Page 37 of Labyrinth of Broken Vows
I can feel the panic rising, but I refuse to let her see it. “No, you’re wrong” I say again, my voice steadier this time. “You’re wrong.”
I hate that her smile spreads wider, her eyes narrowing as she savors my confusion. “I can’t wait to see the look on your face,” she whispers, her voice dripping with malice, “when you realize just how much you mean to him. Right before I carve out your heart and make him watch.”
The blood drains from my face as she steps back, laughing softly. Her cruel, mocking voice fills the air, each word wrapping around me like a noose tightening around my throat. My heart races, panic clawing at me, and I try to conceal it with every inch of my being.. I swallow hard, keeping my eyes locked on hers even as the terror surges within me.
A small fraction of hope warms me as her smile falters for just a moment as she takes in my defiance, but then she shrugs, her expression hardening once more. “Don’t worry, little one. You’llunderstand soon enough. I’ll finally have the power to rule the maze; my way. The way it was meant to be ruled.”
She turns, her cloak sweeping behind her as she begins to walk away. “And as for you?” she calls over her shoulder, her voice cold and sharp. “You’ll be forgotten too.”
With that, the door slams shut, Villina’s lifeless body hangs there like a warning, and I can’t breathe. My knees hit the cold stone floor, the impact barely registering through the suffocating weight of guilt. The walls feel like they’re closing in, wet and slick, pulsing with some dark energy I can't explain. I did this. This is my fault.
I shouldn’t be here. I never should’ve stepped foot in this godforsaken maze. What made me think I could? Because Thorne, the King of the Maze, whispered that I could? That I was more than just a girl lost in the chaos of this world? I let him talk me into believing it. And now Villina’s dead.
I curl in on myself, wrapping my arms around my knees, my chest tight with the weight of it all. Every wrong choice, every step I took that led me here, crashes over me like a wave. Alaric…
He warned me. He tried to keep me safe. I thought the guards were there to drag me back, to cage me, to control me, but now… I see it. He was trying to protect me. Protect me from this; this nightmare. From Thorne. From the maze. From Nyria.
And then there’s Thorne… Thorne.
Nyria’s words echo in my head, cruel and sharp. "He's watched you for years." Watched me? Why? How? The idea gnaws at me, twisting something deep inside, and I don’t know whether to feel violated or… something else. My stomach tightens, and I hate that it doesn’t feel like disgust.
What does that even mean? Watched me for years? Why? What could a man like him, a king, want with someone like me?
I’m nothing. I’ve always been nothing. I’m not strong, I’m not powerful, I’m not anything worth watching. I’m just Brielle,struggling to survive, stumbling through life like I’m stumbling through this maze. Why would a king; a king as ruthless and calculating as Thorne, obsess over me?
I squeeze my eyes shut, pressing my forehead to my knees, willing the heat crawling up my spine to go away. He saw me. He’s been watching me. The thought should make my skin crawl, but it doesn’t. Instead, it stirs something deep in the pit of my stomach, something I don’t understand. What did he see in me?
Did he watch me when I was weak, when I was breaking? And still, after all that, he thought I was worthy of his attention, his obsession? The idea of it… it doesn’t make sense. I’m not strong. I’m not powerful. And I’m sure as hell not fit to be anyone’s queen.
I shake my head, trying to clear the fog of confusion and frustration. I don’t understand. Every time someone tells me that I’m meant to stand beside him, I feel like they’re talking about someone else. Someone stronger. Someone who actually deserves to be there.
Not me.
sixteen
Thorne
The wind tore through the shadows, whipping at my cloak as I sat atop my stallion, the beast snorting and restless beneath me. Beside me, my army stretched like an endless sea of black, feathers gleaming under the moonlight, eyes sharp and predatory. My crows, my warriors, half-bird, half-human hybrids, their wings rustling in the night with the promise of death.
I tightened my grip on the reins, the leather creaking beneath my fingers. Every breath I took was a reminder of the rage I longed to release. Nyria wanted a war, her betrayal woven through every crack of the Maze. She thought she could take what was mine; what belonged to me. Power hungry and pathetic is what she is, what she always was. The maze would only fall deeper into darkness with her in control. I thoughtdarkness was my only ally in this world, until Brielle. Her light had been unexpected but it consumed me.
My mother’s voice. I could still hear it, like a melody on the edge of a dream, soft, filled with an aching warmth that didn’t belong in a place like this. Her words had always been so different from my father’s. While he thrived in the dark, commanded the shadows like an extension of himself, she had spoken of light, of hope.
"The darkness won’t last forever, my child. When the light comes, and she will come, let her in. Love her, and you will always feel warm."
I clenched my jaw against the memory, against the pang in my chest that came with it. It had been so long since I’d allowed myself to think of her. My father had ruled with cruelty, with the kind of iron that bent others to his will. He reveled in it, dragged me into that abyss, training me to do the same. I learned to survive in the cold, in the shadows, because that’s what he demanded of me. But my mother... she had been different.
When I was young, I used to sneak away from him. I’d flee from his lessons, his harsh commands, and find her in the gardens, her gentle laugh like a balm on my wounded soul. She’d hold me close, her embrace the only place I ever felt truly safe, truly alive. She smelled of roses, and the sun seemed to find her even when the Maze was at its darkest. The gardens are empty now, when she left she took that with her too.
The sound of her singing still haunted the halls of my mind, soft, sorrowful, and filled with a love that my father could never understand. And when she died... when the shadows consumed her... everything fell apart. The darkness swallowed us all whole. Even me.
I had buried those memories deep, locked them away, because feeling them hurt too much. The light had been extinguished, and I thought it would never return. From the moment I sawBrielle, there was something about her that defied the darkness I had lived in for so long. I felt the warmth fill my chest, the same warmth I hadn’t felt in years. Since that moment I was obsessed, a pitiful man consumed with the thought of what being close to her might feel like.
A shuffling of feet brought my focus back to the present. Grom.I could see the pain in his face before he knelt.
“Grom,” I acknowledge him from above. “What is it?”
He bowed low “My king... I come to ask something of you.”
