Page 65 of A Trial of the Heart

Ten yards, and then finally five. There was only a body’s length distance between me and the end, but I stumbled as the pain seized my strength, bringing me crashing into the ground.

“Skylar,” a soft feminine voice sounded to my right, causing me to lose focus for a second and turn my gaze away from the key.

She stood alone, masked in the ebony fog dusted with sprinkles of what looked to be starlight. She had tanned, sun-kissed skin with beautiful brown eyes and vibrant wavy golden hair flowing down to her hip. She smiled at me. A soft, tender expression that I recalled Julia giving to me and Neera countless times throughout our lives.

“Skylar,” she said again, causing me to pause. Her features were so familiar, almost like looking at a reflection on a lake. Uncanny, how close they resembled my own. All but the shape of my eyes and brow, which I knew came from my father.

“Mother?” I whispered. I had always imagined what she looked like, sounded like—anything about her, really.

“Yes, my daughter.” Her pink lips curled along her golden skin as tears began to form in her softening eyes. “Skylar, come with me. There’s another way out of all this,” she pleaded.

“What is it?” I asked, feeling myself rise onto my feet.

“You must relinquish your shifter soul. It can remain here per your bargain … Then, you can come with me. We can be together, my daughter—I can save you from this fate.”

Gods, this place had tempted me beyond reason, but this… This was something I never saw coming. “You—You’re not real!” I stammered.

Pain flashed across her face like I had slapped her. “I may not be alive, but I am real, Skylar.”

“No. No, you’re not!” I shouted, my voice cracking. “Because my mother, myrealmother, wouldn’t ask this of me. She might have abandoned me, but I know that she did it to save my life… to give me a chance to have one.”

The figure of my mother stilled as the midnight fog drifted around her delicate, beautiful face. I wanted to run to her, wanted to believe this was not yet another ruse of the labyrinth, and give into a primal need to heed my mother’s call. I had never once cursed my mother for abandoning me with the Solace pack, but I had never told anyone why.

“I was born a hybrid. A half-breed. Mixed blood. My mother gave me to the people she knew would protect me. To the ones that would nurture me to become what I am today.”

I was done giving up pieces of myself to fit someone else’s agenda.

Perhaps in another life, I would have fallen into the role as Gilen’s mate. But there had always been something inside me that told me I was meant for more. I now realized that fate had always been leading me here. I was done wandering and being afraid of who I really was. Nothing was going to stop me from completing this trial. Not when I was so close to the end.

The deafening silence told me I was running out of time. Illusion or not, though, I needed to speak these words aloud.

I turned to look at the image of what I believed was my mother. I didn’t know if this was real or some illusion, but regardless, the words needed to be said. “I forgive you for what you had to do. I was given a good life filled with love and a family. I knew true happiness, and even now, I know I’m never alone.”

She silently nodded, a shimmer of tears soaking her deep brown eyes. “Never give up hope, my love. The strength of your heart will carry you through.” Folding a hand to her chest, the sparkling starlight faded into the midnight mist. I forced myself to turn away from her disappearing figure and squared my shoulders to take my final steps forward.

The walls around me shook with anger. The monsters below growled with disdain and resentment at a meal lost to them. The fog encircled me as a coy smile reached my lips.

“Fucking low blow there at the end,” I cursed into the mist. “You’re really a fucking prick.” These were my final words to the labyrinth, which I felt were appropriate considering what I had been forced to endure inside these stone walls.

The red-orange light of the glowing orb encircled a golden key with the shape of an intertwined sun and moon on one end. It blazed to life as I curled my fingers around the middle. On a deep inhale of breath, my animal’s presence returned. She flooded my body with an overwhelming feeling of bliss. I couldn’t hold back the tears of pure joy that trickled down my face.

The next thing I knew, I was in darkness. The fog encased me in its magic, with flecks of stabbing pain bouncing off my skin.

One moment, I was standing at the end of the labyrinth, and then the next, I was magically transported back to the entrance.

I couldn’t believe it.

I had successfully completed the trial of the mind, and the labyrinth was in my debt. I held a favor from the most cunning creature of Valdor.

Until we meet again, hybrid.

Chapter Fourteen

Ihad bested the trial of the mind, or at least I thought I had.

Gods, Mother and Father, please tell me I won, and this is not yet another sick, twisted game, I prayed.

Sinking to my knees, I clutched the golden sun-moon key to my chest as I openly sobbed in the underground entrance to the labyrinth. I could hear gasps of surprise echo across the stone, followed by frantic voices fluttering around the edges of my conscious mind. I hadn’t dared open my eyes yet. I didn’t allow myself that thread of hope for it to only be taken away from me yet again.

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