What Lurks Between the Fates (Of Flesh & Bone, #3)(82)

Fuck.

***

Nila walked me away from the throne room, where I usually spent my time in Mab’s company. The halls in this part of Tar Mesa were broader than the passageway to the Cove had been, a path far more traveled, even though I had never ventured this way. Gratefully so, considering the unusual number of Fae who traveled through them at the same time as us, whispering among themselves as Nila and Malachi guided me through the crowd gathering for the first of the seven events that would mark the Winter Solstice.

The latter pushed people out of the way, clearing a path for Nila and me to stride through.

“Where are they all going?” I asked, swallowing through the lump rising in my throat.

For the first time since the Cove, it felt like something reached inside me and strummed fear into my heart. The numbness the Cove had left me with faded away, leaving me unprotected against whatever horror I would face that day. The creature within me stirred at last, as if she herself could scent the danger. None of the others walking through the crowd were dressed so casually, none were prepared for battle.

I swallowed down the surge of nausea that rose in my gut.

“The same place we are,” Malachi said, turning back to sneer at me.

Satisfaction pulsed off him in waves, a horrific reminder of whatever I was about to face. He’d stopped taking joy from tormenting me with iron blades, not getting the reaction he wanted out of me. For him to be pleased with my fate did not bode well for me.

“Mab has summoned you to the Labyrinth,” Nila whispered, the reverent, fearful tone to her voice crawling up my skin. It set goosebumps along my flesh, raising the hair on the back of my neck with the chill she created.

“The Labyrinth,” I said, echoing her words.

I knew what one was, of course, having heard of the legends of the King’s infamous Labyrinth at the palace in Ineburn City. A twisted maze of rose bushes meant to make it impossible to find the correct path to the palace; it served as protection for the royals tucked safely within. Only a select few knew the way through the path.

“I’ll cut it down if I must, to find my way through.”

“It isn’t the maze itself that you should fear,” Nila said, shaking her head sadly. “It’s the Minotaur who calls it home. I can’t remember the last time someone came out alive when they were selected for the Labyrinth.”

I swallowed, not liking the sound of that. I’d hardly been exposed to any of the Fae creatures of Alfheimr aside from the Sidhe, hardly experienced even a hint of the horrors I’d heard legends of.

I suspected that was about to change.

We strode in silence as we came to a set of smaller metal doors. They still took two Fae warriors to haul open, allowing us to pass through as the crowd tried to swallow us whole. Outside, the white sand whipped through the air, barreling against the hedges tucked into the valley. All around the valley were the rolling hills of Tar Mesa. Windows were thrown open to allow the Fae within a view down into the maze. I knew if we continued to the east, we would come to the arena we’d carved into the stone of the next valley and the ice pillars Caldris and I had crafted.

Where we stood, though, only an enormous maze existed within the valley before me. The hedges were the vivid green of nature that I never could have found in Nothrek. An intricate, zigzagging path cut through them.

Malachi led us down into the chasm to the Queen of Air and Darkness, where she waited just outside the entrance to the Labyrinth. A creature stood at her side, towering over her. He was easily twice her size, with a humanoid body packed with muscle. His shoulders were broader than a Sidhe, his neck thick and corded as it curved up toward his face. The head that rested upon his shoulders was that of a bull. His massive horns curved out the side of his temples to stretch toward the sky. His feet were hooved and large enough that the ground seemed to shake as he shifted his weight at Mab’s side.

Caldris knelt before them, his hands chained behind his back with iron. His face was beaten, and the blade of an iron sword was pressed against his throat as one of Mab’s men kept him still. My jaw clenched at the sight of his swollen eye and the bruising that surrounded it—the gash that cut across his cheekbone. I raised my chin, a vein pulsing in my temple with that surge of anger. As my heart beat faster, the creature within me snarled.

Malachi guided me forward, leaving Nila behind to avoid the wrath of the creature waiting for me. I felt the moment the Minotaur settled his gaze upon me. His eerie black eyes captured mine, his head tilting to the side as he huffed out a sharp breath.

“You promised me something to eat. This is barely a snack,” he said, turning his attention to Mab. His nose twitched, the hoop piercing shifting with the movement.

She smirked. “Maybe. But if she loses, you can eat him too,” she said, turning her gaze down to where Caldris knelt.

It shouldn’t have mattered, because if I died, Caldris would follow. He would likely even be gone before the Minotaur finished devouring me, but the thought of desecrating his body—my body—in such a way made me clench my fists. Talons protruded from my fingers, my own nails shifting and curving as they extended.

“Then let us fight together. If we both suffer the fate of this battle, surely the Minotaur can handle two Fae,” my mate argued, leaning into the blade at his throat as if he meant to stand. His face remained the portrait of calm, but I felt the echo of his heart beating in time with mine. I felt his fear, his panic, that the Minotaur might not be a fight I could survive.