Page 7 of The Prince from a Cruel Summer
“Winter is on Elio’s path,” Willow breathes so faintly I almost miss it. “Ice will change him forever,” she trails off, her voice carrying a strange musicality.
“So Winter’s on the left? Are you sure?” I ask.
She blinks again. “I’m sorry?”
“You just said Winter was on Elio’s path.”
“Oh.” A deep blush brands her round, youthful cheeks. “I get these flashes sometimes, of the future or whatnot. But seventy-two percent of all predictions and forecasts end up to be incorrect.”
The first bell rings. Elio and the girl enter the maze while the two members of the second group take their place by the totems.
Willow sits in a lotus position on the grass, and her gaze darts over to my fiancé. “Why doesn’t Zeke sit with you if you’re engaged?”
I sit crossed-legged next to her and nibble on my thumb. “I don’t think he cares much about me.”
Zeke drew a middle of the pack starting group, but the Shadow Prince doesn’t attempt to belittle me further. He’s too busy flirting with a gorgeous Spring Fae with long dark hair and radiant brown skin to bother with me.
Willow nods at that, as if I’m making perfect sense, not at all bothered by the admission. “Eighty-nine percent of all royal Fae marriages are for power—either meant to boost the bride and groom’s political momentum or their raw magic, depending on the Fae. Half of those marriages were arranged between the Fae’s parents.” She bites her bottom lip. “You must have tons of ice magic to spare. No one in my world would dare to entwine their fate with Zeke’s, given how weak he’s rumored to be.”
The crowd starts to filter out after a few bells, each group of two given a five-minute edge over the two following behind them. After Willow is called away, I shift to hug my knees to my chest, trying to get comfortable. I’ve still got a long wait to go.
The bells ring again and again until the cuticles of my thumbs are bloody. Only four of us are left. We glance at each other, sharing the same ill-fated timing. Oppressive silence blankets the lawn, and sweat beads on my brow.
The two applicants in the group before mine enter the maze, and Master Evelyn finally waves me forward. “Number twenty-three. Left or right?”
I watch the exterior wall again, searching for a clue, but they wouldn’t make it so easy as to label the entrances, would they?
“Left.” My stomach flips. I’ve got one shot at a completely different future, and I can’t let my father down.
I take my position, and the guy who drew the twenty-four tile takes the empty spot next to the totem on the right.
The three of us are the last people here, now. Most of the crowd probably transferred to the other end, anxiously waiting to see who makes it through—and who will be cast aside.
The last bell of the night rings with a shrill edge in the clearing, and I run into the maze.
Here goes.
It’s all or nothing.
The entrance closes behind me, bare branches in the cedar hedge stretching from the heart of the plant and crawling toward one another like skeletons staggering toward the afterlife. The deepcracksandsnapsof the dried twigs shiver through me.
There’s nowhere left to go but forward.
Warm tingles of warning creep along my spine as I spot a large thundercloud crackling with electricity up ahead. This isn’t Winter but Storms. Fuck me.
Off I go, deep into the labyrinth.
Chapter 3
Madness at First Sight
WONDER BOY
The luscious jungle I created for the admission trials smells of passion fruits, rain, and impending doom. Clusters of mist dampen the air and conceal an endless string of carefully-laid traps. A catered selection of magnificent, deadly plants are lying in wait to attract and eliminate the most powerful applicants, while the fever dreams take care of the rest.
The odd poisonous snake and a swarm of pyre butterflies even ventured in on their own.
I walk along the banks of the boiling stream that runs along this section of the labyrinth to the moonlit meadow and contemplate my masterpiece. My bare feet leave footprints in the rainbow-colored sand, but if I was to try and cross the stream, they’d be burned straight to the bone. A constant cloud of smoke rises from the waterfall rushing down to the bottomless pond, and the will-o'-the-wisps twinkle in the distance, enhancing the scenery’s mystique.
