Chapter 1 WHEN I open my eyes, I don''t know where I am, only that I''m lying on a bed of velvety moss over a black stone floor as smooth as glass. I don''t know who I am, either. Not even my name. But I can feel power humming under my skin like a wellspring waiting to be tapped. I don''t know how to reach it, but it''s there. It''s a comforting presence when everything else is unfamiliar to me, even my own body. Rolling onto my side, I gag as my stomach heaves, but nothing comes up. For a moment, I simply lie there and breathe.
There are strange coils of rope at my wrists, but at least my limbs aren''t bound. My vision swims and my stomach churns like a stormy sea as I blink to bring the world into sharper focus. I spot sculptures of threaded white marble emerging gracefully from hedges that form tall green walls with no ceiling but the sky capping them. Even though the statues are inanimate, my eyes flick from one to the next in search of danger. The stone shapes depict humans and gods, as well as animals, strange beasts, and creatures part beast and part human. The soft scent of flowers tickles my nose. Some of the figures stand free from the hedges, vines and leaves draping necks and shoulders and fresh blossoms wreathing heads or horns. All seem placid, benevolent, as if they were frozen in the midst of a pleasant outdoor gathering.
Butterflies drift haphazardly in the air, one alighting on the upraised hand of a nearby statue, a smiling man with a fish''s tail instead of legs. The place looks at once like an old ruin and something uniquely new. I wince--the hard ground beneath me is biting into my hip. Propping myself up on one elbow in a patch of moss, I take stock of myself, letting my stomach settle. The pale expanse of my thigh is laid bare by a creamy white tunic that splits below the hips for ease of movement. Mysterious coils of thin, fibrous rope that looks spun with gold entwine my arms and slender waist, winding even between my modest breasts, I notice as I look down. I recall a fleeting sensation of lips brushing over them, and it''s as if, for a moment, I''m looking at myself from outside my body. I''m female, it appears.
This realization, like everything, is disorienting. My hand moves to my ribs, and then my buttocks. Yes, I''m solid. I seem to understand the boundaries of my world, just not what it contains. "Well, well. Look where you are now, you colossal, bloody fool," says a voice behind me, both hiss and purr, outraged and gleeful. I look over my shoulder and choke on a shriek. He stands above me, both man and monster and yet no statue--he''s too menacing and vivid and alive.
He''s tall and well-built, sinewy arms revealed by a black tunic cut much like mine, twined in scarlet ropes. His skin is pale but lightly smoked, even blue toned. Strong hands with fine fingers and pointed black nails rest on hips that taper from wide, wiry shoulders in a way that draws my eye downward. But it''s his furious expression more than his eerie beauty that drags my attention back to his face, his eyes a bright, livid red above sharp cheeks that look chiseled from stone. Even stranger, curving dark horns grow from within the slate-colored waves of hair on his head, a pair of them, like the tines of a wickedly large fork. "I have you at a disadvantage, it seems," he says with a white, sharp-toothed grin. "As usual." Indeed, I don''t recognize him, but then I don''t even recognize myself.
A tail tufted in silky fur the color of his hair lashes behind him. In place of shoes and feet, that same fur coats his ankles and drapes over dark cloven hooves, one of which taps sharply on the ground next to me. "What are you?" I rasp. Who are you? might have been the more polite question, but it''s hard to focus beyond his horns and hooves. He gestures as if presenting himself. "A daemon." When I only blink at him, he adds, "Once a demigod who bound his divine soul. Divine souls are pesky things, so limited by divine rules .
I prefer no bindings but my own--and in this case, they''ve freed me. Immortality is much more fun this way, don''t you think? You should know this, but of course you remember nothing, do you?" He doesn''t wait for me to respond. "My memory is mostly intact, because I still remember you--alas--if not exactly how we got here." "Where--?" I begin, clearing my throat and sitting up all the way. I have feet, I discover, bound in sturdy sandals with straps twining up my slender calves. Long waves of burnished bronze hair fall in my face. Oddly, I don''t recall having this hair, and yet I remember always liking the shade of it, inhabiting the space between red, dark blond, and light brown. I scrape it out of my way and look up.
