The Labyrinth King (The Labyrinth Series Book 1) Read online

  The Labyrinth King

  L.J. Serafin

  Copyright © 2021 by Liza Jane Serafin

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Artist: Bethany Gilbert, @Bethgilbert_art

  Ornamental Designs: Lina Amarego @silver_wheel_press_designs

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  8. Chapter 8: Leo

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  13. Chapter 13: Leo

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  20. Chapter 20: Leo

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  25. Chapter 25: Leo

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  40. Chapter 40: Leo

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  51. Chapter 51: Alder

  Accompanying Playlist

  Notes

  Acknowledgments

  Coming Soon from L.J. Serafin

  About the Author

  To Hahee, for reading every single edit and being my very first fan.

  “Don’t tell me truth hurts, little girl, cause it hurts like hell.”

  David Bowie, The Labyrinth (1986)

  Prologue

  Elders in the town of Villam didn’t like to tell stories of the Labyrinth and how it came to be, but if you offered them a piece of fresh bread or a fat pigeon, they were more likely to cooperate. They would all first speak of four great towns that were united by a grand marketplace, a town for each type of trade. Villam, our town, was agriculture. Sericum, to the west of us, was spices, silk, and fine materials. Cognitonis, to the east of us, was knowledge and books. Mare, directly north from us, was a trading port on an ocean. The towns traded freely and the marketplace went on for miles, each town strengthened by the trade and becoming richer. Then, one day, a man rode into the marketplace and cast a great curse. The curse twisted the marketplace into a winding labyrinth, to forever separate the four towns. A dark, treacherous forest grew around Villam, trapping us between it and the Labyrinth itself. What had happened to the other three towns, no one in Villam knew.

  Who that man was and why the curse came to be, was where the elders disagreed. One told me that a queen fell in love with a commoner from another town, and when the King found out, his vengeance took the form of the curse to separate the lovers forever. Another told me the man was a god, and it was a curse of the gods to keep the towns from becoming too prosperous, or perhaps a way to entertain themselves as humans went in and were lost forever. More frequently, I heard he was a great warlock who wanted to rule all four towns, but in his black magic, he became trapped within the Labyrinth itself. Whatever the story, they all seemed to agree on one thing: The Labyrinth was cursed and anyone who was brash enough to enter it would quickly meet an untimely death or be lost inside forever. No one in my town who had entered the Labyrinth to attempt to break the curse had ever returned. And in the over hundred years since it was formed, the numbers of brave souls had dwindled.

  As time passed, our once great town became poorer and poorer, as if the soil was being slowly poisoned by the Labyrinth’s curse. The townsfolk tried to be content with living their small, simple lives farming. What other choice did they have? An annual tax was taken from the self-claimed Labyrinth King, who lived at the tower in the center and sent out declarations by letter. Each season the bridge to the Labyrinth would open for two days. It was expected during that time for the taxes to be collected and placed on the bridge, before it closed again until the next season. Two years ago, a family decided not to pay their taxes, and we found them the next morning. They were nailed to their doors, large grotesque iron shards protruding from their mangled bodies, slowly bleeding out. Pinned to the father’s heart was a single note that said: I am watching. No one had dared questioned the tax since.

  Whoever was in there, whoever this Labyrinth King was, it was clear he was more present in our lives than we realized. After that incident, I was more aware of dark corners and the distant trees, now and then noticing a slight chill in the air and the hair on the back of my neck raising as I walked past the walls of the Labyrinth. I could sense watchful eyes following me. But why?

  Chapter 1

  I leaned against the cold stone wall of my alley and tried to pretend the stale bread in my hand was a piece of delicious chocolate cake. Leo sat on the ground across from me with his hands strumming a pretend guitar.

  “Happy Birthday to you—” he crooned, smiling through those blue-grey eyes. “Happy Birthday sweet Valeria 1—” drawing out my name, “Happy Birthday to you—” he finished, his voice soft and taunting.

  Rolling my eyes at the term sweet, I pretended to blow out a candle on my bread. I made a simple wish: may this be the year. May this be the year my life changed. May this be the year something happened, anything happened, that would bring me out of this cold, dark alley and into a warmer life.

  Leo took a bite of his piece with me and smiled. He always had a way of making even the simplest of things seem a treasure. Today is my twenty-first birthday, a day that some would celebrate with a large party and cake. For me, a simple song and shared bread with Leo was the best I could have hoped for.

