My confusion distracted me. One tendril snaked around my shield. It happened so fast, I didn’t see until it was too late. Even the boys were too slow though Raw was the closest and tried to block the blow.
The blade sheared through my right arm as though my flesh were made of silk.
I didn’t feel anything at first, but I watched my arm fall away with distant, numb surprise. My arm, I thought. My arm is gone. How strange that looks. My arm, all the way down there.
I staggered, watching the Aetar’s flaming hand cover the armor that still clung to my dismembered arm. A terrible hiss filled the air when it made contact—the creature flinched—but it did not pull away. It sank my entire limb down its massive throat, and as my flesh disappeared I glimpsed the armor shrinking, shrinking, and I remembered how I’d first found it—as nothing but a ring.
“Maxine.” Grant dragged me away. I didn’t resist, but I barely felt him. I couldn’t stop staring at the fire, searching it for that piece of myself—or even a glitter of quicksilver.
And then the pain really hit. I tried to fight through it, but dark spots filled my vision, swallowing up the fire, the heat—even the agony eating up my right side. Grant cried out, but not in pain. It was a command, and in his voice, a click. Like a door opening.
I slipped in and out of consciousness, aware of a shadow that loomed over my body, tendrils of hair that touched my face. I was carried and dragged, past the fire to twilight, as cool air washed over me—which did nothing to dull the bombs exploding inside my body.
“You morons,” I heard Jack shout, shoving everyone aside and falling to his knees beside me. He pressed a cool hand to my brow, and his voice was thick with fear. I didn’t want him touching me, but couldn’t make my throat work. “The wound’s been cauterized,” he said. “You, pick her up.”
Strong arms slipped beneath me. Tracker. I screamed when he lifted me. Dek and Mal, who were coiled around my neck, howled in shared agony. Raw and Aaz gripped their own right arms, and Zee raked his claws through the dirt, eyes narrowed with pain and rage.
“He has a fragment of the labyrinth,” Jack said, somewhere to my right. “We must leave here, now. He’ll free himself, for sure.”
More voices, but they were fuzzy. I tried so hard not to cry out. I told myself it wasn’t worse than the boys waking up, but that wasn’t true.
My arm was gone. My arm. Swallowed up, burned to ash—except I could still feel it there, as if it were attached. My brain, playing tricks. Had any of that been real? The white room, the fire—that old man’s familiar face, and what he’d said about my grandfather?
I lost track of time. Once, I heard Jack say, “I don’t know how, lad. He was the best at building bodies that were stronger than anything the rest of us could imagine. They had to be strong, to last longer for his torture.”
Your torture? I wanted to ask him. Are you the Devourer?
I didn’t hear Grant’s response. I was already gone.
CHAPTER 30
THERE was no pain inside that darkness, just the drift. And I kept drifting, right into a field of stars.
I wasn’t alone. I saw a man made of silver, radiating a cool, clean light. He stood on my left, but no matter how hard I stared, I couldn’t see his face.
I didn’t need to. I knew what my father looked like.
On my right was a creature made of obsidian—not a dragon, but close enough—a wyrm, sleek and lean, and coiled with power. It writhed and twisted, and ate the light of the other man. But it was a fair trade. His silver skin absorbed the shadows that flowed from the wyrm. Both of them, consuming the other.
You are safe, whispered my father, his skin shining with starlight. Let go of the fear. Let go.
Let go, murmured the darkness. Embrace the hunt and the hunger. Be the vessel that is needed.
Why? I asked them both, so weary. Why does there need to be a vessel? Why did you go to so much trouble to engineer this?
I woke up before I could get an answer. Not that I expected one.
But that didn’t matter, either. Because we were no longer in the Labyrinth. I saw stars above, and in the distance, city lights. I wasn’t sure what city, but it looked familiar, and very much of earth. A dream, though. It was just a dream. I couldn’t feel my body. I floated like a ghost.
My relief, though, was short-lived. Because the sky opened up, and fire burned away the stars.
Fire, in every direction, rippling outward. I kept expecting to see the edges, but the flames never stopped, spreading over my head, raining down an inferno.
I looked back at the city, but it was already burning. Millions of voices, crying out, and none of them would have a quick death. An entire world would die slowly, just for the pleasure of the beast—who would devour their pain.