Labyrinth Wolves (Into the Labyrinth Book 2), page 37
And still, I sat beside Leif, the emptiness yawning wide inside me.
I wasn’t ready to stand. Not yet. But I knew I would have to, because grief wouldn’t save anyone now.
I forced myself upright while every muscle screamed in protest, every heartbeat hollow without Leif’s beside it. The weight of my axe was gone, my weapons scattered, but my voice still worked. My rage still burned.
I squared my shoulders against the storm and met Dimitri’s cold, empty gaze.
“I dare you to try,” I said.
Before Dimitri could answer, Father stepped in front of me, planting himself between us. Even weak and caged for years, his presence filled the clearing.
“You’ll have to go through me.”
Dimitri tilted his head. “Oh, but you see. I couldn’t kill you while you were in the cage without it rippling to me. Leif stole the bond then died on his own, which frees me. Just as you can kill me,” he drew his sword. “I can kill you.”
Father planted his feet shoulder-width apart, bracing against the slick earth beneath him. His fingers flexed once around the hilt of his sword, stiff and slow from too long in chains, then gripped it tighter, knuckles whitening. His coat hung off his frame, soaked and torn, but he straightened his spine with a soldier’s will, the kind that could not be taken by time or torture.
In that instant, he looked every inch the man I had come all this way to find.
Dimitri’s grin widened. Then he turned, snapping his fingers once, the sound cracking through the clearing.
“Guard her,” he ordered, pointing toward Tove where she still crouched beside Jorin’s lifeless form. “Something tells me she won’t use those hands on you—but I’m not about to take chances. I can’t have her touch me.”
Clark moved before anyone else could.
He lunged, a blur of coat and claws, and threw his body over Tove’s, pinning her to the earth. She gasped, struggling beneath his weight, twisting to free herself—but her hands…
Her hands remained clenched into fists, tucked tight against her ribs where they couldn’t touch him.
Just as Dimitri predicted.
“Get off me!” Tove hissed, fury crackling in her voice, but still she didn’t reach for him. “Clark! I thought you were free of him.”
Clark bared his teeth in a snarl that didn’t quite hide the guilt in his eyes.
I wasn’t sure what I wanted. To have her use those cursed hands on Clark, and lose him forever. Or keep them tucked away, and let him go on surviving like this.
Either way, we lost something.
I had no time to think before Dimitri descended upon us.
Father threw his body forward with a roar that tore from somewhere deeper than rage. He swung his sword wildly, but Dimitri only sidestepped and flicked his fingers. A lash of invisible force hurled Father backward, sending him crashing into the base of the white tree’s roots.
“Father!” Before I could follow, a burst of wind slammed into my chest and threw me stumbling back.
Before I could rise, Delilah stepped in front of me. Her palms burned with thin, silvery light. She raised her hands and spoke a word I didn’t know—sharp and old—and vines burst from the earth, snaking toward Dimitri’s feet.
For a moment, he faltered as vines tightened around his ankles.
With my heart hammering, I rose to my feet and sprinted for the white tree. Its roots stretched out before me like a living heart, beating with faint light.
I had to reach it.
Had to bleed on it.
Had to end this.
But Dimitri’s voice cleaved through the air.
“What do you fight for, little captain?” His eyes gleamed. “You just lost the one you loved. What’s left for you now? I could send you to be with him. All it takes is a word.”
I faltered—just for a heartbeat—and that was all he needed.
He tore free of Delilah’s spell, vines shriveling at his feet. With a wave of his hand, wind slammed into me again, hurling me backward across the clearing.
I hit the stones hard. Pain shot through my ribs.
“You never stood a chance against me,” he called. “You weren’t born for this war. You were born to lose it.”
I shoved myself upright, blood in my mouth, ribs screaming with every breath. “Maybe.” I tightened my grip on my sword. “But I’ll drag you down with me.”
I charged.