  A twinge of pain shot through my heart as I thought of my parents and how they would feel if they were here to watch me turn twenty-one today. How this day would have been if I weren’t an orphan, if I had a family, if I even knew who my parents were. Supposedly, my parents were killed when I was an infant by the Labyrinth King, though no one knew why.

  I was raised till the age of eight by the orphanage in town before I left, content to avoid the daily chores and punishments, and to find my own way in this world instead. I found this alley, tucked away behind a cobbler’s house, and tried to make it my home.

  “You’ll amount to nothing. You’ll have to whore yourself out for money. Have a nice life,” the headmistress had said, as she slammed the door behind me. I kept walking, never once turning around, confident I could take care of myself.

  That was when I met Leo. He was eight as well, and the cobbler’s son. Leo and I became quick friends, but his father refused to take me in. He said Leo was more than enough to feed. I could still hear the disdain in his voice that day.r />
  “I can barely afford to feed you and you want me to take in this gutter trash? Get out of here girl, go back to the orphanage where you belong.”

  Leo had come out a few minutes later, showing me a hidden corner behind their house.

  “You can stay here, it’s not much but it’s safe,” he had said. He was always so kind to me, from the very beginning.

  So, I had spent the past thirteen years here, behind this alley. Each day going out to look for a day’s work. Some days I would help the farmers, some days I would tend to the nets of the fishermen, other days I would help a mother with laundry. Food and a few cents were my usual pay, enough to live one more day. Enough to work for one more day. Leo would sneak me food occasionally, but his father was strict and kept close watch on what they had, even when he was drunk.

  Over the years, I became hardened by this life. I learned to pick pocket when necessary and make myself invisible within crowds.

  When I turned fourteen, men started to grab me as I walked by, and I suddenly found a need to protect myself. I started spending day and night, in between working, practicing with a dagger. A dagger that I had stolen off a man who was too busy propositioning me to notice. Its handle was a golden serpent with emeralds for eyes. It would have brought me enough money to eat for a year if I had traded it, but I kept it anyway. My entire sense of security attached to the gilded blade.

  Later that same night, I found the man passed out drunk behind a tavern. I stood over him with the dagger for a long time, contemplating killing him for touching me. But in the end, I walked away. Not out of fear of killing a man, but for the fear of getting caught.

  I was terrible with the dagger at first, but soon became skilled and agile, lethal with the tiny blade. I would sneak off to the dark forest and practice throwing it into the trees until it hit the heart of my target every single time. I would sharpen it at night before sleeping, tucking it under me as I slept on my small bed of hay. As long as I had my dagger, no one could hurt me.

  Leo helped his father during the day and would come out to see me in the evenings, his father usually blackout drunk by sunset. When we were younger, Leo would sometimes sneak me up to his room, where we would share his small but soft bed. The warmth and cushion were a blessing after a day of hard work, but it was risky.

  When we were nine, we were caught by his father, who was furious and beat Leo with a shoehorn. The welts remained on his back for a week. I couldn’t stomach the thought of that happening to him again, so I resigned myself to my alley.

  I had made other decisions to protect him as well, not sharing certain aspects of myself with Leo. I didn’t tell him about my training with the dagger. Didn’t tell him about the things I had to do just to survive sometimes. I hid it all from him.

  Whether it was a way for me to protect him, or really a way to protect myself from the fear of his rejection if he knew the real me, I wasn’t entirely sure. Most days it felt like both.

  Still, Leo would sit outside with me in the evenings and we would talk about our dreams and our hopes. We both had many hopes.

  Recently, his hope had turned to me. All the years we spent as children, I had only seen him as a friend. But now we were both adults and with that came… different emotions.

  Leo had been a short, scrawny kid, but he had grown tall and his arms muscular from working with the shoe leather. His blonde hair was short but shaggy around his face, and his blue-grey eyes always shone despite our bleak circumstances.

  We had tangled several times in the past years, usually when I had stolen us some wine or whiskey to enjoy. I know he wanted more from me, much more. And I did love him in my heart. He had always been there for me. But I looked at his life as a cobbler’s son and that future with him was not what I dreamt of at night.

  Still, he looked at me like that, and I couldn’t blame him. I had grown into quite the woman. My body was lean and muscular from hours spent training with my blade and working long days with little nourishment. A feminine curve had developed too, accentuating my hips and cleavage through my simple clothes. My hair grew long, a dark raven color that I wore seductively around my face.

