8. Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

F ingers grasping for purchase, loose soil passing through her hands, Zylah slid down a rocky slope. The orblight fell from her hold, the glow illuminating her descent.

“Zylah!” Raif’s voice called out from somewhere far away.

Arioch hadn’t followed, and she couldn’t decide if that was a good or a bad thing. But then the ground came up to meet her, the breath leaving her body in a rush of air until a mound of loosened soil cushioned her fall. The orblight wasn’t as lucky. It bounced once, twice, smashed. Darkness swept in immediately.

Zylah’s laboured breaths were the only sound that broke the stillness, her fingers digging into soil as she tried to calm her racing heart. She still had the Seraphim’s bag; at least that was something. But even with the advantage of her Fae eyesight, with no light source, there was very little to discern of her surroundings. Only that it was colder, the air tinged with the scent of wet rock.

Tempting though it was to wait for daylight, Zylah half expected Raif to come hurtling down the slope behind her at any moment, and that singular thought had her scrambling to her feet, her weight sinking the soil beneath her.

She would die before she let Raif catch her again. With her hands to guide her, Zylah made it down from the little mound, her boots grazing the shattered orblight. This part of the maze resembled a narrow cave, jagged rock wherever she touched, the small space she’d fallen into narrowing into a tunnel, the opening no higher than her chest. A crawl space, at best.

It was either back the way she came, or scramble into the dark. And so Zylah scrambled, on her feet at first, and then her knees when the space became too narrow. She crawled until her hands were bleeding, until there was no longer the option of turning around and going back, only dropping to her stomach, and using her elbows to drag herself deeper.

Perhaps Arioch’s faculties had long since left him. Perhaps this was some trap he’d lured her into, some kind of sick entertainment he’d created for himself after years of being alone, and Zylah was merely funnelling herself into the maw of some waiting beast. All for the Seraphim’s amusement. She hadn’t so much as questioned his intentions, hadn’t stopped to think he might have been deceiving her, and now she silently scolded herself for it as she moved.

The bag snagged on a rock, and Zylah sucked in a breath, fighting to maintain her calm as she fumbled to unhook it. It occurred to her then that if she had to go back, she could no longer turn, only work her way backwards through the crawl space, that she could be pulling herself into an ever-narrower section of tunnel. Another steadying breath, the exhale coming a little shakier than the one before it.

The maze always wins, Arioch had said. Zylah could well believe it. But not this time. Only a few hours lost to it, and she could see why the Seraphim had described it as maddening, why so many had tried to beat it and failed. Only Zylah had no interest in finding out what lay at the centre, had no desire to see if the maze had a heart at all. Instead, she scrunched her eyes shut, focused on that place inside her where her magic had once been. Concentrated on the sensation that rushed over her skin whenever she evanesced, seeing precisely where she wanted to go with her mind’s eye. But nothing happened.

A shrill cry had her eyes fluttering open. Whatever it was, it would do her no good to be stuck belly down in the dirt if it found her. Evanescing out of there still wasn’t an option, so Zylah continued to shuffle-crawl, her skin splitting and tearing on the jagged rock. But there was no space to tend to the wounds, nothing to do but keep going until she was ascending, until the tunnel widened enough that she could no longer feel cold rock brushing the top of her head.

She paused to wrap her hands and elbows with the scraps from Arioch’s bag, years of work in her father’s apothecary guiding her movements from memory. Without magic, she couldn’t heal herself, and in a place designed to inflict pain on any who entered, Zylah considered how slim her chances of escaping unscathed were becoming. It didn’t matter, she told herself as she pulled at a knot with her teeth. So long as she made it out. Satisfied with her handiwork, she readjusted the bag and continued her ascent.

But that was where her good fortune ended. Something crawled across Zylah’s boot and she cursed under her breath, her body stilling as something else followed it. A breeze tickled a strand of hair across her face and more cries echoed down the passage. Cries and growls, like two creatures fighting, maybe more. Only this time, the cry came from a woman. Zylah moved faster, the thought of being trapped in the tunnel with whatever the maze could conjure next urging her onwards.

The air pressure changed and relief warred with anticipation. Zylah had reached the mouth of the tunnel, closer to the source of whatever struggled and fought beyond it. There had been no hint of Raif pursuing her, and she doubted neither he nor Arioch would be small enough to fit, anyway. Heaving herself the last few feet, hands fumbling for an opening, she searched frantically for something to leverage her weight against. If she could just reach for Arioch’s journal, figure out which way to go. Daylight couldn’t come soon enough.

Zylah had barely heaved herself an inch from the tunnel when shattered rock sprayed against her face and she stilled, her heart in her throat. A thick limb slammed down before her, narrowly missing her right hand. A limb that looked suspiciously like a spider’s leg, but far larger than any spider she had ever seen. A snarl followed it, and then another spray of rocks, and Zylah snapped her hands back inside the tunnel.

Another flutter of panic in her chest, but she shoved it down. Whatever was out there fighting, it was much bigger than she was. But she wasn’t going back. Back meant towards Raif and the sick game he was playing. Another growl and Zylah tried to ease herself closer to the opening to get a better look. She was too low down to see much, her view cut in half by more rock. But it was enough to discern the eight legs of a great spider as it scurried past. A beast followed it, a wolf, perhaps, but at this angle, only its enormous paws were visible. And the two fought with a savageness that had the rock rattling around her.