The first blow struck air—he was already gone, appearing behind me with that same mocking smile. I spun and swung again. This time, steel met steel. Sparks hissed into the rain, lighting the shadows for a heartbeat. His sword, jagged and pale as bone, locked against mine, pressing me backward across the stones.
“You’re tired,” he whispered, close enough for me to feel his cold breath. “You’ve already lost everything. Stop running.”
But I didn’t stop.
I broke away from him with a twist of my blade and sprinted toward the white tree—just a dozen strides away, the roots glowing faintly beneath the storm. My pulse pounded in my ears, drowning out everything else.
I was five steps from the roots when the ground buckled beneath me.
Vines, slick and black, snapped up from the earth like living whips, wrapping around my ankles, my waist, my throat. I slashed at them wildly, gasping for air, but the more I cut, the more they grew. Dimitri watched from the edge of the clearing.
At his feet, Harald lay silent. He must have charged after Dimitri while I went for the tree. From the swell of blood around him, I feared he’d died. But his chest still moved.
From the shadows, Father came roaring back into the fray.
He crashed into Dimitri’s side, sword swinging wide. Dimitri faltered, not expecting the strike, and for a fleeting second, the vines loosened.
I tore free, stumbling forward.
Three steps now.
But Dimitri recovered fast. With a snarl, he flung Father aside again.
My father crumpled, coughing blood onto the earth.
Delilah stepped forward, casting another binding spell, this one thicker and brighter, weaving the dim light into golden chains. They wrapped around Dimitri’s chest, slowing his movements, pinning his arms for the briefest moment.
I sprinted.
Two steps.
Dimitri let out a cold laugh. “Persistent little thorn.”
He shattered the chains in a blast of light and fury and his power rippled across the clearing. Delilah staggered. Her magic flickered out.
Dimitri summoned the storm to rage against us, then all of Delilah’s might went into keeping lightning from striking us down. She bent her knees with her hands in the air. Her body shook.
“Where are the other gods?” I called out.
“Watching the show,” she replied through gritted teeth.
Lawson would have been here with us. As it was, Delilah was the only one brave enough to step into the fight.
“I’ve promised death to any who stand against me,” Dimitri said. “And they know I mean it.”
Cowards.
Dimitri casually rolled the muscles in his shoulder, turned back toward me, and with a twist of his wrist, the wind slammed into my chest to throw me flat against the mud.
I tasted blood. The world spun.
But I forced myself up.
Again.
One step.
Dimitri appeared before me in a flash, sword pressed against my throat, his grin razor-thin.
“You really don’t know when to quit,” he murmured.
Behind him, the white tree waited.
So close. And still out of reach.
“I wasn’t born to quit,” I gasped. I feinted left, then dove right, scraping past his blade—my shoulder tearing open as it sliced across my skin—but I didn’t stop. I rolled beneath his outstretched arm and slammed my palm against the cold, glowing roots of the tree.
It wasn’t enough. I hadn’t bled more than a few drops upon the tree.
And Dimitri was already turning.
“Almost,” he whispered. “It’s a lost cause, Serenity. Love, war, and everything in between. All futile.” He raised his sword again, but this time Father’s met his. Dimitri pressed against him, throwing him back to the ground.
Father dragged himself upright, blood trailing from his mouth, sword trembling in his hand. “You have no right to speak of love. If you felt real love, you would have fought for Alicent instead wallowing away in the labyrinth.”
Bold words. But Dimitri appeared pleased to hear them.
His smile curled like smoke. “Ah. Love. That tired little thing.” He swung his sword at Father again, but it lacked force this time. Father met him easily. As they pressed their blades together, Dimitri spoke, “And if you’d have loved Allison, you’d never have left her behind. It seems we are one in the same.”
He broke away.
“And just like me, you lost her.”
He didn’t lose her. She waited for him, because she truly loved him. I was about to say so, when the victory in his eye stopped me cold.
Dimitri turned his gaze on me again. “Tell me, Serenity—did you enjoy your last conversation with your mother?”
