We spent the better part of two days there while she recovered.

  Conversation was sparse. She still didn’t trust us, and I didn’t press. What little I managed to tease out was that she had been navigating the labyrinth alone for more than a month.

  She hadn’t entered it that way.

  Originally, she had been sent in with a large group of initiates, a mix of deep-dwelling races brought together by circumstance rather than choice. That was as far as she would go. Beyond that, Skithara was a closed book.

  During that time, my interface updated.

  New Quest: (2/2)

  Escape the Labyrinth of Ending with the Umbral Initiate to receive your rewards.

  This time, there was no map marker.

  No guiding indicator or subtle pull in one direction or another.

  We also couldn’t simply swim our way to the surface. As we had traveled through the labyrinth earlier, we discovered that digging only worked to a point. Push too far from the tunnels and you ran into something like a void wall, utterly impenetrable to stone, claw, or aether.

  Whatever had created this place had done so with intent to force traversal.

  We would have to walk our way out.

  My map still tracked where we had been, but strangely, the path behind us was now obscured by fog. The more I studied it, the more I suspected the routes would not match our first journey through.

  “I think it’s time we check the other side of the door,” I gestured to the wide opening across the cavern.

  Skithara didn’t respond.

  Instead, she reached up and pulled a leather tie from her wrist, gathering her pale white hair and binding it behind her head. As she did, her pointed violet ears were revealed, sharpening her already striking features.

  Her eyes were a deep, dark purple, threaded through with swirling black veins that mirrored the ones running beneath her skin. Those veins melded seamlessly into the darkness beneath the surface, as if her blood itself had been changed. Plum-colored lips. High cheekbones. A face shaped by unyielding grace.

  She was the most beautiful being I had ever seen.

  And it was distracting.

  There was also something else. A sense of kinship I couldn’t fully explain. I didn’t know what had caused her veins to turn black, but the alteration felt familiar.

  It carried the same pain as my shard assimilation. The same sense of something forced, something survived, something that can never leave you.

  Whatever had happened it had changed her.

  Just like it had changed me.

  She rose in one fluid motion, revealing her lithe form as she summoned a scythe from thin air. The weapon coalesced with a whisper of aether, its edge catching the firelight as if drinking it in. Without a word, she turned and began walking toward the opening, her padded battle dress flowing around her legs.

  Her clothing had knit itself back together during her recovery, threads drawn tight by ambient aether until there was no sign of the damage she had endured.

  Dusk and I exchanged a glance.

  She let out a low huff and followed after Skithara. I swept the remaining camp supplies into my storage space and moved after them, leaving the fading fire behind as we stepped toward what lay on the other side.

  We approached a chest that lay in front of what looked to be an elevation platform that would take us somewhere else in the labyrinth.

  Skithara kicked the chest open, and inside lay three silver tokens that face shifted like liquid shadow between countless labyrinth creatures.

  She bent down, grabbed the coins, and flipped two to me. I sent them straight to my storage space and followed as she moved straight to the platform.

  Once we had all set foot on the platform, the wall behind us lit with runes and pulled apart. The platform began moving like a railcar winding through the darkness on invisible tracks.

  After several minutes, the platform stopped, the walls opened again, and it settled in a space identical to the one we left.

  With determination, Skithara pressed on, and we followed. Maybe she knew a way out?

  —

  (Skithara Pov)

  I thought they would leave.

  After all this time, after everything, surely they would. But they didn’t.

  I hadn’t spoken to Bryn in days. I did little more than lead them through the labyrinth, purposely choosing paths thick with danger, forcing them to fight everything we encountered. Somehow, that didn’t seem to bother them in the slightest.

  They just… killed everything and followed.

  I couldn’t take it anymore.

  I didn’t understand.

  “What is wrong with you?” I finally demanded, my voice hoarse from disuse.

  “Huh?” Bryn turned to Dusk. “She speaks? Did you know she could talk?”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  I rolled my eyes and repeated the question, slower this time.

  He studied me for a moment, then said. “Nothing’s wrong with me. I’d like to ask what’s wrong with you.” He paused. “All we’ve done is help you, yet you seem determined to get rid of us for some reason.”

  I stopped walking.

  “I have never met someone who would do anything for someone other than themselves,” I said flatly. “I’ve lived as a slave my entire life. The most freedom I have had is in this cursed placed. I learned early that trusting anyone but myself gets you killed.” My hands clenched at my sides. “You appear out of nowhere. My so-called savior. You use a rare healing potion on me. Feed me. Give me water. Protect me for days.” I shook my head. “And you haven’t asked for one. Single. Thing.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  He shrugged.

  He shrugged.

  This infuriatingly handsome idiot with his stupid scars and his stupid calm and that stupid, infuriating half-smile.

  “I had a quest,” he said simply. “It told me I was meant to come save you. The rest of it is helping you escape the labyrinth. If I do that, I get something I’ve been fighting for over the last year to obtain.”

  He paused, then added, “If you want me to leave after that, I will.”

  I blinked.

  “Though,” he continued, pointing upward, “if we happen to exit at the surface, you might want me to stick around. Nobody up there will understand you. And you give off some terrifying necromancer vibes, which isn’t exactly looked upon kindly.”

  He winced realizing he may have offended me.

  “Terrifyingly beautiful necromancer,” he amended quickly.

  Then he stuttered, stopped himself, shook his head, and dragged a hand down his face. “Never mind.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  Without thinking, I reached up and tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. The faint brush of my fingers against my cheek sent an unexpected warmth through me, and I felt color creep into my face as his words swam in my mind.

  I did not like that.

  “Point is,” he said, regaining composure, “you might want help if you’re trying to reach the surface. And you haven’t actually said what you want. You’re just walking like you know where you’re going.” He gestured vaguely ahead. “Yet we aren’t getting anywhere.”

