Page 64 of Labyrinthine
His expression softens. He squeezes gently and then lets go.
We stand like that for a while—side by side, not touching, just breathing in the scent of the flowers and the coming dusk. The wind brushes past like a memory half-remembered. Somewhere, a bird calls, and it sounds like hope.
And for once, I’m not watched. I’m not judged. I’m not afraid.
The shadows stretch longer across the stones.
A guard’s voice cuts the silence. “Princess. It’s time.”
Darian turns toward the sound and then glances at me. “May I walk you back?”
I hesitate. Then nod.
He rests his hand in the small of my back, just warm and steady.
I walk beside him, step for step, wondering if it’s possible—really possible—to begin again.
To choose something different.Someonedifferent.
Not because he’s perfect. But because he’s kind. Because he waits. Because he doesn’t ask me to be anything except myself.
And for the first time, I wonder if that might be enough.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Starsfall was never empty.I’ve heard the stories. Once, it thrummed beneath your feet. Magic clung to the wind, heavy and sweet, humming in the marrow of your bones as it sang songs of birthrights and endings. Its clay pulsed with power drawn toward the heart of the world, its rhythm in harmony with the stars. Its breath was as steady as the constant waves that crashed against our cliffs. It shaped the beasts we lived beside, seasoned the grain we ate, and shimmered in the water we drank. You didn’t question the wonder—it simply was.
Then it was gone. The land stilled. The air turned hollow. The only magic left now is the rot I spill into it. The daemon-breeding corruption that arose when my father held back my magic as I took my first breaths.
It didn’t have to be this way.
Starsfall’s magic was never meant to be spent, only guided. Balanced.
We had Larksbind. Their power was quiet. Enduring. The slow, incorruptible tether my father wanted to control, not break.
The gods grew weary of his lust for power, so they created an instrument of ruin. A weapon made from flesh. A curse my father says my birth brought into the world.
He claims I should never have been born. That the gods themselves realized their error and tried to snuff me out before I even drew breath. That I clung to my mother’s life like a parasite and bled her dry from the inside.
I was stubborn. Unyielding. Unrepentant.
And with every day, I came closer to life while she drew nearer to death.
My father rarely speaks of how he fought to save us both. His fire burned brighter than any man’s, bright enough to scorch the gods themselves. But my darkness eclipsed even that. In the end, he made the only bargain he could: all of Starsfall’s magic, drained in a single moment, to cage what I was becoming. My mother’s life traded for mine. One soul for another. The gods like things even.
Balanced.
He gave up more than magic that day. He gave up Larksbind.
Everyone knows Larksbind isn’t a source of power—it’s the brake. The binding stone. It absorbs magic, holds the excess, and tempers the wild. It’s the dam keeping Starsfall from drowning itself. That’s why he wants it. To move the balance. To become untouchable.
I always knew that. We all did. My father went to war not because he feared Larksbind, but because he feared what it kept from him.
But maybe even this is a lie.
Darian told me, plainly. If Larksbind falls, no one will be left to hold back the tide. Not him. Not me. Not anyone. Themagic will rush in and raze everything. And my father will be free to wield it all. To twist the storm into a menace worse than darkness.
My curse is tied to that balance. While I remain unclaimed, my power sleeps. If someone from Larksbind takes me, their blood binds the chains tighter. Unknowingly, unwillingly, they’ll keep me from tearing our kingdoms apart. My father claims he’s found a way to keep his power despite the Reaping’s terms, but at least the world would stand a chance.
