Page 92 of Labyrinthine
The trees blur. The ground sways, now unsteady beneath me. My mother had fought for peace, and now she was gone because my father tried to tear the heavens open to keep her.
To keep me.
He said it was my gift. My existence. He said that’s what killed her.
He catches me. His arms tighten around me as I tremble, breath coming in ragged gasps.
“Breathe,” he murmurs. “This isn’t your fault.”
But it feels like it is.
“Your father shouldn’t have challenged the gods,” Darian says. “He angered them when he used Obcasus and demanded their obedience. So they punished him. They stripped Starsfall of its magic—and in doing so, they punished us too. Larksbind issubtler in power, but our kingdoms are always connected. When he broke the balance, we lost our gifts as well.”
“The Reaping,” I whisper. “It wasn’t meant to be?—”
“A ritual of death?” he asks, without any bitterness in his voice. “No, it wasn’t meant to be destructive. You were supposed to heal the wound he caused. Bridge the damage and teach him some humility. That is the purpose of what you contain. Your magic. Your choice. But your father twisted this into sport and a demonstration. A bloody, gilded spectacle to prove his dominion. To remind both nations who holds the leash.”
I shake my head. I don’t know why.
“He’s lied to you your entire life—about who you are, about the Reaping, and about what happened in Starsfall.”
I bring my hands up, trying to back away, but Darian doesn’t let go. His arms stay tight around me. I push against him, struggling to fill my lungs with air.
“Let me go?—”
“You’re safe,” he says, and I hate how gentle his voice is. “Just breathe. Just breathe for me.”
My chest won’t expand. I can’t get air. My whole body’s locking up, and he won’t let go, I can’tbreathe?—
“Easy,” he says again, quieter now. “It’s going to be okay.”
I thrash once, hard, but he doesn’t release me. The panic surges higher, sharp as knives, until it becomes too much. The fear shatters and everything beneath it pours out—hot, sharp, endless.
Tears run down my face. My sobs break from me in waves, raw and unrelenting. I don’t care how I sound. I don’t care what I look like. It’s all unraveling now. The truth, the grief, the years of silence held like breath under water.
The crying eases, but the ache deepens. This isn’t just grief—it’s the shock of understanding. Like pieces of a puzzle have finally snapped into place. I remember things I’d buried. Theway my maids were changed without warning. The year the shrine to my mother was suddenly forbidden. The marks on my father’s hands that he never explained.
All of it meant something.
I just didn’t want to see it.
Or maybe I did, and I didn’t know how to name it.
Darian holds me through it. He doesn’t speak again until my body stills, my tears spent, replaced by a yawning emptiness.
He only lets go once I pull back.
I sit down hard on the ground, numb, barely aware of the dry grass prickling my palms. He takes the reins from my hand and leads my horse away, tying her beside his already-secured mount.
The silence between us is thicker now. Not just grief. This is closer to recognition tinged with shame—like he sees me clearly now and knows I won’t be the same.
“Are you sure?” My voice is hoarse.
“I wouldn’t lie to you,” he says. He doesn’t waver. “I want you to know this. Even if you don’t choose me. Even if you choose Mallen.”
His eyes are shadowed now, their blue as dark as the ocean’s depths. The wind has loosened strands of his hair, and there’s sweat on his brow, but he doesn’t look weary. He looks resolute. Braced against the burden of what he’s shared, as if he’d do it all again if I asked. Like he’d carry every cruel truth for me if it meant I could breathe easier.
“You’re a gift, Azhara. A blessing. You were meant to heal the rift your father opened. The gods gave you a power meant to mend what was broken.”
