The Flame in the Maze by Caitlin Sweet Page A

them; she gazed at the scars that still seemed to be bubbling, alive on her skin.
How I’d love to watch you burn, Father. But I have a prince to rescue.
    When she lowered her arms, she saw Phaidra crawling up from the shattered staircase that led to the storerooms.

Chapter Five
    Phaidra had only just ducked out of the tunnel behind the great jar when the earth began to shake. She stood up and took a single pace. The jar shattered behind her, then another, and another; shards pelted her, cutting the backs of her legs and her neck as she fell; grain pelted her too, hard and stinging as hail. She lay on her side with her arms over her head, watching the floor ripple away from her in a long, straight line, like a snake preparing to strike. People were screaming, somewhere above her.
    First the empty cave
, she thought.
Now this
.
What are you planning, gods and goddesses of Crete?
    As she huddled away from the heaving, cracking earth and the gouts of steam, she tried to remember leaving the cave. She couldn’t. She
did
remember saying Icarus’s name over and over, in her head or maybe aloud, probably as she followed the tunnel back to the palace. She didn’t remember the tunnel, either.
I’ll likely remember
this, she thought, and a strange laugh rose and died in her throat.
    After the ground quieted, she sat up. Pain tore up her back and arms and neck; when she reached behind her to pat at these places, her hands came away slick with blood. Her breath hissed through her gritted teeth. She eased herself onto her uninjured hands and crawled carefully over tumbled stones. Dust hung in the air, and sunlight shone through the dust in places that had been closed, before. Holes everywhere, above and beneath her. Patches of sky, and cracks so deep she imagined she’d fall out the bottom of the world, if she slipped.
    By the time she’d crawled to the top of the steps to the courtyard, the pain was a dull throb. She paused, her gaze skittering across the wreckage: churned earth and slabs of stone; her father’s burning body; other people, crying, groaning, gabbling, or still.
    Then Minos’s voice silenced everything. Phaidra didn’t watch him as he spoke; she watched the queen, who stood near him, holding out her godmarked skin to his.
Mother
, Phaidra thought, when Minos finished talking and limped away, out beneath the western gate (one great scarlet pillar fallen; the frieze above shattered and partly gone).
Mother—why do you still love him?
    â€œPhaidra!”
    Gods and goddesses of Crete,
Phaidra thought as her body sagged, too late, toward the ground.
Please don’t let this happen.
    Ariadne’s shadow fell across her. “You’re bleeding.”
    â€œYes,” Phaidra said. She struggled to stand and managed not to moan. “I noticed.”
    Her sister’s eyes narrowed in that way that used to turn Phaidra’s insides to water. “Why were you down there?” she said, gesturing to the remnants of the steps. “No, wait: I know. You went to see
him
, though you swore to me you wouldn’t.”
    â€œAriadne,” Phaidra began, cursing her fear, groping for words, “I was only—”
    â€œNever mind,” Ariadne snapped. “I have no desire to think of him, or his crippled father, ever again. You and I have to go, now. To the Goddess’s mountain.”
    Phaidra gaped at her sister, blood and pain forgotten. “Why now? Why not wait and go with everyone else in Father’s procession?”
    â€œBecause we’re going to get that door open by ourselves. We’re going to rescue our brother before
Father
can destroy everything.”
    Phaidra felt her rebellious insides tighten. “You’re a liar, Ariadne. You have no desire to save Asterion. What’s really going on?” Her shoulders hunched, her body reacting to words she hadn’t even known she was thinking. She waited for a slap, or a sharp tug on