Page 68 of Labyrinthine
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I wake before dawn.Pale light spills across the floor, gilding the velvet rug in shades of gold and ash.
Mallen is asleep on a new chaise he’s brought to replace the one that was destroyed, boots off, jacket folded across the arm. His sword rests within reach. His body does not.
He looks uncomfortable, as if even in sleep he doesn’t quite believe he belongs here.
I shift beneath the sheets, and his eyes open instantly—clear, alert. That familiar stillness settles over him like armor.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” I murmur.
“You didn’t,” he says, sitting up slowly. “I was just resting my eyes.”
He doesn’t comment on the absurdity of the lie. Just scrubs a hand down his face and stands, stretching the stiffness from his shoulders.
My father’s orders were explicit. I’m to be guarded at all times. When I sleep. When I eat. When I breathe. Mallen’s refusing to let anyone stand post. He’d rather swallow his own sword than leave me with one of the palace guards, one of those soulless watchers who obey without thought or care. Mallen watches, but hethinks.Feels. That’s the danger.
He’s been here every night. Quiet and precise. Folding blankets, tending the fire, standing sentinel with a vigilance that would be touching if it didn’t feel like a wall between us.
He never looks at me when I’m dressing. Never intrudes more than necessary. It would be chivalrous if it weren’t so complicated. It’s the fleeting glances. The longing. The restraint. And the jealous edge that threatens to cut through.
I rise and stare out the window, turning away from the ruins of my room that are being reconstructed around me. I think of yesterday. Of Mallen beside me in the half-empty streets, his silence heavy but not cruel. He pointed out a bookshop rebuilt from ash, lingered by the fountain where children once played. There was no apology, not really. Just his presence, offered like a balm I couldn’t yet accept. I almost laughed. Almost threaded my fingers through his.
But the things left unsaid were too loud, and the wounds we carried had barely begun to heal.
“The streets are quiet this morning,” I say, peering through the veil of fog beyond the glass.
Mallen crosses the room silently and pours water into the basin, laying out a cloth with the same care he gives to drawing his sword.
“They’ve increased patrols since the attempted kidnapping,” he says. “No one’s taking chances.”
“We both know that wasn’t what happened.”
“That doesn’t matter. If we change the story now, someone bleeds,” he says without looking at me. “Not all lies harm. Some aren’t worth the cost of correction.”
His hands still. He doesn’t ask what I mean. He just wrings out the cloth and offers it to me with eyes that say he’s heard more than he should.
I take it anyway. Our fingers brush. Lightning sparks in the space between them.
“You should eat,” he says, his voice gruff.
I dab at my face and watch him from the corner of my eye. “Do you always order people around this early in the morning?”
“Only those I care about.”
That lands heavier than it should. I don’t thank him. I can’t.
Instead, I nod toward the corner where he’s made his strange little camp—books, maps, an untouched tray from the kitchens. “How long are you planning to stay?”
“As long as it takes,” he says simply.
To keep you safe, is what he means.
From what, he doesn’t say.
From Darian, is what I hear.
We stay like—hands touching, legs pressed together—until time slips from us, quiet as breath. The second challenge is tomorrow, and my father has arranged another meeting with Darian. Neither of us wants to speak of it.
