“I had this terrible nursemaid as a child,” Lux said. “She loved to scare the shit out of me before bed. Arachne’s story was one of her favorites.” He paused, and after a beat of thoughtful silence, his blond brow wrinkled. “What kind of people let monsters roam beneath their city streets?”

“Your people, apparently,” I growled.

He ignored me, turning back to survey the fissure in the wall where Dorian soldiers forced humans to enter the labyrinth.

“What game are you playing, Lux?”

He shrugged. “The one that needs playing, boss.”

It had taken Lux a year after I’d found him, a youth working for coppers on a Naxeran fishing boat, and hired him aboard my own flagship, Sirena, to admit to his mission—that Varian had offered him everything he had lost during his mother’s rebellion in return for my head served up on a silver platter. I’d suspected something of the sort then, and I’d known that bringing Lux back to Doria held a plethora of risks, but I’d done it, anyway. Yet still, I wasn’t sure I’d puzzled out his plan.

And now . . . he’d only been sent to my side because Varian wanted to rub salt in what he thought to be an open wound.

All around us, Dorians feasted, glutting themselves on wine to the music of human despair. Some slaves fought still, raging against the bars as Dorian soldiers forced them towards the rocky crevice where death awaited. A few finally disappeared into the darkness beyond the rock. Others chose the quick death of a lance rather than face what lurked beyond.

Anger, hot as the flames of Tartarus, burned through me. “What kind of people let monsters roam beneath their streets?” I echoed his question. “The same people who can hear these screams and still carry on with their celebration.”

Lux cringed as a slave was pierced through the throat. The burbling sound of his ugly death filled the cavern. “The only aid you can offer them is to end this quickly.” He paused, a measuring gaze taking in my pale features and how loose my leathers hung on my body. “Do you have a plan?”

I rolled my shoulders, still stiff from days spent with iron around my wrists and throat. I reached a hand gingerly to my side, where even my God-Blooded strength hadn’t healed the broken rib completely. Though the irons they’d only removed hours before certainly hadn’t helped the process. While my side pained me, the true harm was to my power. The irons had done their job well. It would likely take days free of the fetters for my magic to recover to full strength.

Lux stepped closer, throwing a glance over his shoulder, a disdainful mask in place as he looked for watching eyes. “You can do this,” he whispered. “Too late to turn back now.”

I didn’t need to be a Korai to know that was the truth. “Perhaps I should’ve listened to the King after all.”

Lux shrugged. “Why? So we could’ve snuck through the gates in the dead of night and kidnapped the girl? Then we would’ve missed out on all this fun.”

“Careful,” I said with a grim chuckle. “You’re starting to sound like me.”

“Better you than Peleus.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

Lux’s smile fell. “You know, boss, I told you this pissing contest between you and my cousin was going to get you killed.”

I chuckled darkly, my rib screaming in protest. But I had to admit, there was truth to that. Yet as ugly as the history between the General Prince and me was, pissing him off had been an added benefit, not my primary aim. “If we deliver her to the Livonians… Who knows what plans the King has for her? I don’t believe for one second he will use her for the benefit of the Shardian Alliance.”

He nodded. “I know the Korai is valuable, but she isn’t worth dying over.”

My chest tightened at his words, and I wondered what truth or lie Aurora would have tasted. At the thought of her, I searched the crowd. She stood a few feet away from the wooden platform erected for the comfort of the Dorian nobles, her face pale and drawn as a male’s hand circled her elbow. As he spoke in her ear. The male turned, his gaze passing over us with barely contained disgust.

I swore.

Lux grew utterly still beside me. His brows raised, his hand automatically going for the dagger at his hip. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

The straight back and clear, no longer clouded eyes. Yes, I certainly did. And I’d spent enough time in the Underworld to understand that God-Blooded power couldn’t cause such a transformation. Whatever this was… It was something dark. Something wrong. “That dead Imperial…”

Lux swallowed. “Soren. He was from a noble family in the Narrows. Strong, younger even than me.”

