Page 148 of Labyrinthine
And from deep within the palace, something answers—low, shuddering, as evil flows through the ground beneath us.
Not a voice. Not a scream.
A pulse.
Old as bone and darker than sleep, it thrums up through the soles of my boots—neither sound nor breath, but a remembering.
It does not beckon. It does not beg.
It brands.
The palace gates groan open—not with haste, but with hunger.
And the night turns to war.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The sky ignites.
Fire.
Real fire.
It streaks through the vapors, arcing down like meteors. Bolts of flame crash into buildings with bone-shaking force. Stone splinters. Wood shatters. The eastern quarter erupts in a wall of searing heat.
Someone screams. A horse bolts. A falling beam knocks one of our riders sideways as the square explodes into motion.
And still the fire multiplies. Not rain—an inferno descending, a fire choosing. A hundred mouths of flame seeking breath. The city catches like dry parchment, and every street is a lit fuse, racing toward the heart.
The wind shifts, and the night darkens. A different kind of smoke appears—acrid, cloying, wrong. It coils around us like a living shroud, seeping through every breath. And too late, Irealize—it isn’t just fire. It’s magic. Heavy, oppressive, old. It stains the air—and me with it. It gathers behind my ribs, under my tongue, where my own magic trembles.
He has it back.
My hands go still—too still. My father has his magic again. I don’t know how I know. I don’t care. But I feel it—steady and relentless, a drum beating with the city’s blood. Not a surge. A summons. As if the palace itself is breathing, calling me back to burn.
I glance up. Through the fumes, the towers of the palace rise like jagged teeth. Close. Too close. A hush curls in my lungs, thick as oil, and it taints every breath.
“Keep moving,” Mallen yells.
I wrench my horse aside just as another bolt of flame slams into the fountain behind us, sending water and stone flying in every direction. Heat scorches my face. Smoke blinds me for a moment. I breathe, and it cuts. My magic stirs—half-feral, half-mine. Death’s echo, curled like a sleeping god beneath my ribs. And I don’t know if I will master it or vanish inside it.
I reach for it.
It recoils.
Not in refusal, but in warning.
I’m not ready. Not yet.
Gods.
Panic skims beneath my skin like lightning. I chased this power for so long, thinking it would save me. But I was wrong. It isn’t a gift—it’s a language I haven’t learned to speak, and every word burns my tongue. My father will be nothing like the monster I faced before. Not a man fractured and weakened by his fall, but the sorcerer who once brought kingdoms to heel. The tyrant who ruled by fire and blade. The man who made me.
I don’t know if I can defeat him.
But I know that I’m prepared to die trying.
Chaos descends.
