The chill of the Labyrinth's depths permeated bones as she carefully traversed the chamber. With each step she took, the air weighed heavier with tension, pressing against her chest maliciously. The faint glow of the runes on the walls provided her only faint light in that area. It cast behind her flickering shadows that appeared to be writhing over time.
"Lena?" she called out repeatedly, her voice echoing in this suffocating silence.
Not again.
The shadows shifted in her front, and Rhea turned again. She summoned a shard of stone to rest in her hand. The faint humming of her magic steadied her, but the silences stretched like something worse than a threat. She couldn't quite shake the feeling that somehow unseen eyes weighed the prickliness of her skin.
"Get it together," she muttered to herself as she tightened her grip on it.
And as she advanced further into the chamber, her watchful gaze caught sight of something glimmering faintly in the darkness. She stepped further closer, with a heartbeat loud in her ears, to find a scrap of violet silk snagged on a jagged stone. Relief flickered in her chest at this.
"She must be close," Rhea whispered faintly, a small comfort in the oppressive silence.
The shadows on the walls thickened and billowed like smoke. Rhea's hold on the shard grew tighter as the darkness appeared to develop into a familiar form. A catch in her breath was caused as Riven stepped from the gloom, his amber eyes glowing faintly in the dim light.
"You again," said Rhea angrily.
"Miss me?" he asked, a slight smirk crinkling his lips.
"What are you doing here?"
"Saving you," came Riven's reply. His face didn't look in any hurry, only with an air of indifference. "Not like you're the stealthiest in the Labyrinth, you know."
Rhea glared at him, anger taking precedence over her unease. "I don't need saving."
"Clearly," Riven said, the smirk on his face widening as his gaze flicked to that shard in her hand. "Because you're doing such a great job on your own."
She huffed, lowered the shard, but stood ready with it. "I'm looking for Lena. She fell with me, but I haven't seen her since."
Riven tilted his head, his serious expression reappearing. "The Labyrinth is meant to separate people as part of its challenge. But if she is alive, we will find her."
Rhea hesitates while her instincts tell her to not trust him, but considering the shadows drawing near and the weight of suffocating silence, she knows it is not much of a choice.
"Fine," she says. "But no games, Riven."
He raised his hands in mock surrender. "Wouldn't dream of it."
Cautiously, they moved into the twisting passages as light from runes grew feeble at every turn. Rhea held the shard at the ready, her senses on high alert. Meanwhile, Riven moved with the quiet confidence of someone who belonged to the shadows.
"Then how does it taste in your mouth just as the first palate of the Labyrinth breaks the ice?" asked Riven. "It is charming, " comes the dry reply from Rhea. "Welcoming," she said after stillness. Riven chuckled softly, in the sound low and almost warm. "You are not wrong. It's a way of testing your limits. Some people thrive in it." "And others don't," Rhea ended soberly, looking at him. He nodded. "The Labyrinth isn't merely a maze. It's alive. It senses your fears and your weaknesses. That makes it dangerous."
Looking at him, Rhea said: "And yet you seem perfectly at home here. " Riven shrugged. "House Shadows has its perks. We are trained to embrace the dark, not fear it." The way he said it, was so calming and matter-of-fact that it sent a shiver down her spine.
They rounded a corner, and a passage opened into another chamber. This one was smaller, its walls covered in shifting runes that pulsed with an eerie light. In the center was a shallow pool of dark water, perfectly still and saved for the faint ripples of magic radiating from it. "What is this place?" Rhea asked, stepping closer. Riven's gaze darkened. "A memory well. The Labyrinth likes to play tricks with your mind. Do not touch the water."
With narrowed eyes, Rhea asked, "Why?" "Because it would possibly show you things that you may not be ready to see, " he said, uncharacteristically serious. She gazed at the magical pool. Her reflection shimmered faintly on its surface. For a moment, she thought she saw something else – a shadow that was not her own, a flicker of movement in the water.
"Rhea," Riven said, voice cold as steel.
The spell broke, and she recoiled. "I wasn't going to touch it."
"Good," he replied, his expression softening. "The Labyrinth feeds on doubt. Don't give it more than it already has."
The two left the light behind, the passageway narrowing and the air growing colder. Silence stretched out between them, only humbling with the occasional faint rustling of their footsteps.
Rhea glanced at Riven out of the corner of her eye; he looked sharp and unreadable in the dim light. Yet there was something about him that was both dangerous and enticing.
"You seem to know quite a bit about this place," she said at last.
He smirked. "Comes with the territory."
"House Shadows?"
"Something like that," he said, but with an evasive tone.
She frowned. "Why are you helping me, Riven?"
He turned at that moment to her. His amber eyes caught and held hers with an overwhelming intensity to make her a little breathless.
"Maybe I'm curious," he said. "Or maybe I'm not just about to watch you kill yourself."
Rhea caught her breath because of the honesty in his voice, but before she could say anything, a sound echoed through the passage – a faint high – pitched scream.
"Lena," Rhea spoke in a tight voice.
Not bothering to wait for Riven, she ran down the corridor with her heart beating like a drum in her ears. She ran through the winding passage, disoriented by the eccentricity of the light cast by the runes, but never slowing.
She burst into a small chamber where her eyes began searching for Lena immediately. The girl had her back against the wall, hands filled with crackling electricity confronting a hulking shadowy creature.
It was far larger than any of the creatures they had ever faced, much more solid, and something feral glowed from its eyes.
"Rhea!" Lena cried out in a pained voice.
Rhea didn't hesitate. Summoning a shard of stone, she hurled it toward the creature, striking it deep in the shoulder. It roared and found its line of attention all of a sudden onto her presence.
"Get down!" Riven's voice rang out, and Rhea dropped instinctively as a wave of shadows burst through behind her, slamming into the creature. The force sent it crashing into the wall, but it was not enough to take it down.
Rhea scrambled to her feet, summoning another shard of ice to throw just as Lena sent a bolt of lightning arcing through the air. The beast howled, its form flickering before it dissolved into smoke.
Silence descended over the chamber, remaining like tense calm between two sides just before a storm broke free.
"You took your time," Lina remarked, the lightness of her tone entirely belied by the evidence of weariness in her eyes.
She helped her up, relief rushing over her. "Glad to see you still in one piece."
"Thanks to you two," said Lena, glancing at Riven. "Though I wasn't expecting Frosty to have a shadowy sidekick."
"Nice to meet you, too, lightning girl," Riven smirked.
Rhea rolled her eyes, but couldn't help the small tugging smile at her lips.
And so, the three of them stood there, in the dim light, under the weight of the Labyrinth over them. An uncertain path lay ahead, but Rhea knew one thing right: they were going far from safe.