Page 251 of Primal Bonds

Midnight came and went. Fane halted. “We should’ve reached the east tower by now. Hell, we’ve had time to walk around the whole damn castle.”

She frowned down at her quartz. “As far as I can tell, we're basically where we started. It’s like the entire structure has been twisted into a new form. It’s not anything like it was last week.” She scowled. “How the hell does he do that? Keep us walking but never going anywhere?”

“I don’t know, but it’s fucking brilliant. Even if someone breaks in, he can keep them wandering and confused for as long as he wants. Sometimes he doesn’t bother to send the guards to get intruders, just waits until they collapse from hunger and exhaustion.”

Her chest tightened. She raised her gaze to Fane’s.

“It’s almost one o'clock. We’ve spent close to three hours trying to get out already, and we haven’t gone anywhere.”

“Hey.” Fane rubbed her arms. “He hasn’t won yet.”

“No? I feel like a fucking lab rat, running on a wheel as fast as I can without getting anywhere.”

A low chuckle sounded from somewhere nearby. She whipped out her switchblade and turned in a slow circle, but there was no one to be seen.

Fane blew out a breath. “It’s just Sindre, messing with your mind. You have to fight it.”

Weak. You’re weak.

“Sorry.” She returned the switchblade to her pocket. “You’re right.”

Fane pointed left down yet another narrow passage. “I don’t think we've tried this way yet.”

Once again, they followed the path around what felt like the entire castle. She tried to key into the maze’s underlying logic like she had before, but there didn’t seem to be an underlying logic anymore.

Then things got worse. The tiled floor turned into a bog.

They slogged through it, feet sinking into slimy black muck, the icy water sloshing around their calves. Marjani frowned. Something seemed funny, and then she realized what it was. All she smelled was the faint scent of silver.

“Wait.” She grabbed Fane’s arm. “If it’s really a bog, it should stink like a rotten egg. But it doesn’t.”

His nostrils flared. “You’re right.”

“It’s not real,” she said. “It’s another illusion.”

They continued walking, more confidently now. But the icy water rose higher until it was at their waists, then their chests. Fane shrugged out of the backpack and held it above his head.

“Just in case,” he said.

When it reached her throat, Marjani had trouble convincing herself that the bog wasn’t real. The cold seeped into her bones and her feet felt like blocks of ice.

She stumbled and knew a moment of stark terror when the black water closed over her head. She came up, choking and coughing. Fane grabbed her, and she clung to him, shaking with cold.

“Get on my back,” he said.

She shook her head. “I’m okay,” she said between chattering teeth. “You’re…the one…hurt.”

“Get on my back,” he repeated evenly. “The man’s a genius at illusions. If he convinces you that you’re drowning, you will. It won’t matter that it’s all in your head. Your lungs will seize and you’ll die anyway.”

She gave a hard shiver and sucked in another mouthful of water.

“Now, Jani.”

“Okay, okay.”

He shifted her to his back. Slinging the backpack over a shoulder, she twined her arms and legs around him and Fane continued slogging his way through the water. He was half-walking, half-swimming now.

Then Sindre took pity on them—or more likely, he didn’t want to actually kill them, just scare the crap out of them. After all, he couldn’t enforce a geas on a dead person.

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