Brann looked into the black throat of the tunnel, the echo of that distant howl coiling through his thoughts like a persistent ghost.

  He turned to face Caedran’s steady gaze.

  “What would you have me face?” Brann asked, voice low but edged. “The creatures trapped in this maze, can they even be killed?”

  Caedran did not rise from the stone bench. From this angle the firelight painted his broad shoulders in molten gold and shadow, deepening the scars that webbed his skin.

  “The maze is larger than you think,” he said evenly. “You might not even encounter one of them. But if you do, I am certain you will manage.”

  There was no reassurance in the words, only quiet assessment.

  Brann held his stare for a moment longer, searching for mockery, for hidden threat. He found neither…only that unsettling composure and the patience of a man who had seen too many outcomes to be surprised by another.

  This was a test after all and tests could be passed.

  From the fractured logic woven through Caedran’s answers, Brann deduced the beasts were not the heart of it anyway. They were obstacles, perhaps consequences, but not the purpose.

  He exhaled slowly, letting tension bleed from his shoulders.

  Then he turned and chose a path.

  The tunnel mouth waited at the edge of the chamber, a seam of darkness stitched into the circular room. The weak glow from the fire flickered across its inner walls, stretching and shrinking like hesitant fingers.

  “See you soon,” Caedran suddenly said, his tone almost conversational. “And good luck.”

  Brann paused at the threshold. The warmth of the fire brushed his back, reluctant to release him. Beyond, the corridor breathed cold and damp.

  He glanced over his shoulder, meeting the keeper’s eyes one last time.

  “Looking forward to our next talk,” Brann replied. “It will not take long.”

  There was confidence in his voice, perhaps more than he truly felt, but he allowed it to stand.

  He stepped forward.

  At once the light thinned around him. Shadows swallowed his outline, claimed his boots, his shoulders, his face. The maze closed behind him like water sealing over a stone cast into its depths.

  His footsteps faded, swallowed by distance and stone.

  Caedran remained seated, the fire snapping softly before him. He did not follow with his gaze. He did not need to.

  He reached down and adjusted a charred log with measured care, embers stirring, sparks lifting briefly toward the circle of night sky above.

  Then he spoke, low enough that even the stones strained to hear.

  “That is what most of them say,” he murmured, the faintest shadow of something unreadable crossing his features. “I hope you are not like them.”

  The fire cracked once, sharply.

  Brann had taken only a few steps when the maze answered him.

  Crystals set into the walls flared to life, one after another, bathing the corridors in a steady orange glow. Not harsh, not blinding, but constant, as if the stone itself had decided he no longer needed to stumble in the dark. He was surprised by this, when he first came in there was only darkness, now however it seemed that the maze activated, perhaps his participation was what was needed.

  The realization tightened his jaw. Of course it made sense. A structure like this had to be sustained by something, and whatever power lay beneath it was far beyond anything he understood. Still, it solved one problem. He would be able to search. He would be able to see.

  His body protested as he moved, weakness tugging at his legs, forcing him to trail his hand along the wall for balance. Yet something was different. The fever no longer surged. The corruption no longer pressed. It was as if both had been halted, locked in place the moment he had accepted Caedran’s test.

  He had gained time now, but still he had to move fast if he wanted to make it out of here and on to Westmere.

  The corridor stretched before him in unbroken sameness, stone upon stone, anchor upon anchor, each glyph cut with the same deliberate hand. Brann walked slowly now, the earlier urgency tempered by thought that would not loosen its grip.

  Time.

  The word echoed thru his mind heavier than any howl.

  How had Caedran endured in this place?

  The anchors should bind him to it, he was sure, fix him as firmly as they fixed power to stone. Yet he had fish…Fresh fish. He had firewood that burned clean and steady. There had been no ash thick upon the floor, no sign of dwindling stores or desperate scavenging.

  And the sky, there was something about the sky that nagged him.

  Brann stopped at a bend where a thin shaft of moonlight spilled from some unseen crack above. He tilted his head upward.

  The stars had not shifted.

  He had watched them when he first entered the circular chamber. He had watched them again before stepping into the tunnel. They had burned in the same cold arrangement, fixed and precise, as though etched into glass.

  His pulse quickened, not from fear alone but from understanding creeping into place.

  Was it possible that time here did not flow as it did beyond the mountain?

  A loop maybe…he had experienced time shifts with the stone dials before, so was it possible?

  The thought coiled tight.

  If time circled upon itself within these walls, then fire would never truly consume wood. Fish would never truly spoil. Night would never yield to dawn and Caedran would never age.

  The idea pressed against him with terrible logic.

  If that were true, then the keeper could be centuries old, bound not only by stone but by repetition. Each night the same. Each fire the same. Each conversation perhaps the same, played again and again against different faces.

