Melissa’s Reviews > Labyrinthine > Status Update

His stance lowers, breath steady, sword held like it’s part of his body. He’s already calculating how he’ll die.
And he’s choosing to do it standing.
Darian

I walk beside a man whose attention is constant, in a city ruled by one monster while another waits in the dark beneath it. And I wonder, not for the first time, if I’ve mistaken control for care. Or if I’ve survived by believing that one day I’ll solve the maze of lies that only deepens its hold every time I try to escape its clutches.
Azhara

I’m not used to browsing. Not used to time that belongs to me. The unfamiliarity of choice makes me slow.

Poor Azhara’s never been able to decide for herself 😕

They don’t stop. Darian’s fists fly, precision and fury blended into each strike. Mallen counters with brute force and frightening speed. He’s not holding back. Neither is Darian. Every hit lands like thunder.
Darian is protecting me. Mallen is fighting for me. And neither of them is listening to the person they’re trying to save.

Facing the demons in the arena

The stillness between us isn’t still at all. Not really. It’s laden with what we do not say but both feel. It’s stirring, disturbed, as if it’s an ocean whose smooth surface conceals turbulent currents in its depths.

Azhara and Mallen

He folds truth around a blade and offers it as mercy.

Azhara’s father

“You’re a princess., he says. “When you ask, others answer. You don’t apologize. You do not need to.”

He tells me the mischief and the discipline in the same breath, and it sounds like a map of him.

Darian shares himself with Azhara

Darian tells Azhara he thinks Mallen is in love with her