Labyrinth Lost (18 page)

“Ready?” I whisper to Rishi.

For the first time since we've journeyed together, she looks nervous. I hold her hand and walk with her, a promise that I won't let go.

In turn, she stays close and whispers, “I would follow you into the darkest dark.”

They say El Corazón has two hearts:

the black thing in his chest and

the one he wears on his sleeve.

—Tales of the Deos, Felipe Thomás San Justinio

The path is full of whispers and loose stones tumbling from the highest peaks. Our footsteps echo all the way to the top.

“Was that you?” Nova asks.

“Me what?” I say.

“Touching me.”

I scoff. “You wish.”

“It's probably just a poisonous spider that's evolved to kill you,” Rishi tells him.

“Just stop helping,” he mutters.

I'm so thirsty, but without another source of water, the water we carry is precious. I wonder…

“Nova, if I can conjure fire, would I be able to conjure water as well?”

He makes a
hmmm
noise. “Depends. I've heard the recoil for elemental magic is pretty bad. Fire burns your skin. Lightning makes your heart stop.”

“I conjured lightning at home to fight the maloscuro. I passed out. Would water just make you get wet? Like maybe a rain cloud following over your head?” My chuckle echoes to the top of the mountain and gets lost there.

“No,” Nova says, like it's the silliest thing he's ever heard. “Maybe your lungs would fill up with water. La Ola isn't exactly known for being even tempered. I'd rather take my chances with El Fuego honestly.”

“You talk about these gods like they're people,” Rishi says. “They're not actually flesh-and-blood people are they?”

“You can field that one, Alto Brujo,” I tell Nova.

He gives me a side eye over his shoulder. “No one I know has ever seen them. We create our gods to look like us, don't we? Only better. The god of the butterflies would look like a butterfly, right? So our gods have human qualities, but also the great power that makes them individuals.”

“But
how
do you know?”

Nova sounds frustrated as he says, “I can't explain belief. I just have it. I know the power in me comes from somewhere. I know that the magic in my veins is real. No, I can't tell you that if I speak to the Deos, they answer back with words, but there are other ways. When was the last time
Zeus
came down for Olympus and hung out just to prove his existence? Besides, the Deos didn't create us to interact with us. We're just pawns moving across the board. There's a checkmate waiting at the end for all of us. At least, that's what my grandma says.”

Rishi clears her throat. “The more you talk about her, the more charming she sounds.”

“I'm not exactly easy to love,” he says.

As he says that, stones clatter overhead.

“Watch out!” Nova turns and pushes Rishi and me against a wall.

“I might've been wrong about the spiders,” Rishi whispers.

“Whatever it is,” I say, “we're not alone. Come on.”

I lead the way, our boots pounding down the narrow path. We've come too far to go back, and there's no climbing up something so high.

“Alex!” Rishi trips and falls on something.

Nova helps her to her feet before I can reach her. He holds a ball of light over them.

“Oh my Deos,” I gasp. There's a skull at Rishi's feet. I hold up my hands and shoot flares of light down the path. For a moment, it lights up as bright as day. Bones litter the ground. Some are scattered. Some are entwined, as if they died together in an embrace.

I bend down and pick up the skull Rishi tripped on. I close my eyes as an imprint of memory latches onto me. I've seen it happen to Rose. When she touches an object at a garage sale or when we're walking in the historic parts of the city. She relives the scene the way I'm doing now.

There's a girl my age with dark skin and darker eyes. One minute, she's running through the Forest of Lights with a beautiful boy. The next moment, the sky turns dark and he's dead in her arms. The girl is filled with anger and hate, and she runs into battle with her people. The leader is a wild-haired woman with a crescent moon inked into her forehead and hands that spark like lightning. The girl is ready to fight the shadow creatures. The girl is ready to take back Los Lagos.