My heart froze.
“What?” I whispered.
“She died a week ago,” Dimitri said, voice light, almost bored. “Jorin slit her throat before you ever arrived on Haven. Consider it a mercy that you weren’t there to watch.”
The ground tilted beneath me.
“No…” I stumbled forward, shaking my head. “You’re lying.”
Dimitri’s smile widened. “Am I?” The cold tore through my bones, sharper than any blade, as he finished, “The line of Dawson ends today.”
The words hollowed me out.
I had fought so hard to bring my father home, only to lose my mother before I even knew she was gone. I had found one piece of my family, only to have the other ripped from me in the same breath. The storm crashed overhead, deaf to my breaking heart. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe past the grief clawing at my ribs, and couldn’t lift my sword. I couldn’t see anything but the ache of all I had lost.
The one who brushed my hair when I was little.
Who encouraged me with every step I took in life.
Who wiped away my tears when I was sad.
Gone, without getting to say goodbye.
My gaze lifted to the man who stole it all. Through the tears burning my eyes, all I saw was Dimitri—smiling, waiting, expecting me to fall. Father gave a mighty cry as he ran toward Dimitri, but my mind was racing too fast to keep track of things. We’d lost. We’d already lost. Leif was dead. Mother was dead. I couldn’t bleed enough on the tree to turn Dimitri mortal. Harald was losing too much blood, and had lost consciousness. And Tove…
Tove was gone.
I spun. Where was she? Where was Clark? There were too many things to keep track of, and I was sure to lose my head at any moment. But even if we all fell, Tove had to live. She had Leif’s white stone. She could live.
I finally spotted Clark moving through the storm. At first I thought he was going to take out Delilah, but he moved past her, and she let him go. Just as Father’s sword met Dimitri’s, Clark reached the white tree.
He transformed back into the image of a boy. Across the clearing, our eyes met.
The world silenced. The way he looked at me was as he had four years ago, when he cared.
My ocean only obeys your tide.
Clark held a blade against his arm, and sliced.
Red ran quickly. Dark blood fell over the tree, turning its bark from white to shades of crimson. Several paces from Clark, Dimitri twisted his sword to push Father down, then laughed as Father struggled to stand back up. He didn’t notice his wolf behind him. He didn’t notice the color seeping back into his own skin.
Clark dropped to his knees.
Dimitri’s laugh fell short. He looked down at his hands where the stone had transformed back to flesh, and his laugh died in his throat.
“Impossible…”
I had one dagger remaining, the one Leif traded with me long ago. I closed my fingers around it, prayed to every Stone God to make my aim true, and threw.
It sunk into Dimitri’s chest.
SIXTY-ONE
Dimitri staggered. His hand clutched the dagger buried deep in his skin.
A thin, choked laugh escaped his lips. His boots slipped on wet stone as he stumbled back. Rain slid down his face like sweat, like tears he would never shed. I watched as he tried to grasp what had happened. After a pause, he looked at me—eyes wild, furious, almost pleading—and for a heartbeat, I thought he might speak. Perhaps he’d ask for mercy.
Every Stone God appeared to watch.
Father stepped forward. He lifted his sword high. The steel flashed silver in the last light of the storm. “This ends with you.”
The blade fell in a clean, brutal arc. It cut through flesh and bone, severing the monster from the man.
Dimitri crumpled to his knees, then collapsed fully. The storm broke apart with him.
The skies above groaned and trembled, then fell silent.
The rain ceased in an instant, leaving the clearing heavy with the sharp scent of blood and earth. The air stilled, colder without the wind’s howl to fill it. And then, in the quiet aftermath, the wolves cried out. One long, mournful weep from deep within the labyrinth. Another answered it. Then another. A chorus of longing and farewell, their voices fading into the endless corridors.
And when the last note faded away, only silence lingered.
The labyrinth stilled, its chains no longer groaning, its storm no longer raging.