And now the Emperor, whose life’s thread I’d sensed nearing its end, suddenly had years to spare. Could the Dorians be so blind to the connection with Soren’s death? Or did they just not care?

I drew one of my blades, comforted by the solid weight of the thing. “Get out of the city, Lux. If your uncle is hunting strong God-Blooded, you aren’t safe here.”

Lux glanced around surreptitiously, and I followed the path of his eyes. The only faces reflecting my own horror were Aurora’s and the High Priestess’. Her headdress askew, the High Priestess gaped, ruddy cheeks bloodless. No one else seemed to notice. Or dared not look.

“No,” Lux said, voice low. He shook his head, pale-blond hair brushing his chin. “There’s work to be done here.”

“Get out. Get out and keep the Seven away.”

His eyes flashed, lips pulling back from his teeth. “Are you mad? Do you want to die?”

“No, brother, but as you said, it’s too late to turn back now. And I’m not sure I would if I could. Go, Lux.”

“Escape!” he hissed beneath his breath. “I can find the King’s spy, get word to the ship. The odds are no worse than we’ve survived before.”

I stood silent, tracking the priestesses as they gathered the same earthenware bowls from the First Trial. After they said their prayers and anointed us, I knew the next Trial would begin. I stepped forward to meet them, sparing Lux one more glance over my shoulder. “If you are truly still one of us, then see to their safety, Lux. To theirs and your own.”

I took my place among the nine other competitors, each of us before a different break in the rock, and prayed my friend would listen to me.

I hazarded one last glance in Aurora’s direction. She stood rooted to the same spot, her eyes still glued to the now-empty cart. The Emperor, thankfully, had abandoned her. He now lounged on his gilded seat. With his attention diverted, most of the surrounding nobles had grown brave enough to sneak glances his way. But their faces were not fearful. Most stared with fervent wonder. Off to the side, her headdress now one degree away from toppling off her head, the High Priestess still hadn’t recovered her composure. But instead of staring at the Emperor, her eyes were on me. I frowned. Was this what it took for her to suspect the truth? But her trust in my innocence didn’t matter. Aurora’s did.

The Korai seemed to realize the Trial was beginning. Her attention finally left the empty slave cart and as the novices retreated, her eyes drifted to me. Lined with moisture, pained, they held my own. Her coral lips parted with a breath and my heart sped.

Then the gong rang.

Silence met us as we each entered the maze. Even the screams of the humans, long swallowed up by the labyrinth’s gloom, had fallen into an ominous hush. That, perhaps more than any death keen, told the story of their fate.

I stood, still and silent, just inside the narrow crevice that opened into the cavern passage. Within seconds, my pupils widened. But more than that, they took on the preternatural trait I’d inherited from my father. Had anyone been there with me, they would have seen my eyes glow like an animal’s in the dark.

The forbidding places beneath the earth were as much a part of me as my lifeblood. If anyone had an advantage in this Trial, it was me. Which raised more than a few suspicions. The priestesses were many things, but they weren’t fools.

I moved further into the labyrinth and the shadows gathered close, sensing that I was one of their own. Despite how depleted my magic was, a flicker of power awoke within me in answer.

Black stone pressed in on each side of me as I considered my options. Straight ahead, the cavern climbed steeply upward, its path a broken and uneven series of low basalt columns. Curving away to the left stood a narrow break in the rock, barely large enough for me to squeeze through.

Pressing my palm flat against the damp stone wall, I focused.

I gathered what little magic I had—its strength borrowed from the surrounding shadows—and sent the power out, reaching through the rocks for any sign of life. For any sign of the monster who called this lair home. Cursed by the gods, her once-great gift turned to evil. It would be a mercy to end her. And any of the humans unlucky enough to have suffered her bite.

Deeper and deeper, tendrils of my magic reached, passing dead ends and twisting paths meant to disorient those fool enough to search for her nest, then . . . there. A skittering tick, tick, tick of long, spindly legs reverberated through the stone. The beast’s movements were slow, heavy. The hunt was over. For now. She had her children cocooned and waiting to hatch. Belly full, she would wait for their birth.

