Page 67 of Labyrinthine
I hesitate.
I don’t know all of Starsfall’s capital, and Threnos feels like a stranger. Like a crown made of thorns and glass—dazzling but meant to cut. I haven’t been allowed to touch. I know it by outlines and warnings, not by affection. Not in the way the heir to the throne should know it.
I fumble for an answer.
Mallen offers me his arm. “We’ll walk. Tell me if anything catches your eye.”
So, we walk.
The city streets are wide and restless, light spilling in golden bands across worn stone. Mallen keeps to my side, guards forming a loose circle behind us, but he’s the one people watch. Not because he demands it—but because he doesn’t have to. His silence commands more than any threat.
I pause now and then to glance at a market stall or let my fingers drift over a fabric bolt. I’m not used to browsing. Not used to time that belongs to me. The unfamiliarity of choice makes me slow.
Pastry smoke hangs thick in the air. Wine vendors call out blessings in a dozen tongues. Somewhere, a harp plays notes that remind me of dusk. It’s almost too soft. Almost too perfect to be real.
There’s a tension stitched into the seams of the city. An ache in the air, subtle but insistent, like bruises blooming beneath silk. Below the golden stones and perfumed air, Starsfall’s capital has a pulse I don’t trust. Like the essence that flows through its veins is snarling in sleep. The labyrinth under Threnos feels alive, its teeth beginning to ache with hunger.
In the merchant’s quarter, the streets widen again, the river carving silver through the city. Men shout orders from moored boats. Coins clatter. I walk and let the noise wash over me while my thoughts pick at the seams. My father said a bed, not a vow, moves the magic. If that is true, then every glance is strategy, every touch a lever. The first trial spat men back alive when it never used to. Hope is being fed to Larksbind on purpose or starved in a new way. The rules are shifting under my feet, and I do not yet see whose hand is on the floorboards.
Face tracks us as we walk. Mallen feels like a possibility that did not exist before, a choice that thrills and terrifies in equal measure. To choose him would be to step into a vow that looks like freedom and might be another cage, and my pulse rises at both possibilities. Darian is another calculus: a prince whereLarksbind sent only the condemned, polished grace and quick smiles, truths offered like gifts that are too neat to trust. I want to choose, but first I need to know which parts are real and which are theater.
Mallen angles me toward a jeweler’s window. Glass holds my reflection between his and the street. He does not posture. He places us where eyes soften and heat drains off danger. I could ask what bargain he just made with the world, but the light is gentle here, and I want the quiet of it for one breath. I let my fingers hover over the gilt in the case and keep my questions in my mouth.
He turns toward me, his voice quieter. “You may not always like the things I do. But everything I do is for you.”
That should unsettle me. Maybe it does. But there’s a brightness in his eyes now—not hunger, not heat, but strain. A breaking point held in check by discipline alone. He’s been unraveling, quietly, and I’m only just starting to see the edges fray.
He gestures at the window. “Choose something.”
I let my hand drift along the glass. The jewels catch the afternoon light, scattering it like shards of a broken promise. They’re beautiful. I don’t ask the price.
“I don’t want to owe anyone anything,” I say.
He watches me a moment longer. “Not all debts are counted in gold.”
I leave the window before he can explain what he means. We walk. The river winds alongside us like a spine through the city. A stone bridge curves into the older districts, where buildings lean like they’re whispering secrets.
“I saw a map once,” I say, watching the architecture change, “of Threnos before Starsfall was built on top of itself.”
Mallen nods.
I remember how he once told me the bones of old cities never sleep—that magic seeps down into cracks and what festers there learns to survive. To adapt. To hunger.
“The labyrinth still exists.” I pause. “Does the monster?”
He nods. Just once.
“What is it?”
He hesitates. “A mistake.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” he says, quiet.
His hand remains on my back, and I wonder if he even realizes it.
The light softens as the day turns to evening, and time passes with a hush. Too easily, perhaps. I walk beside a man whose attention is constant, in a city ruled by one monster while another waits in the dark beneath it. And I wonder, not for the first time, if I’ve mistaken control for care. Or if I’ve survived by believing that one day I’ll solve the maze of lies that only deepens its hold every time I try to escape its clutches.
