What Lurks Between the Fates (Of Flesh & Bone, #3)(84)

Caldris met my gaze, his eyes wide with fear as he pushed against the blade at his throat. The iron cut into his skin, forcing him to wince back for a moment before he tried to struggle against his iron bonds.

“Estrella,” he whispered, horror coating his voice as the Minotaur stomped his hooves and glared at me.

I nodded silently to my mate, turning my attention away from him to face my opponent.

A moment of understanding flashed between us.

Only one of us would leave the Labyrinth alive.





27


Estrella


I sprinted forward the moment Mab’s guard announced the start, using my smaller size to my advantage as I sprinted through the pathway. The Minotaur knew the way; he knew the paths that would connect us and allow him to reach me sooner.

He knew how to get to the center.

There was nothing within the Labyrinth but the unending maze of hedges. Their leaves and brambles jutted up out of nowhere, forcing me to slow enough to round the sharp corners. I didn’t hesitate in my decisions, keeping left and then right as I allowed some sort of instinct to guide me forward. I couldn’t be sure where it came from or how I knew the way, but a voice whispered in the back of my mind with every turn I took.

If I’d hoped to find the remains of the Minotaur’s victims, I was sorely mistaken. He’d either eaten them—bones and all—or removed the remnants of their bodies from the Labyrinth.

The sound of snapping branches reached me first. My heart pounded in my chest, jumping into my throat as I snapped my head to the side. An axe cut through the hedge to my right, the gleaming silver of the metal shining against all that green.

Time slowed to a crawl as those hedges were cleaved in half. The axe came straight for my face.

My feet stopped. I skidded along the dirt.

Throwing my weight to the ground, the leather of my pants protected me from the thorns and rocks as the axe cut the hedge away. I landed on my knees—bending my back and flattening myself to the ground. The axe swept through the air above me, narrowly cutting through just above my head. The wind from the motion blew across my face.

The Minotaur appeared on the other side, raising a leg to step over what remained of the hedge. I would have had to climb over it to escape, but his height allowed him to traverse it with ease. Those enormous hooves thumped against the ground; his legs oddly bent.

Slowing him down, I realized. He might have had the advantage of knowing the Labyrinth by memory, but I would have speed on my side, at least.

He stepped into the path as I sprawled on my back, scurrying backward as he took a step forward. I slipped in the mud beneath me—the ground suddenly slick. The coppery tang of it surrounded me as I hurried backward on my hands and kicked my feet.

To my right, blood trickled out of the hedges, the branches bleeding from where he’d cut them down as if they’d been alive. I stared at them in horror, at the roses that wilted as they died. They bled upon the dirt, as if they’d trapped the life and death of his victims within them. The Minotaur’s hooves hit the wet earth, the mud squelching as he sank into it ever-so-slightly.

It was enough.

“Use your magic, you foolish child!” Mab screamed, her voice cutting through the air.

I glanced above to where she stood on the hillside, looking down into the maze. She was a blur, a single dot in the landscape of Fae surrounding us. The Minotaur approached slowly, watching me, mindful of my every move.

Waiting for me to do something, for me to fight instead of cower. I’d had such bravado outside the Labyrinth itself, making that deal with its master, only to stare up at my death within moments.

The golden threads of Caldris’s magic reached out to me, the gleaming, shimmering liquid of the blood from the hedges providing moisture upon the ground. I grasped onto one, pulling it toward me as the familiar comfort of my mate’s cold surrounded us. Wrapping it around my hand and claiming it as mine, I turned a glare back at the Minotaur and thrust my hand toward the ground.

My palm collided with the wet earth. My hand sunk into the mud. The wet, sucking sound erupted through the silence, and the Minotaur paused. I sank my hand as far as I could, only stopping when I found the dry dirt beneath the surface mud. Turning my full attention back to the Minotaur, I watched as ice spread from my hand and created a halo beneath my body. It spread toward him—the blood-soaked ground turning to ice beneath his feet.

His hooves couldn’t grip, slipping to the side as he grunted, and his breaths left him in puffs of white upon the air. I used the opportunity to race forward, hurrying to my feet. I fumbled on the ice as I moved, forcing my body to keep going anyway as I slipped and made myself small.

My hands covered my head, prepared for the worst. All it would take was a single moment of coordination on his part—one swing of his axe—

I slid between his parted legs.

Dissolving the ice on the other side of him, I ran across the dirt and put as much distance between us as I could. I’d need a weapon of some kind, anything that could be used against him, if I wanted to kill him. If not, getting to the center and surviving would have to be enough.

I’d fight the battle for completing our bond another day if need be.

My feet pounded against the dirt so hard that I clenched my jaw to stop my teeth from grinding against one another. I flexed my fingers at my side, knowing that I could only outrun him for so long. There had to be another choice, another way to escape.