Then it wouldn’t be one monster to contend with, but many.

I moved forward, hardly slowing when the rock walls narrowed around me. Instead of the open path, I continued toward the tiny crevice, my leathers scraping against the rock as I sucked in a breath to force my body through, ribs protesting at the sudden pressure.

On I went, pausing now and then to lay my palm against the rock. To allow earth and shadow to whisper to me. To direct me to the labyrinth’s center. To Arachne’s nest.

But then—

Tremors through the stone.

Booted footsteps. I turned. A faint glow of torchlight glittered against the tiny crystals in the rock. Low voices, murmuring in the guttural, even cadence of Old Dorian, drifted from just beyond a bend in the path.

I had less than a moment to duck down a branching path before they were upon me. But I wasn’t fast enough. A victorious cry sounded and their footsteps turned into a barreling drumbeat against the rock.

I raced ahead. Sharp pain in my side—my screaming, jagged rib—brought me up short. I tried to keep moving, but every step became a white-hot pain. I doubled over, hand against the stone as I struggled to force air into my lungs.

“Looks like our work is half-done for us, brordur,” said one of them in a strongly accented voice.

As I turned to face them, my eye caught a gleam of something silver. Nestled in a slight depression in the rocky wall was a sight that had sour bile rising up my throat. I kept my eyes forward, trying not to draw attention to the egg-shaped, human-sized mass of webbing crammed there.

As I expected, I found myself face to face with the Eleutherian tribesmen. Dressed in rough studded leather, they wore their hair and beards in long battle braids. Braids that now dripped a dark, viscous substance onto the cavern floor.

Blood.

“Hunting, are you?” I grinned through my panting breaths. Backing away a step, I kept one eye on that silver mass. It had begun to move.

One held a war hammer. It was coated in blood, with bits of hair and bone gleaming beneath the torch his brother held. He shrugged, dripping braids shifting wetly over his shoulder. “God-Blooded make for better sport than beasts.”

“Ah, picking the other competitors off one by one,” I said, continuing to move away from that now writhing mass. “Not a bad strategy, that.” My smile turned condescending. “Though, I must ask . . . Was this your plan, or did someone else suggest it? Say . . . the General Prince?”

A glance passed between them, confirming my suspicion. Usually, facing two mindless males at once would be little problem, even if they were God-Blooded warriors. But without my power, with a broken rib . . .

Well, I’d never been one to turn down a challenge.

I just hoped that the silver thing was what I thought it was.

“If you are working with Varian, that must mean you’ve given up your chance to win the Korai. He must have offered you quite the prize for that sacrifice.”

The one with the torch grinned, revealing a toothless maw. “First blood when we invade the Shards, and all the Myridian bitches we want to warm our beds.”

War Hammer roared his laughter, and the silver mass stilled as if it listened to the sound.

His brother went on. “Perhaps I’ll claim your sister, hmm Myridian? I hear she is a hot-blooded little thing.”

As he spoke, I moved a hand behind my back, hooking a finger around one of the small but wickedly sharp knives strung from my belt. “Good luck with that,” I said. “Cassia has been known to castrate males who don’t understand the word no.”

Before they could do more than sneer at my words, I drew back my arm and let the knife fly. It caught the toothless one across the cheek, leaving a deep gouge that filled the air with the metallic reek of fresh blood.

With only a heartbeat’s hesitation, the brothers moved together.

But that single heartbeat was enough.

Quickly, I palmed another knife, then let it fly straight for the moving mass of silvered silk. A tearing sound like the severing of flesh echoed against the stone as the egg-casing ripped open. The first of the creature’s skittering footsteps followed. The brothers froze.

I didn’t dare waste a moment to size up the monster.

I bolted towards the opposite end of the cavern shaft, not looking back as the hunters became the hunted.