But when they reach the mountain pass, they are betrayed. The Shadow Bruja knows they are coming. She has red eyes and a face as white as the moon. Alta Bruja Kristiñe blasts the Shadow Bruja with lightning, but the Shadow Bruja keeps going, striking down everyone in her path. She rides a saberskin onto the path, the creature scaling the walls. She leaves a trail of death behind her. Her pack of beasts rips people apart with their claws.

The girl has one chance. She has a weapon of her own design—a glove with a palm covered in metal spikes. The girl's fist hits the Shadow Bruja's face. There is blood. A terrible laugh. The Shadow Bruja in turn, rips out the girl's heart. The Shadow Bruja devours it. She devours every heart around her.

Kristiñe is wounded. She's bleeding out. She's lost everything. She uses the last of her power to punish her traitors. She gouges out their eyes and then curses them—for their outsides to reflect their monstrous hearts…

The Shadow Bruja resurrects the blind men. She gives them power. She binds them to the roots of the earth. She binds them to her.

I jump out of the memory and scream. I scream until I'm out of breath. I scream until Nova has to shake me.

“Alex, what did you see?” Rishi asks.

But I can't answer her. Shadows move around us and stones fall to the ground as the mountain shakes.

“Go!” Nova shouts. We run down the path, but a hulking figure jumps from somewhere above and slams into the ground, rattling the earth.

We have to retreat. I grab Nova's and Rishi's hands and start to run back the way we came from, but a second figure appears. They now block our path in and out. One of them walks closer to us, and as it steps into the light, I can see it. The creatures Kristiñe punished and the Devourer saved.

His skin is the green of aging leaves, and his body is covered in thorny vines that move like extended limbs. He raises his hand, and a vine slithers out of the center of his palm. I can see the remnants of the man it once was. Its face is distorted and black veins are visible beneath its skin. In its open mouth are black gums and pieces of broken teeth. Gouged eyes are a mess of torn flesh.
They don't need eyes to see.
The blind giants.

The giants charge at us from both sides, and the earth trembles under their feet. They shoot vines from their palms to trap us. I create a shield to stop them. I grit my teeth and reach for more power. My arms tremble; my blood rushes to my head. Their vines are laced with the Devourer's dark power. It burns right through my shield. I direct all my magic into an arrow of lightning. I aim it at the nearest giant. It rips through its chest and electrocutes him.

“Now!
Run
,” I tell Rishi and Nova. “I'll be right behind you.”

Two giants replace the one I killed. They land feet from me and close in. I dodge vines that want to pierce my heart.

Fire,
the voice tells me.

Heat blisters my skin as I conjure flame. I close my eyes and hiss at the air as I say the words of El Fuego, Bringer of Flame. “Rain of fire! Birth of ash!”

I grind my teeth against the searing pain in my hands. I hold balls of white-and-red flames in my palm. I blast them at two giants that attack me. Their blistering screams become echoes as my fire burns them to a crisp.

Vines snap around my wrists and pull me back. Another giant appears from the shadows and takes hold of me. My muscles and bones strain against the force. A six-inch thorn hits my shoulder. The pain slices through me, and for a moment, all I see is red. Then, the pressure is gone and I fall forward.

“I got you,” Nova says, coughing and wheezing the smoke from his lungs. “I got you, Alex.”

He pulls me up.

“Rishi! Where is she?”

One of the giants is still alive. It crawls toward me, tripping on the bones. Since it's on its knees, I can look into its decrepit face. My hands are wet and soft with blood pouring from my blistered palms. I find the anger, the fear in my belly, and I scream it out into the giant's face. I'm a siren, a banshee, howling in the wind. All I have are my hands and my power. So as the giant reaches me, I throw a punch straight into its torso. My hand breaks through its meaty skin, scraping against bone until I wrap my hand around its heart. I squeeze and twist, but it won't come free. The creature groans, then falls lifeless to the ground, pulling me with it.

“Let go,” Nova shouts. His hands are on my shoulders.