I''m dizzy, but not too much to better make out the towering green walls and moss-carpeted, glassy black floors all around me. I''m in a small courtyard, a patch of nondescript pale sky above, too reticent to reveal time or weather, with those living hallways branching off in three different directions, white marble statues scattering the lengths of them. The paths bend too quickly for me to see where they lead. In the center of the courtyard is a huge fountain, its basin dry, patchy with emerald moss and dripping with vines. No water, but despite my dry mouth, I''m not thirsty. "A maze," the daemon says, answering my half-asked question. "Not part of the mortal plane, but still a mess of your own making, I must emphasize. You witches are all so overreaching, grasping for what doesn''t belong to you.
Grasping at beings you don''t understand." He waves about. "Fine work, you finally annoyed one of them enough to accept your challenge. If anyone could be so irritating, you could." His harsh tone doesn''t fit the scene, it doesn''t fit me , and it''s making my head hurt. I press a few fingers against my temple, as if that will get everything to stop spinning. "What challenge?" I ask. I don''t feel very challenging or irritating, like this.
He brings a hand to his mouth. "Gods, I love this. You, brought so low. But I can be generous, even if you''ve taken me down with you." He swallows unmistakably spiteful mirth. "We''re in this maze as a trial. This is your path to victory. Your ruin.
" My surroundings aren''t unlovely, and there''s only these strange, peaceful statues inhabiting the airy green corridors. Nothing prowling that I can see. But the walls feel heavy. Waiting. Alive , beyond being hedges. I wasn''t mistaken to look for danger. And maybe it''s right in front of me, in the form of this towering, malevolent daemon. He isn''t unlovely, either, but the devastating smile and the pleasingly sculpted musculature that I can trace even under his tunic don''t mask the sharp nails and coiled violence of his motions.
"What sort of victory?" I ask, squinting up at him and trying to moisten my tongue. The daemon gestures around, waving a pale bluish hand. "Why, if you get out of here alive, solve the puzzle, and defeat the monster at the end, you''ll be granted immense power beyond your wildest imagining. Not beyond my ken, because I''m already powerful." "So am I," I say. It''s the only truth I know. I was more concerned by monster until he cast doubt on my abilities. He laughs, a sound sharp enough to draw blood.
"You''re nothing, next to me." That doesn''t seem quite right. "Why should I believe you?" He''s a daemon, after all. While I don''t fully grasp what that means, he''s painted himself in opposition to his once-divine nature--unbound by rules. Which means he could also be a liar . Then again, he''s supposedly immortal. That might indeed make me nothing, next to him. And yet, I don''t feel like nothing.
"Questions, questions." He puts a long-nailed hand to the broad plain of his chest. "But I''m generous, remember? Now I''ll help you even more. I''ll help you get through this. It''s not all altruism on my part. If you don''t get to the end, I don''t. That''s the deal." I shake my head.
"None of this makes sense. Why can''t I remember anything?" The daemon shrugs, done with answering, only a delicious satisfaction spreading over his face like cream over a cat''s whiskers. His lashing tail fits the image. In a flash, like lightning illuminating a dark scene, I remember: me, feeding him a honeyed fig in a room of soft silks and pale marble beneath a foliage-cloaked sky. His tongue, licking the stickiness from my fingers as well as his own lips after he takes the bite in his mouth. His wicked grin. But his red eyes held something beyond hunger. Something more potent, possessive.
I hug my knees to my chest, sandals scuffing over moss. A shudder lurks under my skin, but the coldness I feel isn''t in my flesh; it''s somewhere deep and forgotten inside me. I don''t know much of anything, but I do know that this man, this daemon, does not like me. And I, instinctively, do not like him. So it seems impossible there was ever a time I could have given him a sweet offering and he could have looked at me like that in return. There''s obviously much more to our story. But I need to start at the beginning. "What''s my name?" I whisper.
Grudging emotion flickers over his sharp, cold features. Reluctant pity, perhaps. I probably do look pathetic, in my huddle on the ground. "Sadaré," he says. I repeat it, without recognition. "And yours?" "Daesra." I don''t repeat his name, to avoid.