Page 108 of Frost Like Night
He started toward it, but Meira intercepted him. Her body pressed against him, her mouth on his in a still, frozen kiss, like she wanted to simply absorb how it felt.
“This is a maze of humility,” she said. “We’re on our own for it. That was all this plate showed me—a maze, each of us standing alone.”
Mather chuckled. “Why do I get the feeling you’re worried for me?”
“Well, you aren’t the most humble man I know.”
“My lady, I’m hurt that you have so little faith in me.”
As Meira let him go, her face wore the same look she had given them in the last test—confident and serious and fiercely attentive.
She glared at William, who lingered at the door on the right, watching them with an expression that triggered Mather’s need to defend his relationship with her again.But William just dropped his head in a reverent bow.
“We’ll see you on the other side,” he told her. “Wherever that might be.”
Meira and William each lifted the torch from beside their door and took it with them, ducking into darkness that abated in a steady pool of light from their flames. Mather drew in a breath and waited, motionless, until both Meira’s and William’s lights had been swallowed by the blackness farther on. When neither screamed for help, Mather squared his shoulders and approached the door in the center, the light twitching as he lifted the torch. Iron formed the base for a knot of fuel, oil most likely, and he shuddered to wonder how it had come to be here after so many thousands of years.
The flame licked heat onto his fingers, and he stepped through the door, creeping forward in small increments. Walls rose around him, ending before the ceiling but still too high for him to climb, and a thick layer of rubble and dust coated the floor.
He’d taken only two steps inside when a whoosh of air assaulted his back. Mather ripped a knife free and turned, crouched low, his eyes flying over the wall behind him.
Thewallbehind him? The door, the opening that led back to the room they had been dumped in, was gone.
Mather hurled his shoulder against the newly appeared wall, knowing even as he did that it wouldn’t budge. This test really had meant to split them up.
The flame in his hand flared brighter for a flash as he whirled back to face the hall, his breath tight in his throat. Nowhere to go, now, but forward.
His steps became less cautious the farther he went, meandering deeper into the maze. Turns opened every so often, halls branching off to the left or right, forks splitting the path in two, dead ends popping up at blind corners.
Mather slapped the wall of another dead end, his fifth so far. Now he knew why Meira had feared for him—he’d never been good at things like this, tasks that required patience and analysis and a keen, clever mind. Meira would have no trouble with this. William wouldn’t, either. They were probably both right now waiting for him wherever this test dumped them, conspiring about how best to go into the maze and save him.
Great—he’d come on this journey to save Meira, and she’d be the one who would have to savehim.
Mather pivoted, stomping back to the last place he’d made a wrong turn. No—he’d get through this damn maze. He’d figure out this labyrinth’s secrets and resolve some way to make this all nothing more than an adventurous story they’d tell their children one day.
He shifted a knife out to scrape anXinto the left side of the wall where he made a left turn. Now if he passed it again, he’d know he was going in circles and to turn right instead.
A few more steps, then he carved anotherX.
A branch of four halls. Right this time.X.
Mather shifted the pack that clung to his chest, the contents scraping against his back. Sweat crept down his spine and smeared in greasy streaks over his face, but he brushed his dirt-matted hair back with his wrist and carved anXas he turned right again.
Another branching hall. Mather made to carve a marker as he turned left—
But growled at the stone when anXalready stared up at him. Hewasgoing in circles.
Mather flung himself backward, dove at the right hall, stopping only to carve a shakyXon this one. Right, right, left, straight—
Until he met a hall withX’s carved at every turn.
“Damn it!” he swore.
Mather took off at a run, jogging straight, left, straight, taking the most directly forward path he could. No more circles, no more turns if he could help it—
Back again to the hall withX’s at every corner.
If the labyrinth wanted to play it like that . . .
