“You’re the Emberling,” he said, pressing his hand to his brow.
She leaned back against the bier and gave him a crooked smile. “Still. Congratulations. First time you take down a statue without being badly injured. That’s a huge improvement.”
“It’s these gorgeous muscles,” he said, gazing at his arm and chest. “Overnight, they just doubled in size, and now I have the strength of ten—”
“Scorio.” Her warning was clear.
“Yeah, all right. Fine. A little more focus didn’t hurt.”
“How did you do in the cube room?”
Carefully, trying not to groan, he stood up. “Fine at first. Then fell to pieces after the first couple hit. My clarity just fractured like a pane of glass.” He drew a deep breath and forced a bitter smile. “Suddenly all I wanted to do was cover my head and run.”
“You understand that’s completely natural, right?” She raised an eyebrow. “That’s what people do in such situations. What you’re trying to learn is unnatural. It’s to repress healthy survival instincts in favor of an inhuman amount of control.”
“Right, yes.” He drew himself upright, the last of the pain fading away. “I understand. Still doesn’t make it any less galling to remember running like a child into certain death.”
To which she could only snort. “You should have seen my tantrum when that massive beast seized my tail again. Even I, poised and lethally elegant as I am, lose my temper once in a while.”
Scorio failed to restrain a grin. “Lethally elegant?”
Naomi flushed, curled her hair behind one ear, and turned away. “Something like that. Ready to head home?”
“Ready.” He eyed the bier one last time, the massive beetle spider that had crumpled at its base, and gave a grim nod. “Two more days and we’ll be back with the others. You going to join us?”
“I… might,” said Naomi, not looking back as she walked toward the exit. “Still debating.”
Scorio hurried to catch up. “They’d love to meet you. They’re good people.”
“That’s not the issue,” said Naomi, voice low.
Scorio considered, then remembered her room, high up in that precarious tower. “Right. Well, the invitation’s open. Just let me know what you decide.”
Naomi simply led the way out of the vast and shadow-wreathed basilica, and didn’t say another word.
Interlude - Imogen
Imogen trailed her fingers along the rough wall, dust and dirt and desiccated pieces of vine crumbling in her wake and falling to the labyrinth floor. Her black gown swept a trail in the detritus, a means to retrace her steps, but she never turned back, never looked at the host of the dead that followed.
Their tread, the sound of their bony feet as they prowled behind her, lingering at every corner, wasn’t real, but still, she heard it, knew that they were there. Friends and lovers, enemies and casual kills. All reduced, their spirits sucked away by the Noumenon as a cannibal might slurp marrow from a cracked bone.
On she walked, wondering if she had grown tired of being alone, lost in abstracted thought and pondering the turns and bifurcations of the maze. The massive stone walls towered above her, easily five times her height, the walls thick enough to withstand siege engines, the pathways that riddled their way endlessly through the labyrinth without number or reason.
A home, of sorts. A nest. A means to keep her from herself.
Shadows writhed about her feet like spiteful cats.
A sound from a side passage. Laughter.
Imogen paused, a memory stirring. A vision of a lily-strewn lake, herself standing atop a skiff that nosed its way toward a dark cave carved into the amber cliffs that stretched before her. Light reflecting off the water, the heady scent of the lotuses, the excitement at reaching—
No.
A great wall arose from the dirt, rumbling and shuddering, and closed off the passageway, silencing the merriment.
Imogen turned away and continued.
But her pace was restless now, a thin vertical line appearing between her brows. Her heart fluttered in her chest, and she dug her fingers deeper into the walls as she passed them, nails scoring deep grooves in the stone.
For a spell, she walked on, not thinking, her discontent growing, until with an inhalation she rose into the air, buoyed aloft by an upswelling of shadow, rising above the walls of the labyrinth so that it stretched out around her, covering the inside of the great sphere in which she existed, the grooves and contortions of the many paths reminding her of the bizarre folding patterns she’d observed on freshly removed brains.
Rising, she stared across the sphere’s center at the distant palace that emerged from the labyrinth’s heart, adumbrated and wreathed in ivy, its windows luminous with golden light, its towers defiant, its form graceful and fair.
She had but to stretch forth her hand and she could cup it in her palm, pluck it from the far side of her world and cradle it like a toy.
If she closed her fist, she could crush it.
Listening intently, she thought she heard distant strains of music, so faint she might have imagined it. Dulcimers and flutes, harps and mandolins.
A cold, sere wind blew, blustering Imogen’s raven hair across her face, tugging at her gown.
Were they dancing? Did she hear slippered feet on parquet floors?
Heart thudding, she strained to hear, and the labyrinth before her shifted, the winding ways straightening to form a central avenue that forged a path from where she hovered across the inner curve of her private moon, cutting its way across the hundreds of miles toward the palace.
With a blink, Imogen dragged her gaze down to the labyrinth, and the new path arrested its approach. Stilled and shivered like a hound beneath the eye of a cruel master.
No.
She’d not cheat.
The straight line collapsed, complicated itself with interceptions and intersections. Dead vines writhed up from the dirt to cover these new partitions, and with a sigh Imogen allowed herself to sink back down to the ground, between the high, stark walls, her gown alighting softly about her, her hair stilling, freed from the tender ministrations of the wind.
They would be dancing. He would be there, smiling genially, handsome and virile, master of all that his dark gaze fell upon.
And by his side?
Imogen pressed forward, eager to reach the palace, her purpose renewed. On she rushed, trailed by the sound of countless bony feet pursuing her, turning corners recklessly, picking turnings without hesitation. The very act of throwing herself forward was a relief, a balm to her fevered mind.
Glancing up, she saw the palace directly above her, distant and bright, implanted on the far inner side of her domain. She smiled, eager, tremulous. She’d have to change upon reaching the estate, her black mourning gown wouldn’t do. But she’d retire to her suite, bathe and dress and be down in time for the culmination of the ball. All she need do was reach it, to wend her way through this endless weaving of stone and dirt.
Then she froze. Stared out sightlessly at the lonesome corridor before her, her attention narrowing to a point.
Somewhere a flicker of new energy caught her attention.
No, not new—impossibly old.
Old and familiar.
Imogen’s heart beat faster as she focused on the stirring. Far away. Realm beyond realm. All the way to where it had once begun.
Bastion?
She extended her hand before her, fingers splayed, and focused more fiercely.
Yes. An ancient power had stirred.
She snatched her hand back to her lips. The Portal?
It couldn’t be. Never had, so why now?
But again she felt that flicker, that broken sway, so insignificant that even her senses barely noticed.
Yes.
She turned to one side, turned back, seeking him to confer, to confirm.
But he wasn’t there, of course. He was above her, in the palace, smiling and tapping his foot in time to the music.