  I stared at him.

  “Ugh. Fine.” I exhaled sharply. “If all you want is to help me get out of here, then I will let you.” I hesitated before continuing. “I don’t actually know where I’m going. I was hoping to escape to the surface.”

  I swallowed.

  “Down here, the Umbral Legions control and manage all the exits. You do not want to leave through one of those doors.” My fingers curled slightly. “I was hoping to gain my freedom by reaching the surface instead.”

  Bryn listened without interrupting.

  “I… they…” I gestured to the dark veins threaded through my skin. “They did this to me. They experimented on me. Melted a black shard of some kind and fused it with my blood until it changed into this.” My voice tightened. “I have an unnatural level of necromantic and death aetheric affinity now. I was hoping there might be a cure on the surface.”

  The words rushed out before I could stop them.

  It was more than I had ever told anyone in my entire life.

  I wasn’t sure what overcame me. Maybe it was the unfamiliar experience of kindness. Maybe it was the quiet steadiness of his presence offering something I had never known before.

  “Wow,” Bryn said softly. “That’s a lot, Skithara.”

  He gestured to the pale scars crossing his skin. “When I was five, my parents’ caravan was destroyed by a wyrm. Most likely sent by one of the deep races my parents traded with.” His jaw tightened. “It killed everyone except me.”

  He lifted his left arm. The bleached flesh caught the light. “I lost this arm and fell unconscious. I woke briefly and saw what I later learned was the wyrm’s shard. It had landed near me after the creature was killed by passing adventurers. I touched it, assimilated it, and passed out again.”

  His voice stayed steady, but his eyes had gone distant.

  “When I woke up, my arm looked like this. I could regenerate from any wound I suffered. The scars are just the cost.” He flexed his fingers slowly. “I also gained what I call a tremor sense. The wyrm’s senses fused with my own into something… unnatural. I should have died. The regeneration just kept me alive long enough to adapt to it.”

  Then he pointed toward Dusk.

  “She used to be an Oreowl. She was missing a limb when my mentor gave her to me.” A faint smile tugged at his mouth. “When we bonded, she changed. Smaller at first, but whole again. The healed limb matched my own, and her abilities mirrored mine.”

  He looked back at me.

  “Now we use what was done to us to help others.” His gaze darkened slightly. “And someday, we will fight to reclaim our fallen kingdom.”

  For a moment, his eyes clouded, weighed down by memories he clearly wished he could leave buried.

  I said nothing.

  But for the first time, I didn’t feel alone.

  —

  Skithara softened slowly, like ice melting just above freezing. She still spoke little, but she no longer recoiled from questions as we moved through the tunnels. Silence remained her refuge, yet it was no longer a wall.

  Piece by piece, she began to fill in the shape of what an Umbral Initiate was, and what their final trial in the Labyrinth of Ending truly meant.

  She was as shocked as I was when I told her that I had become an initiate myself and that it was how I got into the labyrinth.

  There was a group that served the Ancient Umbral, overseers of the initiate program. They were some of the oldest and most powerful to have passed the trials. The initiate ranks were made of volunteers and slaves alike, though the distinction meant less once you were inside. Everyone endured years of brutal training, the kind meant to break bodies and strip souls bare. The death rates were staggering.

  The slaves often fared worst.

  Many were used as subjects in experiments like the one done to Skithara. Most did not survive long enough for the results to matter. She did not say it outright, but because of what they did to her, she stronger than the others.

  As an initiate her martial skill and aetheric discipline had been honed. That was where she had been bound to the shadow scythe, and where the dress she wore now came from. Both were bonded rewards for surviving and reaching the highest ranks

  Because now she showed promise.

  At least my Talon training overseen by The Hand had been entered willingly, with purpose and choice. The thought sat uneasily with me as we walked.

  She showed me that her armor could shift between multiple forms, flowing from light travel garb to reinforced battle dress with a thought. Her scythe could reshape as well, unraveling into the chained sickles she had fought with when we first found her.

  Skithara could raise the dead with unsettling ease, bending necromantic aether into obedient motion. Speaking of it made her visibly ill. Anything tied too closely to the experiments, to the shard in her blood, she avoided whenever she could.

  I did not believe there was any way to undo what had been done to her and I didn’t tell her that.

  What I could do was help her grow into what she was now, to teach her that power could be used for good. If the world had carved something terrible into her, then perhaps she could still choose what that something could become.

  Not a weapon for the Umbral Legion, but a shield for others.

  It was then that she explained that the of the Labyrinth of Ending was the final trial. To learn more about the legion and the powers of the deep, one had to survive it and would then be returned to their headquarters. Only then were initiates considered worthy of advancement.

  The tokens we had found in the chest were another thing she explained. They could be exchanged for valuable equipment, relics, or rare items through specialized shops run by the Ancient Umbral. Some of those shops were scattered throughout the labyrinth itself, hidden behind sealed chambers or conditional doors we had not yet encountered. Others existed in major cities controlled by the legion.

  There were other ways to earn tokens, but the labyrinth was the most reliable source. It was designed that way.

  We had already completed two additional chambers. One had been a puzzle; we solved it quickly once its pattern emerged. The other chamber had opened, leading only to a treasure room that held several tokens.

  Each completed cavern ended the same way. A platform rested at the end, and it would carry those who stepped onto it to a new and unknown location within the labyrinth.

  There was no visible order. No promise that this was progress toward freedom.

  But for now, that was our plan. We would complete as many chambers as we could. Somewhere among them, we hoped, was a path that would lead us closer to a true exit. If the labyrinth rewarded survivability, then we would give it nothing but time and blood until it yielded.