[ Asterion] Book One, Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine
It was ridiculous.
Luna had spent countless nights waiting for women to knock on her chamber door and had grown beyond nerves that weren’t a fluttering of excitement behind her ribcage. She had got into no small amount of trouble with Alexandria as a child, but she had never found herself pacing like this before.
But Luna was not waiting for a night of companionship, far more alluring as that would be, and she did not have the princess to shield her from the trouble she was about to get herself in. The labyrinth key was warm in her hand. She was seriously considering leading a Sinite knight down there.
Not that there was anything they could do, other than fall from the path into the near-endless void below. A meticulous network of crystals, each twice the height of a grown adult, stretched around the labyrinth, working together to create an invisible barrier the Beast had never dared touch.
What mattered was how it looked to any Thisian. Where it placed her loyalties.
Luna had put the key back in its box, hidden in plain sight on a shelf by her bed, and made her mind up to forget this all and go to bed, when Rydal knocked at the door.
Or so she assumed. It could be a Thisian general, there to put her in irons, having caught wind of the plan, or one of the queen’s knights, there to see to it that she had an unfortunate accident, or—
“Hey.”
Rydal’s voice, muffled through by door.
Luna shook her head, grabbed the key, and opened the door. What did she owe Thisia? There was no harm in playing the part of impromptu labyrinth guide for Sir Mazur.
She opened her chamber door, greeting Rydal with a smile.
They were out of their armour, dressed in the Sinite style: a heavy, thick robe, adorned with horizontal stripes and a belt about the waist, and plain, practical black boots. They leant against the doorframe, ducking to catch Luna’s eye, staring directly into her growing, spreading hesitance.
Rydal’s mismatched eyes met hers, concern evident beneath all their unblinking placidity. They were using her, that much was true, but they were honest, direct.
God, she was going to do this.
Luna closed her door behind her and slipped into the workshop.
It was almost perfectly dark there, save the glow of a distant crystal in the corridor. There were no guards outside her chambers, there never had been; she could protect herself and the Thisians need only stop her at the palace gates.
“What do we say if someone catches us? How do we explain what we’re doing?” Luna asked in a needless whisper.
Rydal raised their brow, all insinuation.
That was the better plan, the smart idea. How much less complicated a night of passion would make everything.
“You’re terrible. Teasing, really. I’m not telling the guards that. I’ll say I caught you trying to steal one of my crystals and it was my duty to march you directly to Queen Briar herself. How’s that?” Luna asked.
“Sure,” Rydal said.
They swept out an arm, gesturing for her to lead the way.
Luna hurried through the dark, glad Rydal wore no armour to give them away. The hundreds of crystals lining the corridors, all shaped and imbued by her own two hands, were designed to light up when people drew close. Luna held that power, her power, back, not needing light to navigate by.
She knew the palace as well as it knew her. Corridors stretched out for her feet to press against and the palace guided her, lured her, to its very centre.
The door to the labyrinth was like any other in the palace. Dozens of people passed it every day, not realising what laid beyond.
Luna slid the key into the lock, the key she had been entrusted with for more than a decade, and tugged Rydal into the chamber. She closed the door behind her and did not stop the crystals from illuminating the strange space.
The entrance to the labyrinth was not large enough for grandeur, but not small enough to offer a sense of safety. It stood at the heart of the palace, the metaphorical heart of Thisia itself, and its walls were studded with weapons; some rusted, some bloodied. They had all been brought back by victors, by those who slayed the Beast, though many of them had been found in the twisting path of the labyrinth, pools of Thisian blood long-dried, bones nowhere to be found.
Portraits divided the weapons. Sir Kiln’s was the newest, only six years old; as old as the rift between her and Alexandria.
What truly mattered, what Rydal had come for, was the spiralling stone staircase at the centre of the room. They stood on the top step, peering down.
“This is your last chance to change your mind and decide you’d rather getting into a different sort of trouble, Sir,” Luna said.
Rydal did not hear her. The warm air drifting up from the labyrinth had entranced them.
Luna placed a hand on their arm, pulling them back.
“At least let me go down there first. I’m the expert, after all,” Luna said.
“Sure,” Rydal said, taking a shallow step back.
