Page 57 of Labyrinthine
“You already are.”
He shuts his eyes. His voice is hoarse. “Do you love him?”
“No.”
“Then say it.”
“I don’t love him.”
His breath shudders out.
I want to feel relief—but I don’t. The sunlight is too hot on my skin. Too bright. My body is too full, as if it can’t contain what’s rising inside me. Not rage. Not grief.Power.The kind that rattles the gods. The kind that undoes things.
The magic in me uncoils. Uncaged. Uncontrolled.
The darkness flickers again—then catches, a spark on dry leaves. It crawls higher, clawing its way through my ribs, like it’s prying them apart and trying to get out. Every breath is a wound. Every heartbeat rings too loud, too fast. There’s no space inside me for this much wanting, this much terror.
The magic of death bound in me stirs.
It moves, but not outside. It’s inside. Inside me—building like a storm gathering on the horizon, licking at the edges ofmy soul with fingers made of shadow and inevitability. My veins thrum like wires strung too tight. My hands tremble. I can’t keep it down. I can’t hold the edges in.
“I can’t—” My chest contracts. “I can’t breathe.”
Dread descends like a curtain. I claw at my ribs, my arms, the walls—anywhere to anchor myself. My vision smears. The floor tilts. Light fractures. The thundering in my head drowns out the world, and still it rises—still it wants out.
Mallen freezes. Just for a second. But it’s enough. The shift is seismic. His pain shatters beneath my panic, and he’s reaching toward me. Whatever storm was in him gets bottled, corked, sealed.
He grabs my wrists, not rough, not harsh—just anchoring. Grounding. His eyes are wide and terrified.
“Don’t you dare leave me,” he says hoarsely. “I need you to calm down. Stay with me.”
But I’m already gone.
I’m not in this room. I’m not in this body. I’m trying to claw my way out of everything all at once. My skin feels wrong. My throat’s closing in. I kick, I flail, I thrash against him. My fists pound at his chest and my screams pierce the air. I’m suffocating—not on air but on pressure, on history, on the mess of my life that never stops compounding.
He wraps himself around me like a shield. Like a cage. Like a prayer.
“Azhara...let me keep you safe. Please?—”
But his voice is distant now, like it’s traveling through water. Like it doesn’t belong to this moment. The panic is too loud. My pulse is a roar in my ears. There’s a tearing sensation deep inside me, like something sacred is splintering apart.
“Let me keep you safe, Azhara. Please.”
“No,” I shriek, fighting like a wild animal. “Let me go. I can’t do this. I can’t breathe. I need to?—”
“What the hell?”
The voice cuts through everything.
We both freeze.
Mallen goes rigid beside me. His limbs lock, his breath sharpens, and the sudden coil of violence simmers beneath his skin.
I twist in his grip, and he doesn’t stop me.
Darian stands in the doorway, eyes wild, chest heaving, his tunic half undone and his fists clenched like he’s holding himself back from running—or striking. His gaze darts from me, to Mallen, to the shattered wall—and back again.
He doesn’t understand. Of course he doesn’t.
