A maze. Alexios is forming a maze. The turns are barely visible through the dense thicket, but the entrance is visible just beyond the garden below the balcony.

As abruptly as it began, the ground finally stills.

“The key to Evander’s cell,” Alexios says, lowering his arms, “is at the center.”

I drag my stare from the maze to him. “That’s it, then? I just have to reach the middle?”

“That’s it. The key is yours, if you can claim it.”

I don’t care for that mocking curl of his lips.

“How long?”

“Nightfall. When the stars come out, the labyrinth changes. And even your Wolf’s mark won’t save you then.”

I look at the sun, doing mental math. Seven hours if I’m lucky. Maybe less.

“And when I find it?” I ask, not bothering with “if.”

“Call for me. I’ll be listening.” He studies me, head tilted. “I hope he’s worth it, your Wolf. It would be a shame for you to break for anything less than love.”

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47

BRYONY

ALEXIOS’ MAZE REMINDS me of the Void. The depth, the darkness, the way it pulls you in. There’s clarity at first as every sense sharpens. Then, when you’re yanked deeper, it seems eternal. Endless.

The Void never wanted to give me back when I died. I would float in the dark spaces, wondering if it would keep me. I’d spin and spin with no sense of time.

Like in a labyrinth.

The twisted branches loom overhead, forming a canopy so dense that daylight barely filters through. As the hours pass, the silver-veined leaves seem to shift and elongate. But maybe that’s just in my mind.

Focus. Don’t let it get to you.

But it’s already there. Like the Void, the maze deliberately misleads me deeper. The path ahead of me splits, then converges. Then splits again in a pattern I swear wasn’t there ten seconds ago.

How long have I been walking? Hours? I can’t tell anymore. The sun’s position isn’t clear through the branches, but the shadows keep growing longer. Nothing makes sense in this place. A corridor I passed through minutes ago now leads somewhere else entirely. I endlessly loop and loop, never knowing if I’m closer to the center or right back where I started.

“Just go to the center,” I mutter, pressing my palm against a trunk for balance.

The bark shifts under my touch. Before I can pull away, something slices across my cheek. I reel back with a yelp, my hand flying to my face. My fingers come away wet and red.

What the—?

The thorn jutting from the branch glistens with my blood, and I watch as a drop slides down the barb and falls to the ground.

Then the soil ripples like something beneath it just tasted me.

When the stars come out, the labyrinth changes. And even your Wolf’s mark won’t save you then.

Oh gods. It’s alive. And it’s woken up hungry.

Fuck. Oh fuck fuck fuck.

I stumble back. The thorns now look like teeth—or claws. The branches extend and reach for me.

My heart slams against my ribs as I break into a run.

The paths narrow. Branches bend inward and grasp at my clothes. I duck under one, leap over another. The air thickens. Sweat trickles down my spine.

Something wraps around my ankle, and I hit the ground hard. More tendrils snake around my calves, my thighs, my waist.

“No—”

They start to pull.

The vines constrict, each thorn pushing deep into my skin. I scream and struggle against it. My blood soaks into the soil, and that only makes the vines dig harder. I thrash and kick. The tendrils constrict around my chest.

Think. Think think think. There has to be a way out—

The vines wrap more snugly around my middle and squeeze. A sudden, sickening snap echoes through my body as my rib gives way. I try to scream again, but there’s barely any air left in my lungs.

I can’t move. Can’t breathe. Can’t think through the pain. My whimpers sound like they’re coming from someone else—some pathetic, broken thing I don’t recognize.

I’m jerked sideways. My nails scrape against the dirt as I claw for purchase, for anything to hold on to.

The thorns drag me deeper.

So this is how it ends. After all the deaths I’ve endured, I thought I knew the particular cadence of this unmaking, the way a body fails by degrees. But this? This is different. This death crawls. It savors. The ceremonial knife back home seems almost kind now. What a luxury it was to be broken quickly—

The Claim on my wrist flares.

A heartbeat that’s not my own thunders through me. The ghost of breath across my lips, comforting and achingly familiar.

I latch on to Evander’s pulse, the only solid thing in the shifting dark. Warm. Kind. I pour myself into the unsteady connection, into the scent of him, something to wrap my fists around and haul myself to the surface. To air.

To him.

Because I understand now—love is the thing with teeth. It will take a bite out of you and dare you to bleed. To carve yourself open and cut a vital piece of who you are. When it’s right, the pain becomes something else, something necessary. Like breaking a bone to set it properly.

But it’s worth it. Every bite, every scar, every lesson that got me here.

The memory floods through me—the heat of his skin, the low rumble of his voice. Evander and I crouched among the roses at his tower.

If you want to understand a thing, you have to learn its nature. What makes it feel.

My next exhale shudders out, and I grasp the memory, letting it wash through me and over me.

Breathe out the anger. All it will get you here is bled dry.

I can almost feel the way his body had bracketed mine, the heat and solidity of him. Those hands caging my own.

Prove you’re not a threat, and it might surprise you how eagerly they open up.

The vines contract again, but instead of fighting, I let my muscles go slack and surrender.

Not because I’ve given up.

Because I’ve finally understood.

I focus on the give of the soil beneath my hands. The vines still squirm, slicing into my flesh with every little shift, but I hold myself pliant and passive. Yielding.

I don’t know how long I drift like that. Like I’m in the Void, just waiting to be pulled out. The dark pressing in. Time tick-tick-ticking past as I surrender.

Then something changes. The thorns that punctured my skin begin to ease, then gentle, as if they can sense the fight draining out of me, giving way to something calmer. More centered. Each small breath is a little easier than the last.

“I’m not your enemy,” I murmur. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

For a moment, the vines go still as if they’re listening—and maybe they are. Evander said he spoke to his roses.

“I’m just trying to reach him.” My voice breaks, but I force the words out anyway. “I know you probably don’t give a shit about my tragic little love story, but he’s my—”

The confession lodges behind my teeth. Too small, too feeble a word for this immensity clawing beneath my ribs.

“Everything,” I manage. “He’s everything. And if I have to let you take pieces out of me to get to him, that’s what I’ll do. That’s the bargain.” A shaky inhale. Exhale. Breathe, Bryony. “So do it. Use me up until there’s nothing left. I won’t fight you.”

Nothing happens, just the slow drip of my blood into the hungry soil. I’m sure the maze will swallow me down after all, digest me slowly. But then…

One tendril loosens around my ankle. Another uncoils from my wrist. The sharp points withdraw from my flesh—first my legs, then my arms. The thorns that dug deepest come last, sliding free with reluctance, like they’ll miss the taste of me.