Got… Out…

I stumble as the whisper repeats in my mind.

A second later, Vanguard gives a cry. “She’s waking up!”

I sense the way he’s torn between continuing toward the end of the bridge—the direction that must surely contain the way out of the maze—and his need to make sure Rebella is okay, to speak with her as she wakes and ensure she isn’t disoriented or frightened.

He pauses on the bridge, half-turned back to us, while Rebella’s eyelids flutter and her lips part.

She says something, a garbled word that I can’t make sense of, yorma -something, as she nudges her face against his.

Tears fall down his cheeks. “Yes, you got out. I’ve got you. You’re safe now.”

“No…” Her whisper is like a breeze, her lips barely parting, her eyes remaining closed. “Not me.”

Vanguard is suddenly frozen.

Beside me, Striker has paused, his head tilted. Jonah has moved several steps ahead of us, closer to Vanguard.

“Who got out?” Jonah asks, the alarm clear in his voice, even if I couldn’t sense it like a physical force.

“…phoeus,” she whispers, her voice labored.

The blood drains from Vanguard’s face.

Jonah’s eyes have flown wide.

“What are you talking about?” I venture to ask as cold dread threatens to flood my body.

“Typhoeus,” Jonah snarls. “Or as you know him, Typhon .”

Suddenly, Rebella’s voice streams into my mind, a flood of speech so fast it takes me moments to catch up.

I cannot use my physical voice any longer, she says. My power is depleted. It would only hasten my death. You must gather all our sisters and prepare to fight. The monster escaped at dawn this morning. It’s only been hours, so you have a chance before he regains his full power.

Something happened to free him, but I don’t know what it was.

A jolt of power struck through the lava, and then the monster clawed his way out from its depths.

With his dragon’s fire, he melted the surface to conceal the cracks, and then he told me he would leave the maze and seek his revenge.

You must stop him before he gets out of the maze!

I am frozen, processing what she said, a single piece of information rocketing around within my mind.

He escaped hours ago.

An hour in that realm is a month in the outside world.

If he got out of the maze already, then it’s been months!

I reach for Striker, my hand extending to his, my instincts screaming at me, but I can’t make sense of what I’m feeling.

More dread than I thought possible.

“He’s been out for months,” I whisper.

And yet, I never sensed it.

“Out and back again,” Striker murmurs.

He remains impossibly calm as he turns to me.

Before I can ask him what he means, he says, “I need you to do something for me, Peyton, and I promise it’s the last thing I’ll ever ask of you.”

I swallow hard, trying to breathe even though it feels like I want to tear myself out of my own skin. “Striker?”

He speaks quietly, calmly, but firmly. “I need you to go to Vanguard, leave the maze, and never look back. If you do this, your past will be in the past.”

“But—”

“You have every possible future ahead of you, Peyton.” A gentle smile lifts his lips. “Everything you want, you have the strength to make it happen. You always did.” He pauses. “Will you do this?”

I don’t understand why he’s telling me to leave or why he’s phrasing his request in this way.

I want to say no.

But before I can object, Jonah grabs me, and the heat in his hands, the sudden unwarranted threat of his fire, startles me enough that he pulls me three paces away from Striker before my reflexes kick in.

Striker immediately turns to the clouds on our right, his voice rising. “Come on, then!” he roars, his beast’s fury filling his voice. “Come and get me!”

The clouds part in a rush of air.

A blur of claws and teeth and wings smacks into Striker, knocking him off the bridge so fast that I don’t have time to scream before he and his attacker plummet out of sight.

“No!” My scream finally sounds. “Striker!”

Jonah’s hold is unrelenting, and his voice at my ear is filled with determination and not a hint of regret. “You may hate me, Fury, but I will not let you die here.”

Then he’s pulling me along the bridge, and no matter how hard I kick and scratch, he doesn’t let me go.