I don't understand what he means until I realize the reason I can't break free is because I'm still holding on to its heart.

My body shakes from head to toe, the recoil crippling me to the ground. Nova grunts as something knocks him to the side. But Nova is fast and jumps on the creature's back. He grips the giant by the throat and struggles to choke it.

There's a shadow, another creature coming for me. I push myself up. Face the giant. I conjure a ball of flame and hurl it at him. Its skin catches on fire, but the giant keeps advancing. It growls as it pulls back its arms, ready to shoot me down with its vines. I crawl over bones and jagged stones, shielding my face with my arm, but then there's Rishi, jumping from the ledge above. She cracks the giant's head open with a whack of the mace. Her dark hair is matted to her cheeks with sweat and blood. I force myself to get up.

“It's not over, Ladybird,” Nova says, panting.

“Alex,” Rishi says.

The three of us stand back to back to back. More of them climb down from the mountain walls. There are so many blind giants I can't keep count, and they close in.

The sky trembles above us, matching the rhythm of my heart. I see lightning break across the sky, and I know what I have to do. The power inside of me urges me to reach for it. Every cell in my body wakes up with electricity.

I grab hold of the lightning with a tight fist, feel its current hit my heart. I am an element. I am the storm. The lightning is a whip, and I lash it at the giants. Suddenly, the world is vibrant, overexposed. When my lightning hits the giants, they break apart, all burned limbs and shattered bone.

The explosion blows me back. My ears ring and my skull throbs. I land on top of Rishi and Nova. I call for my mother. Pain sears from my skin down to the core of my bones. I try to push myself up but can't. I am dead.

No, I am
death
.

The inside of my eyelids is red. Hands, warm and strong, hold me and carry me. I don't even have to look. I've already memorized the way his heart beats against mine.

Nova buries his face in my hair and then something settles over us. I can feel shadows and fear fill his heart, though the darkness has surrounded him from the moment I met him. I cling to him because I can't seem to move. It's the worst recoil yet. How does anyone live with this pain?

“We made it to the other side of the mountain. We've made it out,” he whispers, but I know there's something wrong.

The wind is cold and carries the scent of cinder. My senses are so sensitive, I can hear the spike of Rishi's heart, the way her lungs expand for air, the way she struggles as something takes hold of her.

“Rishi?” I reach for her in the dark, but Nova holds me tighter.

“Now, Alejandra,” the Devourer says, “let me see how easily you are broken.”

Liar's tongue and feathers fair,

take this path, if lovers dare.

—The Forbidden Canto, a.k.a. the Romeo Death, from The Art of Poison, Angela Aurora Santiago

The Devourer appears out of the dark, a creature of the shadows. She stands feet away from Rishi. My eyes begin to clear, but I wish I couldn't see anything. I pull myself out of Nova's hold. When he sets me down, my knees want to give out under me. I fight the urge to cry and scream because the recoil is making it impossible to think clearly. All I see is Rishi, bound and gagged. She shakes her head.

The Devourer's dress of metal and bone clings to her like darkness. Her red eyes are bright behind the helmet of bone. She traces her long, pointed nails along Rishi's cheek. Vines rope around Rishi's feet, keeping her locked to the ground. A thorny rope winds around her arms, torso, neck, and mouth. Blood drips where the thorns pierce her lips shut.

“So tender,” the Devourer says in her smoky voice. “Tell me, Alejandra Mortiz. Did you begin to hope that you three would make it out of here alive?”

“Don't move,” I tell Rishi. Every time she moves, the vines wrap tighter, the thorns dig deeper. “Let her go,” I say through gritted teeth.

The Devourer walks on the gray earth. For the first time, I notice the dark hill in the background, a great structure erected at the top like a crown. The labyrinth. She stops inches from me. My power is a weak pulse, struggling to come to my aid. I have a dagger, but my mace is on the ground beside Rishi's feet. How quickly would the Devourer break my neck if I move?