Dimitri was dead.
And the labyrinth had gone quiet.
In that silence, my eyes met Clark’s. He was watching me. His skin had already turned to stone, his red hair lost its color, his eyes gone pale. His mortal blood stained the tree around him, but the tree was licking it up quickly. All that would remain in a moment was Clark in immortal form.
The new king of the labyrinth.
He hadn’t even wanted to come here.
“Why?” I asked. The orb from the Silver Queen still hung at his neck, and it hadn’t been opened. Whatever feelings he’d once held for me remained locked away. This wasn’t about love. “Why kill Leif? Why kill Dimitri?”
Clark stood in the shadow of the white tree.
“I didn’t do it for you. I killed Leif for myself. He stole everything from me and left me rotting in the dark.” His voice sharpened. “So I tore it back from him.”
He touched the orb lightly, almost an afterthought. “And Dimitri—he made me small. A pawn. A beast chained to his heel. I swore I would never be that again.”
His hand dropped, falling limp at his side.
“Everything I did, I did so I would never be powerless again. No one will ever chain me. No one will ever hurt me.”
There was no apology in his words. Just a boy who had clawed his way free of one master only to replace him with his own ambition. The wind stirred faintly between us, carrying the fading scent of blood and rain.
Every Stone God bowed to him. All hailed their new king.
I searched his face for something—anything—of the boy I used to know. But all I found was stone.
The labyrinth groaned beneath our feet, like chains straining somewhere deep underground. The sound rattled the clearing. Clark flinched, barely perceptible, but I saw it. His jaw tightened, and his fingers flexed, curling and uncurling as if the veins beneath his skin were pulling against something deeper than blood.
The labyrinth felt him. It had claimed him, or perhaps he had claimed it.
There are costs to ruling that we are not willing to endure.
I wondered what they were. Whatever it was, Clark stilled himself quickly.
“You should go,” he said. “I can heal Harald, but it comes at a cost. He can never step inside the labyrinth again, or else the wounds will return.”
My gaze turned toward Harald, still unconscious where he lay. Blood soaked the earth beneath him, but his chest still rose and fell in slow, steady rhythm.
“He won’t be returning,” I said softly. “Not ever.”
“Very well. And the girl? Where’s Tove?”
“I’m here.”
Tove’s voice came from behind us. She stood just beyond the edge of the clearing, her hands held stiffly at her sides. Her gaze found Clark—and bit into him.
She didn’t move closer.
He turned to face her, his posture still guarded, but something in his eyes flickered—hesitation, regret, something so quick it might have only been my imagination.
“You’re not coming with us, are you?” she asked, her voice clipped and tight.
Clark shook his head. “This place needs a king. One who knows what it is to bleed for it.”
“And that’s you now?”
“It has to be.”
A brittle silence passed between them.
“You didn’t have to become this. We would have saved you.”
Clark’s expression didn’t change. “I saved myself.”
Another beat passed. Then, quieter: “You deserve to be free of this place.”
He raised a hand, and light bloomed at his fingertips. He stepped toward Harald to brush the light gently over his broken body. It sank into the wounds like fire sinking into ash, and Harald’s breathing deepened. Some of the tension in his face eased.
“He’ll wake before long,” Clark said.
He turned to Tove.
“You’ll find your white stones in your bags. These will send you all the way back to the Silver Wings as a show of good faith.”
She held his gaze a moment longer. Then, without a word, she knelt beside her brother.
And Clark looked away.
Tove knelt beside her brother and dug through her torn, soaked bag. Her fingers, wrapped in stained cloth, moved with care as she pulled free four white stones.
My chest tightened. Leif should have been here to use his.
Instead, his body still lay where we left it—in the dark cage beneath the roots of the white tree. Unmoving. Unclaimed by the gods he once defied.
Tove pressed one of the stones into Harald’s slack hand and curled his fingers around it. Then she took one for herself, holding it between both palms like something fragile.
