Page 145 of Labyrinthine
It’s stirring again—the darkness inside me. Not light, not clean magic, but the kind that slips between ribs and makes promises in the long dark hours of the night. It isn’t studied. It isn’t safe. It tasted midnight and it liked it. Now it waits, patient and poised, a lullaby with fangs.
I don’t know how to control it.
I’m not sure I ever will.
But if my father has regained his magic, I’ll have to use it.
Marcus joins us again, his words spilling like orders, almost too fast for me to keep up with as he rides beside me. He speaks like he doesn’t want me to be part of this fight. Like I’m a weapon he doesn’t want to use because he fears it will explode in his hands.
“Did you want to ask anything, Princess?” Marcus asks at last.
“No.”
He studies me, teeth clenching. His gaze flicks to Mallen again before settling on me.
“How’s your magic?”
“Dark,” I say. “Death is.”
His expression tightens. “I meant control. Your father may already be wielding his again.”
I keep my grip steady, but the question carves through me all the same. He doesn’t ask if I’m ready. He asks if I’ll be the ruin that topples our army.
Mallen doesn’t speak. His silence is a blade now—sharp and deliberate.
I glance between them. “You want to know if I’ll use it against him.”
Marcus nods once.
“If I get the chance.”
Mallen’s grip shifts on the reins. Only slightly. But it’s enough. He trained me to read the smallest movements, the most silent tells. His restraint now is deliberate. He’s afraid—forme,ofme. Or maybe of what happens if I fall.
My magic wakes like a remembered dream—violent and vivid. It never whispered. Even as a child, it screamed in silence.It was never meant to soothe. Only to consume or shield, and I never knew which it would choose.
Mallen rides closer, his voice barely a breath. “You were born for this.”
“Maybe,” I whisper. “Or maybe I was born to die.”
He turns to face me at last, eyes catching mine. A storm there—silent, aching, proud. And beneath it, something fiercer than hope. A vow made without words, burning through both of us.
“If you fall,” he says softly, “I fall too.”
Marcus doesn’t speak again. We ride the final stretch in silence, the walls of Threnos rising like ghosts in the dusk. They used to shine with marble and flame. Now they’re streaked with soot and unanswered prayers, their glory eaten hollow by time. Even the stone seems to flinch from what will happen beneath it tonight.
We’re riding into a throne room soaked in old blood and older oaths. My father waits there, and whether I kill him or kneel, I won’t walk away the same.
Marcus breaks the silence one last time.
“Do you have it in you to kill him?”
I meet his gaze.
“Yes.”
I’m definitive. Sure. Unrepentant. The answer hangs between us like iron—rigid, brutal, unforgivable. Marcus’s expression hardens. He studies me like I’ve spoken too fast. Too clean. As if conviction should come dressed in tears. But he’s never had to stand in a room built from my father’s voice and choose not to break.
“She’s ready,” Mallen growls. His tone is steel. Unquestioning. Protective.