  I learned to wield my forest green eyes and thick lips, to use my looks to my advantage. Men were the easiest to manipulate and steal from, they always underestimated a beautiful woman. When I wanted something, it would take as little as one look, one enchanting glance at them from beneath my dark eyelashes, to get what I wanted.

  All these years, I had been trying to prove that headmistress wrong. But maybe she was right.

  “What did you wish for?” Leo asked, still smiling with those sparkling eyes.

  “Oh you know, just for a handsome prince to come take me away.”

  He laughed and wiggled his eyebrows at me. “What a coincidence that I happen to be right here. May I escort you back to my palace, milady?”

  I laughed back at him and as our gaze met. My heart zapped and I gave him an inviting smile.

  Leo leaned forward to kiss me, a soft sweet kiss on my cheek. He lingered there for a second, waiting to see if I was going to turn my head and kiss him back.

  “LEO, WHERE THE FUCK IS MY WHISKEY BOTTLE?” his father roared out the back door, jolting us both. His eyes were red and glazed against his pale skin and ruddy cheeks. The smell of liquor wafted out of the house and over to where we sat.

  “LEAVE THAT STREET TRASH ALONE AND GET IN HERE TO HELP ME FIND IT,” he screamed, slamming the door. Leo pulled back and gave me a sad smile, a look I knew all too well.

  “Well, goodnight Val. Maybe I can sneak back out later and we can go look at the stars by the river?” he winked seductively. I leaned back against the icy wall and shrugged. He stood up and gave me one last wistful glance before walking into the house.

  A feeling of resentment washed over me. Leo was home, a comfort to me. I loved him. But what I really wanted, more than anything, more than I loved him, was a way to escape. A way to leave this shitty town behind. A different life.

  My heart sunk at the thought of disappointing him. I knew one day I would have to be honest with him and tell him the truth. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it, not to the only person who cared about me. The only person who had been there for me all this time.

  The draw of a different life pulled on my heart. I had spent years wishing for it, working for it, teaching myself how to protect myself should the time ever come that I left this place. I had always been preparing. For what? I didn’t know.

  I thought of the note I kept in my safe, hiding spot in the alley wall. The note that was found with me when I was left at the orphanage all those years before.

  Valeria, you are meant for more. I will find you.

  That’s all the note said. And those simple words had propelled my entire life. Whatever more I was meant for, whoever had written that note, I would not disappoint them.

  I closed my eyes as I leaned against the alley wall and tried to picture what my mother must have looked like. Did she look like me? Or did I get my features from my father?

  I tried to picture them both, pictured them reaching their hands out to me, showing up and taking me away from here. Away from this dark alley. Away from this small life.

  I was meant for something more.

  A few minutes later, his father started singing. Whenever he sang, it would be a few hours before he fell asleep, which meant Leo was unlikely to come back out tonight. I stretched my legs and stood up. I would have to take myself to the river alone instead. I touched the dagger strapped to my thigh for reassurance and left.

  Chapter 2

  I walked down the winding street of our town, past several taverns that were alight with the sounds of laughter and singing. I had spent more than a few nights in those taverns after turning eighteen, earning money and food in any way I could, but always on my own terms. I cringed, thinking of the last time, of the drunken whiskey breath and rough hands on me. I had no choice though. I hadn’t eaten a real meal in two weeks.
Much like today.

  My stomach growled as I eyed one of the taverns. The bread hadn’t taken the edge off my perpetual hunger. I could easily get more food and maybe some beer if I went in. Easily use my flirtation powers against an unsuspecting man. I looked down the road that would eventually lead me to the river. But the hunger pang hit again. The river could wait.

  It was hot inside the tavern, the men sweating as they drank. A few girls in shorter skirts stood over the tables, leaning on the men as they played cards or drank their beers. They made their full time living here with these men. An option I had considered, it was an easy way to provide myself with food and a bed. But at what cost? I couldn’t stomach it.

  I looked over the room, determining which man to con. A dark-haired man sat alone at the end of the bar, an empty stool next to him. He appeared young-ish. Maybe in his thirties. He was scruffy and unkempt, but not entirely unattractive. It was easier to do when they were at least somewhat handsome and young.

  I sauntered over to him, his eyes on his glass of beer, and took a seat next to him. I faced forward, flipping my hair over my shoulder and letting my gaze fall to his face. One side of my lips perked up into an endearing smile. He noticed me immediately, of course, and his back straightened as he took me in.