Page 10 of Steeling Light
His father is the reason. Well, his and Cole’s fathers. We were caught in the crossfire, and there was nothing any of us could do when Gethin refused to allow Rhion to spend time with us after that stupid prank that Darian pulled on him.
Darian wanted nothing to do with him after that, either. I don’t blame him, but it wasn’t Rhion who was calling for my brother to be collared. It was Gethin. He took it personally that his son had been injured because of an Immortal from a Lesser House. Rhion never wanted anything bad to happen to Darian, but as soon as Rhion was injured, it was out of his hands.
Darian may hate Rhion because of what happened, but I can’t. I remember it all. I remember the way it had all happened.
Rhion walks around a corner, and I try to focus on the present. Rhion Rahn is not the little boy who was one of my best friends. He’s the Prince of Steel and answers to his father, our greatest enemy.
I cannot let the past dictate my present, even if I’d love for things to go back to the way they were. Almost a thousand years have passed, and all of them have had the two of us on opposite sides.
Nothing has changed just because our friends and family aren’t around. He’s still the Prince of Steel, and I’m still loyal to the Prince of Flames and Queen of Earth.
But what if it did…
Chapter 7
Selithar was built around the Labyrinth, not the other way around. It predates the Fae, the dragons, and maybe even humans.
~Countess Alyth Corvanne, A Visitor’s Guide to Selithar
Ainslee
The Maze and Marrow is a confusing place for most people. It’s a restaurant, but it’s a restaurant built right outside the Labyrinth. Its guests don’t eat inside the Maze and Marrow; instead, they buy their food and walk through the gardens that line the entrance to the Labyrinth.
Very few people have gone beyond the winding hedges on the outskirts. Especially after you get to the mist. Any other maze would be a joke for someone with Steel powers, but the Labyrinth’s mist rises above the tops of the stone walls that lead to the center, and the last person with Steel powers who tried to cheat his way through the maze was lost to the mists forever.
It’s the perfect place both to protect myself from Rhion and to give us the chance to talk openly. I haven’t been to the center, but I’ve been closer than most. I know how to get in and get out without ever sprouting wings, and Rhion and his soldiers—if he has any—won’t be able to.
I sit on a bench inside the Labyrinth with a plate of everfolded pastries and smile. I’m not entirely sure why, but for the first time since I arrived in Selithar, I feel a little giddy. Maybe it’s because I’m allowing myself to see Rhion again, or maybe it’s because I’mnotthinking about anything important. Or maybe it’s just because I’m sitting inside the Labyrinth, one of the few places in Selithar that I can appreciate.
The everfolded pastries smell of blackcurrants and venison, but I know better than to taste them while they’re still steaming.
I’m wearing a disguise as always. This time, I look like a woman barely a hundred years old without a single wrinkle-line on my face. And just like every other time, I hear Rhion before I see him.
“I’ve heard of the Labyrinth, but I didn’t understand just how large it was. This place is… it doesn’t belong in a backwater town like Selithar.”
I know the voice, and I turn to see what shape he chose for our meeting tonight. There’s no question when I see the tall blonde man smiling at me. Four massive skewers dripping caramelized tropical fruit onto thick cuts of a game bird are held in one hand while the other is in his pocket.
Those eyes… I don’t know how to explain how I know it’s him. They sparkle in a way that other people’s don’t. They seem to take me in and caress me with just a glance, perfectly kind and at such odds with how the world sees him.
“You found me again. One day, you’re going to have to tell me how you know it’s me.”
He chuckles and shakes his head. “I’ll tell you right now. If you know someone, you can see through any shift. I could pick you out of a crowd no matter what you’d become. You walk differently. You’d move your arms in a uniquely Ainslee way. And no one has your smile. You can’t fake a smile.”
He sits down, and my eyes go to the skewers that he makes sure never drip onto him or the bench. “You have a bounce to your step that the average woman doesn’t. You have an energy that I’d know with my eyes closed. And you don’t change your eyes or your hands nearly well enough.” He says the last part as if it doesn’t matter at all, even though Darian has always chastised me for not shifting my eyes well enough.
“That’s it? You just see me and know? It’s not some House of Steel magic? You’re not carrying some enchanted coin that lets you see the soul of a person?”
Rhion laughs out loud. “You give enchanting too much credit. It can do a lot of things, but no level of enchanting can see a soul.”
I smile at the sound of that laughter. How long has it been since I heard it? Was it really the day that Darian was almost collared? When I was seventeen years old?
“So why choose the Labyrinth for our dinner?” he asks as he looks around at the people wandering the pathways at the entrance of the maze. “We could have had a much less public talk at a dozen other places.”
The corner of my lip curls up. “Oh, we’re going to have a private chat where your soldiers can’t get to us, and I don’t have to worry about you doing any of the things that my brother would warn me you’d do. I know we’re supposed to be talking like friends, but let’s not act like we’re not at war.”
Rhion nods, his smile fading some. “We can go for a walk in the Labyrinth if that’s what you want. There are no soldiers, and no one is going to hurt you, but I wouldn’t complain about a walk through a beautiful mist-filled hedge maze. You always loved long walks.”
I know the way he talks to everyone else, and this isn’t that. There’s no show of dominance in his voice now, no constant grating masculinity or need to show his strength to the world.
