Page 116 of Labyrinthine
Fire rips through my arm.
I hit the wall. Hard. His knee forces my legs apart. One hand clamps around my neck. Not enough to kill. Just enough to show he could.
He pauses.
“I want to know,” he says. “Why him, Azhara?”
I don’t answer. I won’t.
It’s all I have left—my silence.
His grip tightens. My lungs burn and my vision dims.
He tilts his head back. Just slightly.
That’s the moment.
I take it.
My fist slams into his throat.
He reels back, coughing. I throw myself forward—fists flying. One lands. Then another.
I fight on instinct. On fury. On every unanswered question I never let myself feel. On every shattered dream, every ounce of fury I never let myself feel.
And I pour all of it into him.
He staggers. His sword drops. But I don’t stop.
I drive him into the wall. My knuckles split. My shoulders ache. I slam my fist into the side of his head.
His skull hits stone. He crumples.
I freeze.
Pain hits—sharp and sudden. Devastation erupts through my chest, like it’s breaking the remnants of my heart. My hands shake. I can’t bring myself to check if Mallen’s breathing. Blood paints the walls, his skin, and the floor beneath him. His breath rattles, a jagged scrape of noise.
He doesn’t move.
I can’t make myself touch him. Can’t even kneel. My heart thunders. It lies, and tells me he’s alive.
Because the alternative?—
No.
“I didn’t choose him,” I whisper, voice hoarse, barely audible. Tears fall. “You made it impossible to choose you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I retracemy steps through the labyrinth, the thread wound tight around my wrist. My legs move, but my body feels borrowed—raw and disconnected, like I’m bleeding out something more important than blood. My skin hums with bruises. I float and sink all at once, waves crashing over me, pulling me under.
The cold stone sweats around me, the air thick with rot and damp, and each footstep lands heavy, uneven. My limbs lag behind thought, as if I’ve slipped loose from myself. I can’t hold onto a single emotion without ten more crashing in its wake, a storm circling tighter and tighter.
I miss him.
I want to go back for him.
I know it’s too late for that. Gods, it’s too late now.