A memory hit Zylah then: eating brin fruit in the fields with Kara, her friend describing the cyon wolves in the book she’d been reading, their bodies three times the size of a regular wolf. It wouldn’t be the first time Kara’s books had been more than just words on a page, and as the beast snarled, Zylah didn’t doubt the truth of it.

The same voice from before, female, snapped a series of what Zylah presumed were curses, but from her half-obstructed viewpoint, there was no telling who or where it came from. She fumbled in her bag for one of the daggers, fingers closing around the hilt and hauling herself from the hole. The last of the spider’s legs disappeared around a bend in the rock, the cyon wolf snarling and snapping after it.

At Zylah’s appearance, it swung its great head towards her, teeth bared and dripping with a thick liquid that seemed too gelatinous to be drool. Blade low, she took a tentative step towards the beast, but another shriek in the direction the spider had departed had the wolf turning to pursue it.

Zylah loosed a breath, her heartbeat a vibrating drum in her chest, wondering again about her decision to trust the Seraphim. But what other choice had she had? Allow Raif to catch her? To keep her as his pet? At least this way, she had a chance to escape, no matter how slim, how tentative.

Everything ached after hours crawling through the tunnel. Every part of her body screamed at her to rest. Zylah stretched, muscles protesting, back cracking, fingers coming into contact with something sticky. Her hands snapped back to her sides; instinct had her glancing up and instantly regretting it. Web. Half destroyed, full of bundled items she had no desire to unravel.

Far above, something that could have just as easily been orblights as a sliver of moonlight provided a dim, hazy light. Then something up there rustled and clicked, almost so softly she missed it. And worse, this was a dead end. The only way out was the direction the beasts had headed. Zylah tensed, feet already carrying her away from the nest she’d stumbled upon.

Kopi could well have been one of those little bundles in the spiders’ web, but she tried not to dwell on that thought, or any of the other dark images cycling through her mind. She hadn’t felt Holt again; a small voice in the back of her mind screamed at her that it was because he was gone and she was nothing more than a fool for clinging to hope. But she was well versed in fighting her own demons now, and until she saw her mate’s body, she would not give up that glimmer of hope, no matter how small or fragile.

“Urgh,” Zylah muttered. So much web, everywhere her hands reached, every piece of rock covered in it. Then she rounded the bend and froze. Dozens of dead spiders, each half her size, limbs discarded everywhere she looked, that same dull light from somewhere, far, far above. Click click . She fumbled for the second dagger, spinning just in time to narrowly miss a spindly leg before it could skewer her to the rock.

It was the size of the dead ones behind her, black beady eyes seeming to blink as it took her in, daggers in her hands, chest heaving. Eight obsidian orbs flicked to the carcasses, then back again.

“No,” Zylah breathed. “It wasn’t me.”

The arachnid lunged. Zylah rolled, a leg striking her arm. She slashed once, the blade slicing clean through skeleton and the spider screeching as it stumbled. A thick, clear ooze coated Zylah’s dagger and sprayed across her sweater as she swiped with the other hand, but this time she was too slow, a leg swiping her off her feet.

“I didn’t come this far to be taken out by a fucking spider.” Zylah rolled to her side as another leg came down, thrusting a dagger into a joint, the spider screeching as its leg broke clean in two. She spun again, slashing with her second blade across its eyes. Razor-sharp pincers snapped at her, narrowly missing her hand as the thing cried out. But it bought her the time she needed; with one forceful stab, Zylah slammed her weapon into the spider’s head, the creature’s legs twitching as it died.

Chest heaving, Zylah clutched her remaining dagger to her chest. Click click . Movement at the corner of her eye was her only warning, sticky webbing covering her arms and pinning them to her chest. Zylah ran, jabbing the dagger like a saw at the sinews encasing her, gasping and swearing as the clicks grew louder. Something caught her foot and she fell, all the air shoved from her lungs with a sharp pain. She tried to roll to her back, her arms still bound, her feet now tangled too.

The spider was the same size as its dead companion, sharp pincers flexing as it scurried towards her, spitting its web to pin her in place. Zylah sawed frantically against the silk at her chest, but the web was thick.

“Come on, come on,” she muttered, repeating her stilted movement over and over in her effort to escape.

The creature slowed as it clambered over her, eight hairy legs caging her in like the ribs of some great beast. In its eyes, all Zylah saw was her own horrified reflection, the sticky web that covered her head to toe.

It lowered its head a hair’s breadth from her face just as Zylah broke her arms free, plunging the dagger into its abdomen and dragging it down with a ragged groan. Clear liquid oozed everywhere as the thing stilled, and she didn’t want to dwell on whether it was spider blood or guts or both, but whatever it was, she was covered in it.

With another groan, Zylah shoved the carcass aside, slashed at the web around her feet and scampered away from the dead creature, gagging and spitting and wiping at her face as her chest heaved and her heart beat rapidly.

But there was no time to steady her breaths, to wait for something else to find her, because she knew with certainty there would be more. Zylah didn’t hesitate; she pushed to her feet and ran.