Annie Hayden's Arc

Chapter 25 of 27

Kaelen crouched over Annie in the dead-end chamber. Her breath was shallow. The fox pressed against her side, its tail a weak flicker. Behind him, Vael's boots scraped the stone. Kaelen had no path back. The corridors had shifted since he ran them. Every turn looked the same now, gray and wet and blind. He could not carry Annie out through a maze that changed while they stood in it. "You found her," Vael said. He stepped into the chamber's mouth, blocking the only way out. The white-haired scout had taken Annie from the woods once, broken her wand, dragged her here. Now he stood calm, one hand loose at his side. "You still can't leave. This place answers to my master, not to you." Kaelen's mind raced. The bond had pulled him to Annie. Maybe a bond could pull them out too. He looked at the fox. Its bright eyes met his. It knew the way it had come. Hearth-spirits remembered warmth and home. Kaelen pressed Annie's cold hand against the fox's fur. "Wake up," he said. "Just enough. Pull on it. Pull on the bond and let it lead." Annie's eyes cracked open. She saw the fox, then Kaelen. Her lips moved. No sound came. But her fingers curled into the fox's fur. The fox lifted its head. Its tail brightened, steady now, a small clean fire in the dark. Vael drew a knife. "I can't let you leave." The fox turned from the dead end and walked straight at the wall. Kaelen braced for it to stop. It did not. The stone parted where the firelight touched it, a seam opening that had not been there. The labyrinth answered warmth. It answered the fox's living fire the way Vexor had wanted to answer it all along. "Move," Kaelen said. He gathered Annie in his arms. She weighed almost nothing. Vael lunged. Kaelen twisted his shoulder, took the blade across his coat instead of Annie, and drove his elbow into the scout's jaw. Vael staggered. Kaelen ran through the open seam behind the fox. The fox led them turn by turn. Where its tail brushed the walls, the stone gave way and let them through. Vael's shouts fell behind, then stopped. The passages closed after the fox passed, sealing the scout out. Gray light showed ahead. The labyrinth gate. Frost coated the walls near it, thick and cracked. Kaelen carried Annie out into the cold. His father stood over Vexor's fallen shape, staff planted, chest heaving. Frostwyn looked at the girl in his son's arms. "She's alive?" "Barely," Kaelen said. "The fox found the way. Her fire opened the walls."