Luna had descended into the labyrinth countless times. Her duties were never-ending, added to at the whim of any courtier, but the royal witch’s true purpose was to keep the labyrinth sealed, to protect Thisia from that which it syphoned its power from. She was fourteen years old the first time she was taken down there by the old king. She had feared the stairs would never end. She was certain she was descending into the centre of the world itself.
Yet the spiralling staircase only cut through the palace itself. She held a crystal in one hand, illuminating the darkness that had never been part of any night, and expected they were on level with the servants. Finley would be down there, assuming Alexandria remembered to let her sleep, no matter how uncanny the path was.
Heat fluttered upwards. The stone wall rose rough beneath her fingers. All was silent, save the echo of their footsteps and Rydal’s steady breathing just above her shoulder.
“We’re just below the palace, now. Still a way to go!” Luna said, not daring to speak in more than a whisper.
“How often do you do this?” Rydal asked, voice loud against the impenetrable stone.
“On a monthly basis, usually. I don’t strictly need to, I don’t have to retune the crystals more than once a year, but you can never be too careful when you have an endlessly-growing, crystal-spawning Beast living under your feet.”
A hundred steps down, then a hundred more. Luna was dizzy with the motion of her feet, dizzy in a way she had not been in years. It no longer felt like a chore, like a routine duty; she did not know whether it was because it was night and she did not have the protection of the distant day, or whether it was because she had brought Rydal with her, but she could not escape the reality of what laid below.
The creature beneath the palace would split the continent into fragments and consume all that lived on the surface, if not for Thisia’s barriers, its sacrifices. It was absurd that she came here so often, and that she came alone.
Luna shook her head. She was nervous, that was all, too aware that she was doing something she definitely shouldn’t.
She couldn’t even tell Alexandria about this.
The spiral staircase came to its end.
The labyrinth opened up to them.
An enormous cavern, the size of the palace and all its grounds, bore into the earth. Crystals glinted in the distant walls, thrumming with their own magic, still rooted to the earth as they were. A long, narrow staircase led to the labyrinth proper, carved into the rock without railings, stretching across a near-endless fall.
Above, stalactites hung from the ceiling, mirroring the shape of the palace.
A circle of enormous crystals surrounded the labyrinth, encasing it in an invisible, unbreakable shield. Like the steps leading to it, the labyrinth rose above the nothingness around it, an island in the dark. The light of the crystals, glowing a deep, burnt orange, illuminated the complex pattern that was the labyrinth, walls two-dozen feet high at their lowest.
Luna felt Rydal close behind her, hand on the small of her back. She saw the labyrinth for the first time, remembered the fear that claimed her in the impossibility of what she saw, of what it contained, and the certainty that King Nicolas had brought her there to cast her into the darkness.
She turned carefully on the spot, wanting to see Rydal’s expression as they truly took in the labyrinth for the first time. She wanted to understand them in understanding why they had wanted to come here.
But she did not have a word for what filled their eyes, illuminated by crystal light. Devotion, perhaps. An attempt to commit each turn of the labyrinth to memory, a glimpse of their true duty. Strange. Luna had thought their right eye was the grey one. She’d been so sure.
“We can go closer,” Luna said in a whisper. “Be careful. If you trip, if you fall, there’s no getting you back.”
Rydal’s hand moved to her wrist. They let Luna take their hand. She smiled in the face of all the awe and fear the labyrinth had kindled in her after so long and led Rydal to the labyrinth gates, as though a knight could not keep their balance alone.
At the bottom of those five-hundred steep, uneven stairs Luna had counted so many times, was a wider landing at the gate to the labyrinth, a dozen feet in both directions. The key crystal stood at the labyrinth gate, looming over them both, painting stone and flesh in warm, orange hues. All Luna’s power was focused through this crystal, and the others reflected that magic, spreading around the labyrinth.
Rydal dropped Luna’s hand. They made straight for the labyrinth, for the high, open gate, pillars plain, unremarkable. Magic flickered to life. Rydal lifted a hand, slowly moving it through the empty space before them. Orange sparks flew from their palm as they touched the unseen shield. The colour rippled in a great dome above them, surrounding the whole labyrinth and illuminating the cave around them.
