Page 105 of Labyrinthine
They’re going to flee. It makes sense. They’re outnumbered here. If they run, they can choose the battlefield and shape their odds. It’s strategic. Smart.
I glance back—Mallen is conferring with a palace guard in low tones, jaw tight. His gaze hasn’t left me. There’s a wound in that look. Pain, and no longer hidden. The quiet control that has always caged him—it’s fraying. And I’m the one who’s pulling it loose.
“Choose me,” Darian says, voice quieter now, but insistent. “Not because you’re afraid. Because you want to. Because I wantyou.”
My heart slams against my ribs.
He means it. He’s certain. He’sasking.
And I’m terrified. Not of him—but of choosing. Of being wrong. Of giving my yes and watching the ground open beneath me anyway. I can’t undo this. I can’t run back. And yet—I want to move forward without asking permission. For once—just once—I want to choose something before it’s chosen for me. I want towant.
I nod.
It’s more than agreement. It’s defiance. A vow. A quiet rebellion whispered in the breath between heartbeats. For once, I’m not a daughter or a pawn or a prize in someone else’s war. I’m a girl who wants, who chooses, who claims her own ruin. And this, whatever it becomes, is mine.
Relief floods me, sharp and sweet. I’ve made so few decisions that were truly mine. This one is monumental—and mine alone. It tastes like freedom. It tastes like the life I’ve never been allowed to live.
“There’ll be men ready near the exit,” Darian says. “Meet me after sunset. We won’t have long.”
“Mallen?” My voice is barely audible.
“I’ll handle him. Don’t worry.”
He steps back, offering a courtly bow—every inch the noble hero performing for the crowd. It’s a perfect mask, crafted to hide everything we’ve just decided. The escape. The betrayal.
The choice.
The silence that follows swallows everything.
The world forgets how to move.
Even my own heart hesitates, as if it knows it has no right to beat for anyone now.
Tension knots in my throat. The moment fractures under its own pressure—too loud, too still. I am like a thread pulled taut past breaking, caught between the past I betrayed and the future I dared to choose. There’s no turning back. No undoing this.
I’ve made my choice. And now, I will carry it.
I back away from Darian in a daze. I’m too numb to feel and too bewildered to think. My feet move of their own accord, despite the heaviness weighing them down and the weariness pulling at my bones like anchors in the tide.
I turn. And my eyes meet Mallen’s.
He isn’t jealous. He isn’t angry.
He’s worse than that.
He’s empty. Still. Staring at me without a trace of emotion, like I’m the shattered remnants of a porcelain vase, worthy of being studied instead of understood. Like he’s trying to find all the pieces of me he once knew and realizing, one by one, that I’ve broken them and can never be the same again.
I refuse to look away.
I walk toward him with my chin lifted, spine braced, and the smallest tremor in my hands tucked neatly into the folds of my cloak. This is what I chose. I have to remember that. I’ve got to if I’m going to pull this off. If I’m going to get Darian out alive.
“Princess,” he says quietly. No anger. No judgment. Just that word. Like it’s all I’ll ever be.
“Commander.” I take my place beside him and face the tributes.
The air is full of whispered prayers and unspoken fear. Their mouths shape hope like it’s currency, but we all know the gods don’t barter in mercy.
I whisper a prayer anyway. Not to the gods. To the part of me that still believes Darian might survive this.
