The music stopped, the danger ebbing away, but she didn’t want to let go of him.
“Stay with me?” she begged this vision of Roan. “Please... don’t leave.”
Roan lifted her hand up to his lips, kissing her knuckles. “Find me, Kate. I’m waiting for you.Find me.”
The vision faded, the starlight dying away. Kate choked on a sob.
She glanced around, her feet aching, but she couldn’t stop. “I have to keep going.”
The next thing she came across as early evening approached was a marshland. Vast, sweeping patterns of thick grasses formed narrow places where she could tread through the dark, murky water. A foul stench rose from the marshes, and as she walked deeper along the path, she glanced down once and froze.
Bodies lay beneath the glass-like surface of the water, their milky-white forms visible despite the darkness of the waters. Men and women... kobolds, goblins, pixies, even a few trolls... their bodies here forming a silent graveyard. How had they become trapped beneath the water?
Kate glanced around, looking for any sign of a deadly creature, but all she saw were distant glowing lights that bobbed in the gloom. The pale sunlight above them had vanished as night had come over the labyrinth. The mesmerizing lights had become a beacon, showing her a way out. Kate tried to keep her eyes upon the lights ahead and glanced down to where she put her feet with each careful step, but soon she was gazing straight ahead in a trance.
Sploosh!Her foot sank into the water as she stepped off the safety of the thick grassy path.
She screamed and fell forward into the water, which closed in around her up to her chest like quicksand.
Oh no...She knew in that panicked moment how the other creatures had died. She looked toward the lights in the distance.
“Help!” she shouted. “Help!”
But no one came. The water grew thicker, pulling her slowly downward. Despair threatened to drown her.
No, she’d come too far to let some stupid bog defeat her.
Kate shut her eyes, no longer looking at the lights. Instead, she stretched her hands out toward the grass that was so close she could feel the thin, crisp stalks brush her fingers.
“I don’t need the light to follow... I have my own.” She thought of all the moments in the last week where she had proven that she was strong. That she was enough. That she had a right to be here. It made her feel warm and bright inside.
The grasses tickling her fingertips began to thicken and the water around her moved, becoming more fluid, and she dared to kick her legs in a powerful stroke.
Her hand grasped a thick knot of grassy soil, and with a cry of triumph, she opened her eyes. She was holding on to the narrow earthen pathway that she’d fallen off of. She dragged herself onto the bank, her clothes drenched, her armor feeling as though it weighed a thousand pounds. When she got back onto solid ground, she sat on her heels and took a moment to catch her breath.
Glaring at the distant lights in the darkness, Kate got to her feet, checked that her dagger was still at her hip, and continued her trek through the marshes. But this time she followed her feet and her instincts, not letting the tempting lights trick her.
For the next two weeks, Kate braved the vast span of the labyrinth. Each time she turned down a new path, she battled her way through creatures or dangerous elements, striking out with her dagger, drawing blood when she had to, evading when she could. With each deadly encounter, she lost more and more of her fear.
The paths she followed grew darker, the rocks sharper, the smells more rotted and decayed, as though death lingered in every shadow. But Kate wasn’t going to give up. Nothing could stop her.
Except, perhaps, a basilisk.
She came to a stop thirty feet from the entrance to a tunnel that called her name.Roan. Roan is in there somewhere.A vast serpentine creature lay coiled before the entrance, sleeping. Kate cursed under her breath. Her dagger would be of little use against something that big.
A raspy voice came from her right. “Close your eyes, girl! Close ’em!”
Patch stood rooted to the spot, his hands half raised as if to indicate she should be silent. A bag of what she guessed were gems hung at his hip, which meant he’d been visiting the mines within the labyrinth, far deeper than he used to go. Her relief at seeing her friend was cut short as she had to face the fact that they were in grave danger.
“Patch?”
“Shut up and shut your eyes, girl.Now!” he urged.
The basilisk’s long body twitched, its tail flicking. From where it lay, it could see them easily, but not at the same time. Kate had to find a way to distract the basilisk if it woke up.
She took a step to the left, away from Patch, her blade clutched in her hand, even though it was useless against such a beast. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Patch waving frantically at her not to move, but he didn’t understand. The snake was going to go after one of them... unless she could find a way to stop it.
Suddenly, she had an idea. She carefully, slowly removed the breastplate of her armor. If she could get the basilisk to stare at the armor, maybe the reflective surface would rebound the snake’s deadly, hypnotic gaze and freeze the beast. She raised the armor like a shield, moving toward the creature, her eyes careful not to make direct contact with it.
