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desperation to merely survive each day. The cheapest of the drugs, known as Vir-Gil, was cut with chemicals that burned skin and corrupted blood. The deformity creeping into the population ensured that refugee women were always in demand.  
    Ari could see the imprint of what the city had once been, but the place had changed in her long absence. The colors here now were a palate of grey and brown, but not the burnt sienna of autumn leaves or the silvery feathers of the mountain owl, but bleached versions of what the Goddess had put into the natural world. The world outside was difficult and dangerous, Ari thought, but wasn't it better to die in the woods, as the weak sun filtered through the leaves, a moment of pleasure before death? Here, there was nothing of beauty, except the children for a brief moment, before they were ruined even as they bloomed. Enough, Ari thought, her eyes fixed on the back of the guard, counting the minutes before she would stand before the monster once again.  
    At the heart of the city, a labyrinth was constructed from fragile huts packed with families, so that the jagged paths through the shanty town were near impossible to navigate. It stank of sewage, rubbish and death, for when people had little to trade but themselves, the community could only spiral downwards. People fled at the guards' approach, shrinking against the flimsy shelters, darting into shadows to avoid the batons that could come down at any point in the savage passage. Ari could see that they were all branded with his Mark, the burns of ownership black and ragged on their skin.  
    They walked past pits like open tombs, where heretics against the Minotaur were thrown to burn and die, as flaming coals, rubbish and waste was flung upon them. Other pits were ringed with men shouting, betting what little they had on the brawling below, witnesses to a fight that could only end in death. Ari saw the hollowed look in the people's eyes, the same one she had worn those years ago and she felt a rising fear. It wouldn't be easy to escape again.  
    At the edge of the shanty town labyrinth, the guards pushed Ari to climb up rungs of steel inside one of the main towers and their lewd comments were soon silenced by physical exertion. Part of her wanted to smash her boot into the face of the guard below, to kick him off into the gaping space so that his body smashed on the ground beneath, giving the pitiful crowd some hope of defiance. But Ari squashed those feelings down, for her ill-tamed bravado could not help Elyse that way.  
    "Move it, bitch." The voice came from below and Ari forced her arms to pull faster, finally arriving at the top. A wide platform looked out over the city below, with a window to the ruined world outside and a single door.  
    The guards became quiet and respectful as the one of them knocked on the door, the sound echoing down into the deep shaft below. Ari glanced out of the window to the horizon, the rim of the sun only inches away. Another few minutes and the ritual would begin. Her heart beat faster at the sound of approaching footsteps.  
    The door opened to reveal a young girl, her eyes downcast, her body hunched as one broken and without hope. Was this Elyse, Ari thought, scanning her features. But no, she would be in preparation, so this must be the one she would replace. For like the Minotaur of ancient Greece, this monster took new life each month to serve his needs, before discarding the girls to the pandemonium below.  
    "He's busy," the girl whispered. "You cannot disturb him now."  
    "He will want to see me," Ari said firmly, stepping forward. "Tell him a lost daughter has returned to beg for his mercy."  
    The girl's eyes flickered upwards, meeting Ari's green ones with a glimmer of hope. Perhaps they had heard tales of an escapee, Ari thought, perhaps she had provided them with a dream of a future where freedom didn't mean certain death in the wilderness.  
    The guard turned, his hand raised to