Page 50 of Labyrinthine
I want to believe him.
But then his eyes still—just for a breath—and the warmth in them goes glassy, like a mask settling back into place. Too calm. Too careful. As if he’s been waiting to deliver this line, practicing it in the dark.
Darian isn’t lying. But he isn’t telling me everything either.
He wears truth like armor and misdirection like silk. And right now, I can’t tell which one is meant for me.
So I let the silence stretch. Let him see the weight in my eyes. The fear. The fire.
“Then we’d best hope we’ll both live to see the ending,” I say.
He inclines his head, not quite a bow. Not a surrender, either.
I walk away with my spine straight and my pulse thrashing.
Mallen doesn’t move until I reach him. Doesn’t speak until we are alone. But his breath growls in his throat. He saw enough. It coils between us like smoke off a fire not yet stoked, waiting to consume.
When I open my mouth to tell him I despised the dance?—
I can’t.
And worse, I can’t tell him what Darian said.
And that—thatcan’t—lodges like a blade between my ribs.
Because silence is power.
Silence is a choice.
And I’m done letting the men around me make mine for me.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The two noblesflanking my father are pressing their luck. They’ve mistaken his silence for grief, not fury. His compliance with the Reaping for contrition. They flatter him with words likemagnificent, congratulating him for shaping me into the perfect ornament. They think they’ll soften his mood by praising my display yesterday. They’re fools. He’s deciding how best to unmake them, and if I were a crueler woman, I’d smile at the thought of how little time they have left.
Mallen stands beside me on the royal balcony, his palm resting low on my spine. The pressure is possessive and a little too firm. A reminder. He hasn’t forgiven me for yesterday—not for the way I looked at Darian, nor for what I said when we reached my rooms. Larksbind’s prince came between us like a blade, and I refused to look away. Our last words before sleep had burned between us.
And I cannot take them back.
Below us, the tributes wait.
The sight of them makes my stomach clench like a fist around fire. My hands tremble. Color bleeds from my skin and my knees threaten to fold. Mallen catches my arm, steadying me before I stumble. His grip leaves no room for refusal. No one can know I’m breaking.
Especially not my father.
The royal balcony is a cage of opulence—gilded and cruel. A stage from which Starsfall’s king can oversee the slaughter below, close enough that we can hear and taste the carnage, yet high enough that his silhouette casts long over the tributes from Larksbind. Everything here was designed to remind the world who rules. Every inch of it reeks of blood.
The amphitheater curves around the pit like a holy wound carved into the earth, tier upon tier of alabaster stone stained by centuries of blood. Velvet-cloaked nobles fill the highest rings, sipping wine while they wait for violence to entertain them. Below them, merchants, soldiers, and children jostle for space, eager to watch strangers die. A sea of faces turned toward death like it’s divine. I used to think I hated this because it was cruel. Now I wonder if I hate it because it’s familiar. Maybe I’m not disgusted by death—I’m disgusted by how easily I’ve learned to stomach it.
“I know you despise this,” Mallen murmurs, low enough that only I hear. “But it will be quick. That’s mercy, of a kind.”
“It’s not mercy,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Compared to me, it is,” he answers, tone flat as cold steel, and just as sharp.
In the pit, Darian swings his sword through a slow arc, letting the silver catch the sunlight. There is a grace to him that borders on insolent. He’s not afraid. He doesn’t even seem tense. But when he sees Mallen’s hand on me, he goes still. His jaw tightens.
Others move behind him—men with spears, shields, swords—but it hardly matters. Their weapons are sharp but usually ceremonial, their deaths preordained. I remember only two men surviving the Reaping’s first trial, and neither lived long afterward.
