Page 147 of The Stars are Dying

“How long have you been running for?” I asked. And where the hell was Rose?

“Too fucking long,” Zath panted. He let go of my arm, and I pushed my legs harder than I ever had before. “Rose woke it getting her key piece—after she expended her wrath on me in the trial. Then I saved her ass again fromthat.”

Well, shit.

“Then you know where I have to go to get mine.”

“I’m not a maze-mapper, and frankly, I’ve been more concerned about not being eaten alive. I have a debt to collect from damned Thorns.”

I couldn’t feel the disruption of the ground anymore, and the last crash had been some time away. I finally slowed my pace and braved a look around.

“It’s gone,” I said, coming to a stop.

An error. A foolish, costly error on my part when in the space that stretched between me and them, a blast through the wall had me shielding my eyes.

My arms flailed with the pull of gravity as I fell back into the giant mouth as it opened, twin fangs dripping with venom lunging toward me. I expected to slam to the ground first, but the impact never came. Instead I was engulfed wholly by the darkness of the serpent’s jaw.

44

“Apeculiar thing you are.”

The first thing to trickle into my senses was the curiosity of an old man. With the flashback of lethal fangs promising a painful end, my eyes snapped open at the jarring sound. I shot upright, registering I was lying on stone, but heat crept over me. Beside me I found a humble fire. The room looked similar to the one I’d left Hektor in, and in my panic I searched for him.

“You will not find him here,” the old man said.

I followed the voice to the armchair, and its gentle tone quelled my fear to stand steadily. “Where am I?” I asked, looking for Zath or Calix or Rose, but it was just us.

Just us, and as I surveyed the room again to discover why my throat had begun to tighten, I realized one thing that sped up my pulse.

There was no door. No windows.

“Where do you want to be?”

A tap against stone turned me around. I took a step back when the man revealed himself. His yellow-green eyes were sliced by a vertical pupil. The irises of a serpent. Around the edges of his tired, pale skin green scales crept out, starting at his silver hairline and traveling up his neck. Despite my wariness of the large beast who had chased us, I couldn’t be fearful of this man’s presence.

His cane tapped the ground as he came closer, the top of it carved into a snake. He waited, and I remembered his question.

“Does it really matter where I want to be?” I asked back.

His smile curled with warmth. “Of course. This life can drag us to many places against our will. Destiny is a sea, and the boat that fights it will drown. That which rides the storm finds the strength to conquer it.”

I thought on his words, staring at the back wall that had become a depthless void. I wasn’t sure whether it was the way out or a trick that would claim me for good.

“I am where I want to be,” I whispered. It kindled something inside me. Threads of memory that led into a space as uncertain as the one I stared at.

“Then you made a brave choice to come back,” he said.

“I’m not sure destiny wants me here though.”

“Waves can seem high and they fight with direction, but no storm is eternal. Venture the path that calls to your soul when the sea calms enough for you to see what lies ahead. That is our want, though it is never without challenge.”

My eyes closed with the liberation he lifted from me. The glimmer of hope that dispersed shadows of uncertainty. “Your serpent attacked me,” I said, wondering where I truly was.

“Many have faced the Hasseria, but she is actually very peaceful. Like the Crocotta, she is a spirit guardian protecting the thing at the very center of the maze people have come from far and wide to attempt to retrieve. It is impossible, however. A masterful illusion that lures those with ill will toward it into her lair. It keeps her fed and entertained.”

I shuddered at the casual way he spoke of it. “What is it?”

“Why don’t you see for yourself?”

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