  Could he even be killed?

  The pressure Brann had felt from him returned to mind, that steady, unshakable weight, like standing before a cliff that had endured storms for a thousand years and would endure a thousand more.

  Perhaps that certainty was not merely confidence.

  Perhaps it was permanence.

  Brann resumed walking, boots scraping faintly across damp floor.

  Another thought struck him, colder still.

  The seed of corruption within him…

  It had stirred violently in the forest. It had clawed and whispered and coiled around his thoughts. Yet here, in these halls, it had quieted. The fever that had wracked him began to ease, as though something had dulled its hunger.

  If time here looped, if decay itself were held in check, then corruption would stall as well. Growth and rot alike would be caught in suspension, and it all started with him eating a fish, Caedran did say he was certain Brann would feel better once he ate.

  He exhaled slowly.

  “That is why I feel better,” he murmured into the silence.

  But the relief was short lived, because the same logic carried a darker edge.

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  If time did not pass as it should, then he could remain here for centuries while the world beyond continued to move, to bleed and change. Westmere could fall. Duskmire could deepen its corruption. Kassyn could tighten his grip. The kingdom could burn to ash.

  And he would walk these corridors endlessly, preserved, unchanged, trapped in a stone womb of repeating night…Unless he finished the task.

  The howl rose again, long and strained, winding through the maze like a frayed thread pulled from ancient cloth.

  Brann stopped.

  What if the creatures were not mere beasts placed as obstacles?

  What if they were those who had failed?

  Men and women who had entered seeking treasure or truth, who had wandered too long, who had not found the fracture within themselves and sealed it.

  If he was right and they had been caught in this looping time for gods know how long, wandering the same corridors, seeing the same unchanging stars above, their minds would not remain intact.

  Even iron cracks if struck often enough.

  Sanity would erode first, then memory, then identity.

  What would remain after centuries of repetition?

  Only hunger…

  Howl.

  Brann felt a shiver crawl along his spine, despite the steadier warmth in his limbs.

  He imagined himself centuries hence, boots worn to threads that never frayed, voice hoarse from cries that never ceased, stalking these tunnels with no name and no end.

  No.

  He tightened his jaw.

  “This place is not my grave,” he said quietly, the words firm despite the darkness pressing close.

  The anchors lining the wall seemed to watch him, silent witnesses to countless choices made and unmade.

  If time here was bound, then choice was the only blade that could cut through it Caedran had said as much.

  Brann drew his fingers across the stone beside him, feeling for the carved rune beneath the moss.

  “If you bind time,” he whispered to the maze, “then you can be unbound.”

  Somewhere ahead, the howl shifted, closer now, its tone sharper, more aware.

  Brann straightened, hand settling upon the hilt of his sword.

  The fear remained, coiled and honest but beneath it, something else stirred.

  Resolve.

  He chose a method to traverse the maze and clung to it.

  Right at the first junction, left at the next, then repeat.

  Order out of chaos…

  He counted as he went. One. Two. Three. By the ninth junction his breath had grown shallow, not from exertion but from the creeping sense of scale. Just how vast was this place?

  Another right and then another left. He was certain that if he continued on this trajectory he would eventually reach the border of the maze.

  The howls had stopped for now, that didn’t made it better, at least before Brann had an idea of where the creature or creatures lurked, now it was dead quiet.

  The corridors blurred into sameness. Walls identical in height and texture, floors worn smooth by nothing he could name. Crystals placed at the same intervals, glowing with the same indifferent light. He stopped, frowning, then reached up and gripped one of the crystals.

  It resisted him.

  With more effort than he liked, he worked it free. No explosion. No trap. The crystal came loose in his hand, warm and faintly humming. He slipped it into his pocket and pressed on.

  Another junction then he doubled back.

  When he reached the corridor again, the crystal was back in the wall, whole and untouched.

  Brann’s breath caught. He thrust a hand into his pocket.

  Empty.

  Some sort of illusion, then or the maze correcting itself, erasing his marks, denying him any attempt to impose order.

  He slid down and sat heavily on the stone floor, back scraping against the wall, exhaustion and frustration knotting together in his chest. No one could have built something so vast on top of a mountain without people knowing about it or at least some history books mentioning it. Then again how would he know, he didn’t even recall seeing a history book.

  What was this place, truly, and how did one walk through something that refused to be measured.

  As the thought settled, something moved.

  Just at the edge of his vision. A flicker, darting from left to right at the far end of the corridor. Brann’s head snapped up.

  A figure, or was he imagining things?

  Brann pushed himself to his feet, heart pounding anew.

  If the maze showed him ghosts, then he would follow them, no matter the cost, he would get his answers.

  Brann ran.

