Page 22 of The Lord of the Labyrinth

Kate opened her lips to speak, but he waved his hand and opened a Fae road built upon the westerly winds. His little mortal was pulled from his arms, out the nearest window, and carried upon the air as quick as he could breathe, until she stood at the entrance of the labyrinth far away from his palace... from him.

Already the distance between them made his chest ache and his hands clench and unclench as he wrestled with these unfamiliar feelings.

Caden, the young boy, grabbed the bars and stared at Roan in terror. “Where did my sister go?”

“To the entrance of the labyrinth on the far opposite side of my lands. She must learn thatIcontrol this world, not her. She must learn that she belongs to me now.”

Caden’s eyes filled with tears. Then he raised his voice to shout, “Good luck, Kate!”

“She cannot hear you,” Roan said to the foolish boy.

“I know she can’t. But she’ll solve your labyrinth. You’ll see,” Caden declared confidently.

Had Roan been a kinder king, he would have set the boy free for his bravery and returned him to his home, but Caden was the key to Kate’s obedience. Roan would use whatever advantage he had to make Kate obey him.

“We shall see,” he said. “We shall see.”

ChapterSix

“Give me your lips, that I might taste the history of you in a kiss,” said the dark king.

“Just a kiss?” his bride replied. “Or would you take my soul with it?”

The dark king smiled in the way of all clever Fae. “A decent kiss should do nothing less than steal one’s soul.”

—Anon.,Tales from the Twilight Court

Kate triedto close her hands into fists and winced.

“This isn’t a dream.” Her hands were red and raw from her climb down the rope. She’d been hurt in dreams before, yes, but she’d never actually felt any pain. Now her hands were in agony.

She tried to distract herself by studying her surroundings. The dungeon was gone, and so was her little brother. A forest lay behind her, so heavily crowded with trees it looked almost black, and a forbidding chill ran down her spine. She definitely didn’t want to go that way.

Ahead of her was the entrance to Roan’s labyrinth. It was made of stone, and it was beautifully carved with the most intricate patterns that looked like Celtic knots. Stunning but unfathomably complicated. The walls were impossibly tall, making her feel like an ant standing before a sycamore tree. And far beyond, almost out of sight upon the horizon, was the distant shape of the palace, which glittered in the pale sunlight that was just cresting the horizon. She lifted her face to the sky, seeing the weak light of the rising sun.

“There’s more than just moonlight in this world as Babbitt said,” she mused. But this sun was nowhere near as strong as the one back home. It was more like when there was a layer of cloud that filtered it so you could almost stare directly at it.

Kate tried not to think about Caden in that dark, barred cell and how scared he was. Surely Roan wouldn’t keep him there forever... Would he? This was a man who had commanded her to strip naked and await his return, who had robbed her of her senses with a single kiss. He was used to taking what he wanted and not being refused.

“Please, just let Caden be all right.”

The wind tugged at her hair before it whispered through the trees behind her. For a moment she thought she heard a woman, or perhaps several women’s voices murmuring. Kate turned to look at the trees but saw no one.

“Is someone there?” she called out.

The trees stilled, and the wind faded.

Focus,she reminded herself.You’ve got sunlight you can use to navigate the maze.

She studied the shadows from the entrance. It was just now dawn, assuming the sun here rose in the west and set in the east. She could keep watching the shadows, and once the sun passed overhead at noon, then the shadows would stretch in the opposite direction. A labyrinth was just a complicated maze, right? She had solved a corn maze in middle school by keeping her right hand on the wall and following it to the end. She’d only run into two dead ends and corrected her course before she finally found a way back on the path.

This must work the same. It has to.

She wasn’t going to let Roan win, and she wasn’t going to let Caden down. Whatever Sandra might think of her, Kate would do anything for her little brother. She wasn’t going to leave him in the dungeons of a Fae king.

With a deep breath to clear her head, Kate entered the labyrinth. The ivy-covered walls stretched up more than twenty feet on either side. She studied the glossy leaves of the plants, and inspiration struck. She ignored the pain of her rope burns and dug her hands into the foliage, grasping stems. She tucked one foot into the crevice of the plants and pulled herself up. If she could reach the top of the wall, she could see her path and find her way to the palace. If the walls were wide enough, maybe she could walk along the top the whole way!

Halfway up the wall, Kate was grinning. Her plan was working. This was easy.

---