Rydal dropped their hand, turning from the labyrinth. Turning their back on it as though they had not been so desperate to see it.
“That’s all your doing?” they asked.
“That’s all me! All in a day’s work,” Luna said. “Not that I designed those crystals. They’ve stood here for, oh, hundreds of years. For as long as Thisia has been Thisia. All I do is keep them running.”
“All,” Rydal repeated.
The light of the shield faded as the magic relaxed, pleased at itself for being so steady in its purpose.
Rydal gave the slightest flicker of a smile. Luna could’ve melted into it. It was ridiculous, she was ridiculous, she’d only known them for a handful of weeks, but she could not tell when they’d started to speaking to one another in Sinite, in their language. When they had descended into the labyrinth? It was so easy, so natural. Luna understood Rydal better, though they said little more than they did in Thisian.
“Did you—did you read the king’s letter?” Luna asked, needing to say something.
Rydal nodded. They moved across the landing, leaning over the edge and doing terrible things to Luna’s stomach, then lowered theirself to the ground. They sat there, legs dangling over the void, and Luna was damned if she was going to let fear of the endless fall below stop her from sitting next to them.
Rydal took her arm, helping her balance as she swung her legs over the side. Her heart was in her throat, but the rush of warm air below brought courage with it.
“King Lucian wants me to return to Sine. He wants me to leave Thisia without a word, to desert in the dead of the night, and he wants me to come home,” Luna said, needing to hear the words out loud. “Well. Perhaps it isn’t all as dramatic as that. Perhaps he’ll fight for me, but that feels no less daunting.”
She’d destroyed the missive so soon after reading it. Surely she’d misread it.
Rydal hummed.
“He said to wait for Prince Iyden’s announcement before making a decision, but I can’t imagine anything that would make this a good idea. A safe idea. Surely the king knows what Thisia will do to Sine if I so much as think about going back,” Luna said.
There was a part of herself, small and young and only just brought to Thisia, that screamed at her for doing anything but what the king asked. She could go home, at long last. It was what she’d always wanted, what she was so certain would happen, for it was all horribly unfair, but that other-self echoed from almost twenty years ago.
She’d been too young to understand the untouchable power that was Thisia, and young enough to still have a home.
Yet here was what she’d always dreamt of, despite the years that passed, despite knowing better: a literal knight coming to the palace, seeking her out in the dead of night, and promising to save her.
“I grew up hearing about you,” Rydal said, in time.
“That makes no sense. I’m fairly certain you’re older than me, Sir Mazur.”
“Yeah,” Rydal agreed. Luna gave them time, beginning to understand when they had more to say. “The concept of you. The royal witch. Everyone rallied around the idea of it: Sine’s most powerful, held hostage in Thisia. There to show us they could take anything they wanted. Anyone. There to look after the crystals that gave them their power over us. I was twenty-one when the old royal witch died. I lived in the capital.
“It felt like things would change. Everyone in Waterdeep was convinced we could fight against it, that we could stop them taking another one of our witches. There were protests. Marches. But Thisia came. They took what they wanted. They took you. Everyone in Sine knows your name.”
Luna bit the inside of her mouth. It had been nineteen years, twenty once summer came; how had the people of Sine not forgotten her as she had been forced to forget them?
“Even now?” Luna asked weakly.
“Yeah.”
Luna knitted her fingers together, staring down into the darkness. The heat-stricken void engulfing the labyrinth offered a greater refuge than the palace ever had.
“I feel like I’m in two parts, Rydal. I’m not the witch who left Sine. How could I be? That was a lifetime ago. But I know what I am, I know what the Thisians think of me. I don’t even know if I want to leave. My whole life is here! Lexi is here, and she’s spent every day, every moment, protecting me. She’s never once let me down. I love her more than I hate the rest of them,” Luna said, blinking back tears. “Sine doesn’t deserve what Thisia will do to it, just because of me.”
Rydal nodded slowly.
“Like the king said. Wait for the announcement,” they said. “We’ll be here for another week or two. No rush.”
Luna laughed, knocking her shoulder against Rydal’s. A dozen weeks would not be long enough to understand the options laid out before her, much less to make a choice.
