Page 18 of Labyrinthine
He turns away to let the crowd breathe again. Mallen does not touch me. His hand relaxes at his side, not quite to the hilt, not quite away. The moment passes like a knife sliding back into its sheath. Evie keeps her skin.
My pulse will not settle. The seam in the marble draws my attention and lets me count my breaths. My hands want to shake, and I refuse them. Mallen keeps his gaze forward, the line of his body quiet and ready, and still I feel the heat of his attention like a palm between my shoulders.
“Stop trembling,” my father hisses.
“Azhara’s unsteady after yesterday’s ordeal,” Mallen says, just loud enough to carry. “She won’t faint tonight.”
The court will believe any tremor in my hands belongs to the knife that nearly found my throat. They are always hungry for a story dipped in blood. Mallen knows better. He reads it in the way I cannot quite meet his gaze. This shaking is not fear. It is the aftershock of what just happened. And of his hands on my skin, the memory of his mouth, the echo of a promise that rooted too deep and has not stopped ringing.
“I didn’t realize you were so upset, dear girl,” my father says at last, his voice pitched to the lords. He takes my hand and patsit, playing the doting parent. “Always trying to be brave. Forgive me for not noticing your distress.”
I manage a brittle smile and glance at Mallen, my throat tightening around words that can’t quite escape it. Heat stirs low in my chest, unsteady and unexpected. Not just relief, not quite affection. Gratitude, edged and bright. He did not have to speak. He did.
His choice has kept me safe. Whatever we are now, it is already unraveling me, and still I want more, even if it burns past saving. So I stand beside him, wondering not just who I am, but who I could be. What version of myself might survive this Reaping.
Threnos plays its part well. Everyone knows my father loathes Larksbind. Every fiber of his being thrums with contempt for them. He wants us to think of them as hollow. Empty. Void. Most of Starsfall has fallen for my father’s lies. But I know Larksbind is full. Full of everything this kingdom can’t be trusted to hold.
So once a year, he’s forced to smile for their emissaries as he extolls the virtues of peace. A performance the court is well-versed in applauding. An act the court sees as proof of my father’s benevolence instead of duplicity. Wisdom, not malice. Redemption, not revenge.
But there is another performance few know is playing out. The one in which my father is a loving parent. A man who protects his only child. Who praises her, indulges her, adores her.
Only Mallen sees the cracks. Only he knows what festers beneath the golden crown.
My stomach coils with dread. I don’t need to glance at Mallen to know his disquiet. He radiates it, a storm tethered only by discipline. My father, of course, assumes my discomfort isleftover fear. He prefers me brittle. Weak and malleable. Easier to control.
He turns and extends his hand.
The court sees a father offering reassurance. I see the grimace that flits across his face when our palms touch. Hear the disgust in the hiss of breath he swallows down. And I see him wipe his hand on his robes when he thinks no one is looking. Like touching me made him unclean.
I step forward, cast in my role, and smile through clenched teeth. I wave. I thank the gods and the people of both nations, and give the blessing that reminds us that while magic rolls like a storm in Starsfall, its winds die at Larksbind’s borders. Then I descend to the midpoint of the palace steps and brace myself for the part I loathe most.
The tributes.
One by one, the men will step forward. One by one, they’ll offer themselves for my hand, unaware they are sealing their own doom. None will survive. None meant to. Maybe they are aware of what awaits them. Perhaps that would be a mercy.
Mallen joins me, his presence a shadow at my shoulder. When the routine shifts subtly, his brow arches—a small, private warning. Follow the rule. Remember what we are. What we were in the woods and the water. Remember that I let him touch me. Kiss me.
That no one else may.
No one else may touch me.
The first man steps forward. He lowers his hood and bows. He’s young. Far too young. A soldier, judging by his build. He murmurs his name and vows his fealty before retreating after I accept.
Four more follow. Two fishermen. A merchant. A smith. All older than the first, but still too young to die for a ceremony that means nothing.
Then comes the sixth.
He lifts my hand in both of his and presses a kiss to my knuckles, holding the contact too long.
I recoil instinctively.
And then, he is airborne.
Mallen has him by the throat, suspended in midair like a child’s doll. The man kicks, gasps, and claws at invisible fingers, but it’s hopeless. Mallen doesn’t falter. Or forgive.
“Mallen,” I whisper, barely audible.
“Don’t. Touch. Her.”