  At first he saw no tracks, no signs that anyone had passed this way at all. Then, after a few more turns, he noticed them. Small scratches in the stone, shallow but deliberate, spaced at regular intervals. Like the tip of an arrow dragged along the rock.

  Whatever this creature was it was armed.

  The thought had barely formed when an arrow whispered past his ear.

  Brann dropped at once, rolling to the side, heart slamming against his ribs. He came up low, eyes searching the corridor ahead. At the next left turn he caught a glimpse of a shoulder, just for a heartbeat, pressed flat against the wall.

  “I mean you no harm,” Brann called out, voice hoarse. “I am trapped here, just like you.”

  No answer came, instead a long howl came from somewhere behind him. Brann only looked behind for one moment, then when his gaze returned to the position the archer had been there was nothing there. Brann paused for a moment, should he pursue further or should he return to Caedran for answers? He felt like he didn’t have enough information to form a question yet, not one that would receive any straight answer, so he pushed forward, carefully pursuing the archer.

  As Brann advanced, the maze slowly began to change.

  At first it was subtle. A thin root threaded through a crack in the stone, pale and searching. Then another and another…what had been bare, damp rock slowly surrendered to creeping life. Veins of wood forced their way between ancient blocks, prying them apart with patient strength. Moss thickened. Vines coiled downward like hanging serpents.

  The air shifted.

  The cold mineral scent of stone gave way to the loam rich breath of soil long undisturbed. The crystals embedded in the walls, once faintly luminous, dimmed further, their glow now weak and sickly, as if suffocated beneath the encroaching growth. A thin fog began to gather along the floor, first as a whisper, then as a low, clinging tide that brushed against his boots.

  The corridor no longer felt like a crafted labyrinth. It felt like a forest grown inside a tomb. A place abandoned by sun and season alike.

  He swallowed.

  Doubt edged into his thoughts.

  Would he even be able to retrace his steps if he pushed forward? The walls were now swallowed beneath roots and bark. Would he find his way back to Caedran?

  Or had the maze decided he had walked far enough from safety?

  He decided to pressed on.

  The passage widened abruptly, opening into a vast junction where multiple paths parted like spokes from a wheel. The ceiling here had split entirely. A column of moonlight spilled down from above, silver and sharp and at the center stood a massive tree stump.

  It rose thick and ancient from the stone floor, its surface scarred and weathered, its heartwood dark as old blood. It thrust upward through the broken ceiling, its severed crown lost somewhere beyond the rim of stone. The bark was ridged and twisted, roots coiling outward into the walls as though the tree itself had birthed this corrupted grove within the maze.

  Brann stepped cautiously into the clearing.

  For a fleeting moment, hope stirred…

  If the ceiling was broken open, perhaps he could climb. Perhaps he could reach the surface, confirm whether the stars had shifted, whether time still flowed beyond these walls.

  Perhaps escape lay not forward, but up.

  He approached the stump, eyes scanning the surrounding passages.

  He placed his palm against the bark.

  The wood was warm.

  The arrow struck an instant later.

  It sliced across his hand, grazing flesh and tearing skin before embedding itself into the trunk with a sharp, violent thud.

  Brann recoiled, pain flaring bright and immediate. He stumbled backward and rolled to the opposite side of the stump, pressing his back against its broad curve.

  Another arrow split the air, striking the stone where he had stood.

  He cursed under his breath, drawing his sword in a single smooth motion.

  “Stop firing!” Brann shouted, keeping low. “I just want to talk!”

  The answer came, and it froze him where he knelt.

  “I thought you preferred action before words.”

  It was Lysa’s voice…

  “You always get yourself into trouble and expect others to bail you out,” she went on, every word sharp with hurt. “But who bails us out, Brann. When we are overwhelmed, you are nowhere to be found. You abandoned us when you promised you’ll search for my brother.”

  Brann’s mind went blank. For a moment he could only stare into nothingness, breath caught halfway in his chest.

  “Lysa,” he whispered. “No… it’s not like that, I did this for you, for all of us. For the future.”

  “And where is my father in that future, or my brother” the voice demanded. “If you never came to Westmere, we would still be together”

  The words struck him like a blow to the gut. His breath left him in a ragged gasp, and a tear slid down his cheek before he could stop it.

  “I am sorry,” he said. “I am sorry I was not there for him, Riven never would have left if I didn’t fail”

  “You abandoned him,” Lysa said. “Just like you abandoned me and now you ended up here.”

  “No,” Brann said desperately. “Lysa, wait. We can still find him. We can still—”

  A second voice answered from behind him.

  “Find me. No need.”

  Brann turned slowly, dread coiling tight in his chest.

  “I found you first. So I could avenge my father.”

  Riven’s voice.