She swivelled on the spot, facing Rydal. She’d been right; their right eye was the grey one. Their face was so soft, even under their tattoos, their expression so open, that she understood the importance of bringing them here, felt all that it meant to them in the deep, steady breaths they took, though she might not understand why.
She understood so little about them, but she had not done this merely to spite Thisia.
Rydal placed a hand on her cheek. They were like Alexandria in that way, ever communicating more in their light, easy touches than anything they could make theirself say.
In anything but what came next.
“Ilunatra,” they said, and the name cut straight through her.
No one had called her that in decades. Luna was a childish nickname, fitting for the child she’d been, chosen out of a heady blend of defiance and affection. Her parents had given her that name when she went to them as a six-year-old, as certain that she was a girl as she was a witch, and in their joy and acceptance, they had not let her choose her own name.
It was old-fashioned. Stuffy. She was named for a great-grandmother she had never met. She had been embarrassed and exhilarated when her parents introduced her as Ilunatra, and it had not felt like her name until one of her cousins had pointed out they could call her Luna for short.
But when Rydal called her Ilunatra, it was as though no one had spoken the name before. It was new, and it was hers.
“Rydal?” she remembered to murmur.
“We should go.”
Their eyes pointed to the ceiling. Of course they should. Dawn wouldn’t be held back from the world above because of the darkness below. Luna got to her feet with the haste of a woman who had forgotten the endless fall before her, and Rydal did not look back at the labyrinth.
The journey back into the palace was as exhausting as it always was. The hundreds of stairs left her thighs burning, her breathing heavy, and Rydal suffered worse than she did. Their hair stuck to their forehead with sweat. They weren’t use to the gruelling journey back to the surface. Luna had always thought that if the Beast escaped the shield around the labyrinth, surely the steps would deter it from going any further.
When they reached the chamber at the heart of the palace, the crystals shone warmly, the door was still locked, and palace guards did not surround the staircase, waiting for them.
Luna pressed a finger to her lips as she unlocked the door. She did not know what would happen next, they had not discussed that much, but Rydal seemed intent on escorting her back to her chambers; the guest rooms were in the opposite wing and Rydal was not the sort to lose their way, even in the dark.
Each time she ascended from the labyrinth, she was convinced her warming crystals were failing. The heat below the palace was so thick, so natural, that even the crackle of a log fire could not compare to it.
Luna hurried down the corridors, brisk and silent, crystals kept dim, and almost made it to her chambers without encountering a soul. The guards kept unwanted sorts out of this part of the palace and their time would be wasted with anything but a cursory, occasional stroll near the royal chambers.
Yet someone was coming towards them. Luna grabbed Rydal’s collar, tugged them along, and shoved them into their workshop at the last moment.
“Who’s there?” a familiar voice asked. “Why are the lights not coming on?”
Luna breathed a sigh of relief. She clapped her hands together for effect as she let the light crystals flood the corridors once more.
“Sir Kiln! I’m so sorry, I didn’t expect any company. I couldn’t sleep and wanted to walk off my restlessness, but I didn’t want to disturb anyone. Keeping the crystals dark is second nature to me, I hardly realised I was doing it,” Luna said.
She waved her hands back and forth down the corridors, sending the crystals flickering off in a chain, then returned light to them.
“Luna. My apologies,” Sir Kiln said, bowing her head a little. “I was worried we had another malfunction on our hands.”
“Oh, those things only happen around the princess. We’re perfectly safe,” Luna said, grinning.
Of all the people to meet on the way back from her midnight excursion to the labyrinth, Sir Kiln was certainly the most poignant. Other than herself and Rydal, Sir Kiln was the last person who had descended into the labyrinth, though she had gone much further than them. She had walked that narrow, twisting path to its very centre and the Beast had not sunk its claws into her.
“I’m glad to hear it. Do you require an escort anywhere, or are you returning to your chambers?” Sir Kiln asked.
Luna liked her. She always had, ever since she was a mere guard. Sir Kiln treated her with the respect her title implied and would often speak with her in Sinite, in private. It was a shame Alexandria was so intent on being at odds with her knight, though Luna had known her to hold grudges for more than six short years.
