Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 112500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 563(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 563(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Dead end.
Wind picked up through the corridors, smearing scents until the river seemed to be everywhere and nowhere. Arctos’s voice surfaced in her memory: The ravines eat strangers.
Lia was still a stranger.
The rock path left no sign of her footsteps, so she couldn’t even follow them back to the village in defeat. She tried to etch the stone with her sword. Sparks. A dulled edge. No mark.
Keep calm. Try the maze again.
Left. Right. Left. Dead end. Like that day Coștin chased her—only this time she had no ray of sun to flee into. The air closed in, tight with old cold. Panic rose, slipping a hand around her throat. But she kept moving, turned again and again.
Miles. Backtrack. Turn. Wrong. Backtrack. Wrong.
All the corridors looked horrifically the same, and she suspected she was about to lose her mind. At last she sagged to the ground, surrender bursting out as sobs. Through pink-filmed vision, she glared at the stone. You win. You win! Congratulations.
If the Berserkers caught her, Yrsa might demand Lia’s life. If they didn’t, the maze could. She wasn’t fully immortal yet, could die of exposure.
Then she frowned. The ravines couldn’t be identical. Berserkers learned them. What do they see that I can’t?
She stood and pressed her palm to the rock: tiny pits like constellations, hairline grooves angling upward, a subtle lean. At the next turn, the striations shifted, climbing higher. She moved faster, fingers skimming stone, cataloging differences.
No wonder Berserkers didn’t gild the walls of their caves. The stone was already exquisite—and distinct!
A shallow gully appeared at the base of one wall, nearly hidden. Spring melt would ride this down. She followed, the channel deepening, the walls edging wider.
Noise to her right—maybe only wind—no, a low rush of water. Please be real!
Heart thudding, she raced around the next bend. The river flashed ahead, a braid of churning silver and black. Relief hit so hard, she laughed, breath fogging.
So that’s what victory feels like. Brief.
She ran beside the iced shore, hopping rocks, weaving trees. If she kept pace, she could cross Craigdúr’s border by dawn.
Each step took her away from Ravinelun, away from a male she’d never been able to befriend. She paused for a final look over her shoulder, and a memory of last night’s full moon arose.
Her, sharpening their swords. Arctos, polishing a shield for her. A fire before them. She’d heard the ghostly howls of Lykae and grinned over at him. His stoic mask had dropped, not into a grin, but his grimness had eased…
Not to be. She turned back to her escape—
Brown rose like a wall. Fangs. Breath. Hot, rank musk.
A bear reared up on two legs, towering.
Arctos had never warned her about actual bears. She drew her sword, predicting reach and angles. Twice her height. Claws the size of a dagger. Berserkers revered these beasts; if she managed to harm it, would they hunt her?
The bear snarled at the weapon.
Lia dropped her pack, yanked the loaf free, and flung both aside, hoping to distract the creature so she could speed past.
It charged. For her. No time to think. She jogged backward toward the frozen shore, darting out onto a shelf of ice. “Back!” She raised her sword. “Go away!”
But the bear stalked toward her and stepped onto the shelf. A fracture shot toward her like lightning.
“Leave me alone!” How many times had she screamed this at Coștin? Boots skidding across the ice, she swung. Missed by inches. It reared again in a rage.
When it drops, the ice goes.
She’d waited too long to strike. Should’ve fought on land. Should’ve fought Coștin.
If I get through this, I’ll never not fight again—
The bear came down. The ice split open with a deafening crack. The shelf lurched beneath her feet, and she pinwheeled her arms.
She fell.
Frigid water stole her breath and crushed her chest, the current spinning her. The sword tore from her hand. She surfaced in a froth of white, the current shooting her like an arrow down rapids.
Spray dimmed her vision. I’m going to drown! Underwater again. Can’t see! The river spat her up one more time. She burned her breath on a single word, raw and instinctive:
“Arctos!”
Chapter 34
Arctos
Breathy words brushed his ear, obscuring some distant sound. A call? His name?
Arctos stilled, listening hard.
Probably just a reveler still roaring down at the banquet. He’d been the topic tonight.
“What is it, lover?” Undara’s gaze was watchful, her bare skin hot against his. “You were coiled tight all through dinner. And we’ve never been this slow to undress on our first night back together.” She’d just been outlining exactly what she planned to treat him to this eve.
He should have been overjoyed with anticipation. Instead, taut. Because of Emilia. “Nothing. Thought I heard something.”
“Or maybe your musings are with your new wife?” Undara asked without bite. Nymphs rarely got possessive of a lover, one of the benefits of bedding them. “You wouldn’t be alone. Everyone chattered about you two. So much speculation.”