Page 65 of Labyrinthine
But if they’re from Starfall—if I choose a man and a future without Larksbind’s control—my magic will detonate like a star dying. Beautiful. Enthralling. Catastrophic.
That’s the real prison.
It’s not the gilded cage my father keeps me in. Or the two men pulling me in separate directions. It’s the choice. The consequences. The slow, devouring spiral of the hell I’ll unleash just by choosing wrong.
Choose Darian, and I choose one war.
Choose Mallen, and I face another.
“The Reaping isn’t your fault,” Mallen says, voice low, the usual steadiness strained. His eyes are fixed on me, green storm clouds flickering. “Not all truths are absolute.”
I don’t answer. His words don’t comfort. They’re an anchor being thrown too late.
He’s reading my silence, as always. A muscle ticks in his jaw. “Tell me how to fix this, Azhara. Anything. Just say it.”
I turn slowly and lean against the cracked wall, placing cold stone at my spine. He mirrors me across the room, rigid and still, but I see it—the crack in the mask. The faint tremor in his hands. The coil of envy unraveling in his eyes.
He’s always been control incarnate. Steel sheathed in calm. But now that calm is fraying. I can see it in the line of hisshoulders, in the way his fingers keep curling into fists and then flexing open again.
Mallen is not a boy. He is a blade—and blades do not bend, they break.
“You swore you wouldn’t keep me in the dark,” I say quieter than I mean to. “Once. When I was foolish and believed in hope.”
His expression doesn’t change. He looks haunted. “I never hid what would take your choice.”
“Just the names you erased and the warnings you kept.”
He looks away, jaw tight. His composure wavers again before he reins it back in. “You think I wanted this? You think I wanted to see him—with you, the way they cheered him, the way you smiled? I’ve spent my life restraining myself—for your sake and for Starsfall. Do you know what it cost me not to tear him apart in front of them all?”
There it is. Not boyish jealousy. Something older. Fiercer. Less about wanting and more about keeping.
I should be afraid of that, but I’m not.
“We can’t fix this,” I say. “Not unless you tell me everything that’s going on. I know this Reaping is different. The rules aren’t the same. What else is my father changing? What are you keeping from me?”
He flinches. Just once. But he hides it well. “You asked for my help once,” he says softly. “Ask again. Let me keep you safe. Let me make things right.”
The offer stings. Because I want to believe it. Because a part of me still hopes he might. That’s the most dangerous part of all.
“I cannot trust you unless you trust me, Mallen. I cannot breathe.”
He exhales, ragged, and his hands go to his hair like he’s about to rip it out. He catches himself, but barely. His body is taut with restraint. As though there’s a fault line running through him, and he’s terrified of what happens if it cracks.
When he speaks again, his voice is hoarse. “Then let me give you what I can.”
I don’t answer. I won’t give him that. Not now.
He stares at me a moment longer, as if memorizing the last light before the sun goes down.
Then he turns. “Wait here.”
He’s gone before I can stop him.
A moment later, four palace guards file into the room. None meet my eye. One clears his throat and gestures toward the window with forced politeness.
“If you’d kindly…step away.”
I comply, slowly. Not for them, but because I know Mallen sent them. And I want to see what price he’s paying to keep hold of me.