“Thank you, Sir, but I think I’ve tired myself out enough for bed,” Luna said. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“There isn’t. Like you, I’ve found myself unable to sleep. Goodnight, Luna. Sleep well,” Sir Kiln said, bowing again.
Luna waved her off and disappeared into her workshop the moment Sir Kiln was out of sight. Her heart was pounding, belated fear blending with relief, and she could not fight off the urge to laugh. There was nothing funny about what had happened, they could’ve been caught at every turn, but there they were, back in Luna’s workshop.
Rydal perched on the edge of a workbench. The countless crystals in the room shimmered as Luna walked by, recognising her for what she was, reaching out to her.
“It’s funny, isn’t it? Witches have existed for as long as crystals have, but we’ve only known about crystals for the last, oh, three-hundred years?” Luna began, not knowing why. “Before that, when babies were born with white hair and eyes, people had no idea why. It was considered a bad omen. All these terrible things would happen around us, little sparks of magic with nowhere to go making trouble, and—people used to kill witches when they were born. Can you imagine that? Murdering a new-born because its eyes were strange?”
In the centuries between then and now, witches had become revered, respected. It was the greatest luck to welcome a witch into a family, and the solid white of their eyes resonated with good luck, with prosperity, and had not been considered unnerving for countless lifetimes.
“I like your eyes,” Rydal said.
“Flatterer,” Luna chided, blushing in the dark.
She almost asked Rydal what would happened next, what their plans were, when they spoke up again.
“Thanks,” they said.
“For taking you into the labyrinth? I won’t lie and say it wasn’t a problem, it’s a huge one, but I’m glad I did it.”
“Sure,” they said. “But for everything, too.”
“Everything?”
Luna was not forcing the words out of Rydal. It was not like pulling teeth; getting the chance to ask them to explain theirself further was as exhilarating as sneaking into the labyrinth had been.
“Yeah. Spending time with me. Putting up with me. Even though I’m—” Rydal gestured vaguely at theirself. “Quiet. Bad company. Would’ve been boring without you.”
Luna could only stare at them. She had been so convinced that they were forcing theirself to endure her company, slowly wearing her away to get what they wanted, but Rydal was not the sort to waste their breath on lies.
“Really? You enjoyed yourself?” Luna asked, voice light, happiness escaping the corners of her smile. “And here I thought you were just doing your best to trick me into doing your bidding.”
Rydal shrugged. The half-serious accusation did not catch them unawares.
“I was always going to the labyrinth. That’s why I came. Not for the prince, not for Sine. I was going to steal the key. I could’ve, easy. You’re not in your chambers all that often,” Rydal said. “I know where you keep it.”
The admission that Rydal had been in her chambers, that they had let theirself in when Luna was not there, should have made her cold to her core. The intrusion should’ve angered her, unsettled her, but their honesty had a grounding pull to it. Besides, those were not her chambers. They were Thisia’s, and she was only allowed to stay there by their grace.
“Why didn’t you steal it? It would’ve been a lot easier,” Luna said.
Rydal bent a finger, drawing her closer.
“Right,” they agreed. “I’ve been working towards this my whole life, but—”
Rydal shrugged. Luna stood close to them, almost between their knees.
“But?”
“I got to know you. After hearing about you all my life. And I thought you might want to help me.”
It could all be part of their plan. Luna could be letting them use her, though she should know better. It could all be one long, winding plan Rydal had concocted, but what did it matter? She had taken them to the labyrinth and the palace was not in ruins. The Beast was not loose.
“I’ve learnt that I have a really hard time saying no to you, Sir. And I still don’t know what any of that was all about! But I know better than to ask you, because I don’t think you understand it all. I don’t think you’re ready to tell me,” Luna said.
Rydal stared down at her, head tilted to the side. They were unsettled at being understood, unnerved by getting what they wanted so easily. Luna reached out to Rydal, as Rydal had to her, and tucked their short, wavy hair over their ear.
It really was like a mane.
“Then I’ll ask for one more thing,” Rydal murmured.
“And what might that be?”
“The key. I’ll make a copy. Give it back. You won’t notice a thing.”
