Page 146 of Storm of Shadows

I’ve lost it. I’m sure I’ve lost it.

I hunch over my knees, bile sloshing in my stomach and my throat, my lungs burning and my heart hammering. I close my eyes and try to catch my breath.

I’m okay.

I. Am. Okay.

All right, I may have lost my bearings, I may be lost completely, but I’m alive; I’m uninjured. There was no real chance I was going to complete this maze anyway. Maybe I’m better off concentrating on staying safe, running down the clock and coming away unscathed. I’m sure I’ll earn a few points from the progress I made. It’s better than dying.

Only, the maze has other ideas. It obviously doesn’t want me waiting in one place. It wants me moving. I only notice when something sharp scrapes against my arm. I cry out and find the brambles from the walls of the maze curling onto the pathway, curling towards me.

I squeal, jumping out of the way, as a limb covered in long sharp thorns swings dangerously close to my face. I back away from the brambles, only to find the path behind me also blocked.

Shit! Why the hell did I think not moving would be a good idea?

Hardly entertaining for the spectators watching us as we make our way through this trial.

I peer through the brambles in front of me, searching for a way through, and then turn and do the same in the other direction. The brambles are moving too quickly, already blocking both directions; soon they’ll envelop me completely. I have a choice to make. Start moving or be strangled to death by these murderous plants. I grit my teeth and, with my arms over my head in a bid to protect my face, I plow straight ahead.

I try to duck and dive through the moving brambles. But it’s hopeless, they are too dense, and I scream as my flesh is torn to pieces. The pain is awful, but I’m used to that. It isn’t new. I search for that place I can go to for escape, I try to disassociate from my mind. I keep moving.

A bramble catches me by the ankle, coiling around my leg, and then another catches my arm, another tightening around my middle.

I struggle as best I can, trying to pull the brambles away with my hands even as the thorns sink into the sensitive flesh of my palms. But then one catches me by the throat and I know this is the end.

I close my eyes and wait for the trial masters to save me, hoping with every bone in my body that they do.

Chapter Sixty-Three

Briony

“Please,” I whisper.

The bramble around my throat loosens.

I flick open my eyes, expecting to find myself back in the academy.

I’m not. I’m still in the maze, surrounded by the vines, only they’re no longer moving. I scrabble at the vine wrapped around my throat and pull it away.

Unlike before, it doesn’t struggle back, it simply tumbles to the ground, its limbs slowly turning black as it does.

What the hell?

The rot continues, racing along the brambles as they fall to the ground, crack and snap. I brush them away from my body, and they fall away like dead leaves from a tree.

I don’t understand it. Did the trial masters cut off the attack before it could become deadly? Does that mean I failed? Then why leave me in the maze?

I peer down at my tracksuit. It’s shredded along both arms, down my legs and over my stomach. Gripping the material inmy hands, I rip off a section and use it to dab at the cuts that litter my body, holding it against the deepest of slices to stem the blood. Then I pick through the shriveling, dying brambles and continue on my way.

The trial may be over and I may already have failed, but I’m not going to risk it by remaining in one place. I’m going to keep moving. I’m going to continue on my way. Who knows what might come for me next time if I remain in one place.

I peer up at the sky. My time must nearly be up, surely, but with the heavy storm clouds it’s impossible to tell how many minutes have passed.

I walk along one pathway, take a left, another left and then three rights in a row, and then, to my utter astonishment, I walk out into the center of the maze. The hedgerows here are boxed and neatly trimmed and a water fountain gurgles away.

Alongside the clear water stands Madame Bardin, wrapped in the thick black cloak I saw her wearing that morning in the library.

“Madame Bardin!” I say, surprised – although it would make sense she’d be waiting at the end of the maze – at the end of the trial. “Am I done?”