🦋ALTHEAÂ
The air turned thick, suffocating, like breathing through wet wool. The Mist clung to everything—our skin, our clothes, our lungs. It glowed faintly, pulsing with a light that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once.
Red.
Everything was red.
I could barely see the person in front of me, let alone the Vargans leading us.
And then—
"Althea."
My head snapped up.
That voice.
I knew that voice.
"Althea, sweetheart."
My breath caught.
No.
It couldn't be.
Through the swirling red fog, a shape began to form. Hazy at first, then sharper. A wolf. Large, russet -furred, with eyes that glowed amber in the Mist.
It stared right at me.
"You shouldn't be here," it said, its voice soft and familiar. "Come. I'll take you somewhere safe."
I froze.
My step father.
The wolf took a step closer, and for a moment—just a moment—I wanted to believe it.
Wanted to follow.
But then it dissolved, wisps of red smoke curling where it had stood.
Gone.
I swallowed hard, my pulse racing.
Ignore the voices.
Right.
---
We walked.
And walked.
And walked.
Time lost meaning in the Mist. There was no sun, no moon, no way to tell if it was day or night. Just the endless red fog and the sound of chains rattling and feet dragging against the ground.
The voices never stopped.
"Althea, help me."
"Why did you leave me?"
"You could have saved me."
"Come back."
Wren.
I kept my eyes down, focused on the ground, on putting one foot in front of the other.
The other tributes weren't so lucky.
On the second day, one of them—a girl, younger than me—started crying. "I hear my mother," she whispered. "She's calling for me."
"Don't listen," I rasped, my voice barely audible.
But she wasn't listening to me.
"She says she's lost. She needs help." The girl's eyes were wide, glassy. "I have to go to her."
"No—" I reached for her, but the chains jerked me back.
She lunged sideways, into the Mist, screaming for her mother.
The Vargans didn't even try to stop her.Â
He unchained her from the rest of us.
We heard her screaming for a long time after that.
And then we didn't.
---
By the third day, my legs were numb. My mouth was dry despite the water they'd given us. The brand on my back had stopped hurting—or maybe I'd just stopped feeling it.
The Mist began to thin.
Slowly at first, then faster.
And then—
We saw it.
It rose out of the fog like a monument to something ancient and wrong. Massive stone walls, dark and imposing, stretching endlessly in both directions. Towers jutted up like broken teeth, and torches burned along the perimeter, their flames an eerie, unnatural blue.
Wolves prowled the grounds.
Not like the ones I knew.
These were different.
Larger. Darker. Their eyes gleamed red in the firelight, and their movements were too fluid, too predatory.
They watched us as we approached.
Silent.
Waiting.
The gates loomed ahead, wrought iron twisted into shapes I didn't want to look at too closely.
They opened without a sound.
And we were dragged inside.
The courtyard was vast and empty, the stone beneath our feet cracked and ancient. The air here felt colder, sharper, like the Mist had teeth.
A figure stepped out from the shadows.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Dressed in dark armor that seemed to drink in the light.
I couldn't see his face.
But I felt his gaze.
Heavy. Piercing. Like he could see straight through me.
The Vargans stopped, bowing their heads.
"The tributes, my lord," Thal said quietly.
The figure said nothing.
Just stood there, watching.
And I realized, with cold, sinking certainty, that this was only the beginning.
We weren't alone.
As we stood in the courtyard, still shackled and trembling, the gates opened again.
And again.
And again.
More tributes poured in, chains rattling, brands still raw on their backs. From every direction they came—escorted by Vargans, flanked by gammas from different packs. Some looked defiant. Others looked broken. All looked terrified.
I counted them as they arrived.
Twenty including us.Â
Twenty tributes for the High Alpha's harvest.
We were herded together like cattle, pressed into a tight cluster in the center of the courtyard. The wolves circling us didn't move, didn't blink, just watched with those unnatural red eyes.
And then the armored figure gestured.
A command.
The massive doors behind him—carved from dark wood and etched with symbols that seemed to writhe in the torchlight—groaned open.
We were pushed forward, while the people that led us there fell back.
And we were led into the Labyrinth.
---
It should have been beautiful.
The halls were wide and tall, their ceilings vaulting so high I couldn't see where they ended. Marble floors gleamed under our feet, polished to a mirror shine. Chandeliers dripping with crystals hung overhead, casting fractured light across the walls.
Tapestries depicted scenes I couldn't quite make sense of—wolves and moons and blood and fire, all woven together in patterns that hurt to look at too long.
Gold leaf traced the edges of every archway, every column, every doorway.
Opulent.
Lavish.
Wrong.
Because it wasn't just a palace.
It was a maze.
The hallways twisted and turned in ways that didn't make sense. Staircases led to nowhere. Doors opened onto walls, I watched them open and close. Corridors doubled back on themselves, or seemed to, or maybe they didn't—I couldn't tell anymore.
What the hell was this?
The walls felt alive.
Like they were watching.
Listening.
Waiting.
I kept my eyes down, focused on the person in front of me, on the sound of chains and footsteps echoing endlessly through the stone.
Don't look too closely, I told myself.
Don't think too hard.
Just keep moving.
We walked for what felt like hours.
Or maybe minutes.
Time didn't work right here.
Finally, the hallway opened into a hall so vast it dwarfed us all.
The ceiling stretched impossibly high, disappearing into shadow. Columns lined the walls, thick as trees, carved with figures that seemed to shift when I wasn't looking directly at them. The floor was black marble, veined with red like frozen blood.
And at the far end, on a throne of dark stone and twisted iron, sat the High Alpha.