She conjures a glass vial on the palm of her hand. It glows red like lava and has tiny gold flecks inside.

“Nova,” she says, “be a dear, won't you?”

“I'm sorry,” he whispers. I can hear the regret in his voice.

Nova won't look at me. He stares at the ground. Then at the Devourer's hand. He takes the vial and goes to Rishi's side.

“Nova?” I hate the way I sound.
Hurt. Childish.
The Devourer watches every movement of my face. She grins wide, taking pleasure in all of this.

“My dear, Nova,” she says. “You chose her well.”

I hate the way she says his name. Hate the way he moves when she tells him to. Hate the way he doesn't put up a fight. Mostly, I hate that I didn't see.

I didn't want to.

Look twice.

Nova stands at the Devourer's right-hand side. She rests her hand around his throat, like she'll snap it in two. Then, all she does is rake her fingernails softly down his neck.

“You remember this potion, Alejandra, don't you?” the Devourer asks.

“No.”

“Liar's tongue, feathers of a golden bird,” the Devourer singsongs. “I have to thank you. You've helped my boy so much. It's a pity you didn't fall in love with him like the others. You're losing your touch, Nova.”

Nova won't look at me.
Look at me
, I will him with my mind. My power whimpers in response, and so Nova just stands there.

“No matter.” The Devourer walks around us like she's corralling her prey. “I have this sweet, sweet girl. Her love for you is so strong she threw herself into another galaxy to be with you. That's the kind of magic I can't fabricate anymore. Surrender, Alejandra Mortiz, or Rishi dies. I will open her mouth and empty this vial down her throat. Do you know what the Forbidden Canto does?”

Rishi's eyes are shut. Fat tears carve their way through the dirt on her face. She shakes her head. When she squeezes her lips, the vines get tighter and blood drips from every puncture wound.

“What?” I growl.

“You really should study your cantos, dear,” the Devourer chides me. “The Forbidden Canto breaks the heart. It's meant as a form of poetic suicide. It'll attack all her tender human organs, saving the heart for next to last. In those moments, she will endure lifetimes of agony. You see, she will stay alive long enough to watch you watch her die. Then, her brain will give out, and that is the last thing Rishi will ever see.

“Nova's grandmother wrote this particular canto and created the draught. Your world is full of so many possibilities. I can't wait to rip a hole through it. Now, surrender your power, or I will pour this down Rishi's throat.”

With a wave of the Devourer's hand, the vines around Rishi's face come undone. Blood drips from the holes around her lips. She cries out once.

“Don't,” Rishi tells me. Her midnight eyes are locked on mine. “Don't.”

Nova uncorks the vial. He brings the glass to Rishi's lips. She tries to keep them closed, but the Devourer forces them open.

“Nova,” I say his name. “You don't have to do this.”

His voice is hard, and when he looks at me, he says, “Yes I do.”

The red liquid slides down the glass, a red bead pools at the tip. I stop breathing. It's as if El Corazón has ripped my heart right out of my chest. How can I watch Rishi die?

“I surrender,” I scream.

Nova drops the vial on the ground. It spills into the dirt.

The Devourer raises her hands, and I feel her magic seize me. My chest burns as I struggle to breathe. I kick the air, try to pry the force from around my neck until I feel a terrible pain stab at my heart. Warm liquid drips from my ears, my nose; blurry, dark tears sting my eyes. I'm choking. I'm dying. My heart flutters like the wings of a hummingbird. My mind is heavy as the sea. I feel like I've aged a hundred years and now I'm brittle and broken.

I stop struggling.

My arms drop to my sides. The force around my neck releases, then drops me on the ground. A light floods from me and into the Devourer's palm. My power pulses like a star in her hand. She blows on it, and the orb travels directly to the labyrinth, to the Tree of Souls.

The realization hits me like a gunshot to the heart. Tears spill down my face. She took my light. She took my magic.