𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗿𝘂𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘀, luke castellan

ꜱɪxᴛʏ-ɴɪɴᴇ

The Lone Demigod.

🧶

Instead of days and nights, Rory felt like her life was now dictated by the harsh sunlight of the outside world and the suffocating darkness of the Labyrinth. Time seemed meaningless here, stretched thin and warped by the endless tunnels that twisted and turned, each step carrying her further away from any semblance of normalcy. She had stopped marking days, stopped trying to keep track of how long they had been wandering. It didn't matter anymore. The only constants were the shadows and whatever their current mission was.

She thought of Chris.

Chris, who had wandered this same darkness alone, haunted and broken. Minos had gotten into his mind, crept into every vulnerable corner, filling every crevice of him until there was nothing left but fragments of the person he used to be. Rory wondered what those last days had been like for him. Had Chris felt fear in the silence of the maze, or had the madness spared him that particular torment? She shuddered at the thought of him stumbling through the endless tunnels.

But Chris was out now. Unlike them, he had escaped the Labyrinth's clutches. Rory wasn't sure if she should envy him for that. Maybe it was a mercy, being free of this cursed place, even if he wasn't whole anymore.

Time was running out.

Daedalus's deadline was fast approaching, and soon they would have their answer. Rory knew it would be a positive one—there was no doubt in her mind. Try as he might to deny it, Daedalus was still a prideful man. That arrogance, that hubris, was so common among men who thought themselves untouchable, invincible. It was their fatal flaw, and Daedalus was no exception. He saw the world as a series of calculations, of deals to be made and outcomes to be optimized. To him, Kronos's rise was inevitable, with or without his involvement.

Why not get something out of it in the meantime?

That's how Daedalus thought. Rory was sure of it. She had spent enough time around people like him—those whose pride would always be their undoing. His stay at Camp Half-Blood would be proof enough. He had seen their weaknesses, their disorganization. To Daedalus, it wasn't a question of if they would lose, but when.

This time, they had brought maps.

Over the past few months, they had been sending scouting missions into the maze, desperately searching for any advantage they could claim. Most of those missions had ended in disaster-terrible losses that left a bitter taste in everyone's mouths. They were trying to find a way forward without relying on Daedalus, but the Labyrinth didn't give up its secrets easily. Each failed attempt weighed heavily on their morale, their forces slowly dwindling as the maze claimed more lives.

Luke hadn't appeared happy about the delays, especially given Rory's lenience toward Daedalus. On the surface, his frustration was clear—every wasted day brought them further from their goal of invading Camp Half-Blood. Yet, Rory suspected there was more to it than that. She noticed the way his shoulders would relax slightly whenever another day passed without a definitive decision. His impatience was real, but so was the almost imperceptible relief at her stalling tactics.

Because the longer Rory delayed, the further away Luke's death was.

She couldn't stop what was coming. She was starting to come to realize that. But she could slow it down, if only for a little while. Every day she bought was a victory, even if it was a hollow one.

Their next challenge loomed large: a junction deep in the maze, said to lead to the lair of Antaeus, the infamous son of Gaia and Poseidon. Their path to Camp Half-Blood would inevitably take them there, and it was a perilous obstacle. Getting Ariadne's string from Daedalus was one thing; getting past Antaeus was another challenge entirely.