Luna sighed, dropping her hand to her side. Rydal watched her every movement, lips parting, searching for a thread of an argument, a way to plead their case, but Luna tapped a finger against their mouth.
While their eyes were on hers, Luna took the key from her pocket and slipped it into Rydal’s palm.
“I have more than one key to the labyrinth, Rydal. This wouldn’t be the first one I’ve lost,” she murmured, closing their fingers around the warm metal. “Keep it.”
Rydal tucked the key into their pocket, not once dropping Luna’s gaze. Crystals shimmered through the workshop, then fell dark.
“Can I—” Rydal began. They snapped their teeth together and shook their head. They cleared their throat, steadying theirself. “I want to show you something.”
“Alright,” Luna whispered.
Her hands rested on their knees. She was closer, now. Rydal remained on the workbench, hands finding their collar, as if on strings. They unbuttoned their robe around the throat, buttons hidden along the right side of their neck and chest, but hesitated to go any lower.
“Don’t worry,” Rydal said.
Luna’s mouth split into a smile, nervous, delighted laughter spilling out. Rydal was the one unfastening their robe, willing to bare theirself, but still they assured Luna of her safety.
Robe unbuttoned to the waist, Rydal shrugged their shoulders and worked their arms free, letting the heavy fabric fall to the worktop and pool around their waist. A shudder of light rushed through the crystals and Luna struggled to take in all that was revealed to her.
Rydal tilted their head back, allowing Luna to take them in by the light of her own magic.
Tattoos ran in thick, unevenly spaced rings up both of their arms. A fluid darkness marked their collarbone, ink spilt across their skin; the Beast, formless, ever shifting, dark tendrils reaching for the hollow of their throat. Below that, their chest and ribs were the perfect canvas for the cartography of a labyrinth. Luna knew without having to confirm her suspicions that it was the very one below the palace.
And beneath that, vertical across their stomach, was a key.
The key Luna had pressed into their palm short moments ago. Every tooth matched. It had been inked to scale.
By the reflection in the window behind Rydal, Luna saw that the patterns repeated on their back, as though the needle and ink had pierced them straight through.
“Rydal,” she murmured, hand hovering over the key inked onto their stomach.
“Ilunatra,” they said.
“Who did this? Who—how?”
Rydal pressed a finger beneath Luna’s chin, tilting it upwards. Reclaiming her gaze.
“I don’t know,” they admitted. “I don’t remember.”
“How long have you had these?”
The tattoos were beautiful. Luna’s gaze immediately dipped to them. The lines were dark and steady, the patterns perfect, interrupted only at Rydal’s chest, where a long scar cast a horizon over their ribs, barely visible thanks to a crystal’s healing light.
Rydal looked up, searching for the answer in the dark.
“A long time. Thirty years? Since I was a child. Not all of them, but most.”
Thirty years. Almost as long as she’d been alive. Far longer than she’d had possession of the labyrinth keys, old those they were, metal heavy with the memory of all the royal witches that came before her.
“I don’t understand,” Luna murmured, but knew Rydal didn’t, either. “But they’re beautiful. Intricate…”
She rested a single finger on the key tattooed on their stomach, not knowing what was too much. All she felt was warm, soft skin, no different than any flesh unstained by ink would be, no matter how she traced the shape of the key she had turned in its lock so many times.
Rydal cupped her face. They brushed their thumbs across her cheeks, fingers stroking the shell of her ears. Luna moved onto tiptoes. She placed her hands on Rydal’s chest, heart beating beneath her palms for all the stillness that claimed them, and let Rydal kiss her.
She let herself kiss them. Rydal pulled her close, mouth hot on hers, and it was so much easier than trying to understand the puzzle of ink, her place in the fraught realm between Thisia and Sine, and all the prince would reveal, come sunrise. Rydal’s fingers twisted in her hair and Luna did not have to try to understand; she was understood.
Little sparks of magic shot down her spine, lavender-warm, and Rydal’s fingers created patterns of their own through the fabric of her shirt.
Rydal slid to their feet. Luna wrapped her arms around their waist, hands splaying across the labyrinth of their back, and let them half-lead, half-carry, her into her chambers, crystals great and small creating a flurry of fallen starlight to guide them by.