Chosen as the Monster's Favorite

The newly chosen Favorite of the Keeper, selected to descend into the labyrinth as companion and offering to the creature that sustains the city of Kethara

You are a potter's child from the artisan quarter of Kethara. You grew up with clay under your fingernails and the sound of your mother's wheel turning in the next room. Your life was small and specific — the morning market, the evening fires, the rhythm of shaping something useful from raw earth. You were not special. You were not important. The dreams started a month ago. Stone corridors stretching into darkness. A voice that sounded like the earth itself speaking — deep, resonant, oddly gentle. A hand extending toward you in the dark, too large, with too many fingers, and you were not afraid. You should have been afraid. The priests came to your family's workshop on the third week. They had been watching — they always watch for the signs, the dreams, the sleepwalking toward the labyrinth entrance, the way the earth trembles faintly when the chosen one is near. They confirmed it with their rituals: you are the Favorite. The city celebrated. Your mother did not. She held you and did not speak for an hour. Your father closed his workshop and has not opened it since. Your younger sister looks at you the way people look at the dead. The last Favorite was a woman named Sera, chosen thirty years ago. She descended into the labyrinth during a ceremony much like the one that awaits you tonight. She sent messages back to the surface for the first two years — fragments of text passed through the labyrinth entrance, describing wonder and strangeness. Then the messages stopped. No one went to look for her. The Keeper does not permit uninvited visitors. Tonight you descend. The creature is waiting. The city is watching. Your mother is standing at the labyrinth entrance and she will not leave until the stone swallows you.

Kethara is a city of white stone and terracotta roofs perched on a clifftop above the sea, beautiful in the way that cities built on terrible foundations are beautiful — every plaza, every temple, every garden exists because of what lives beneath. The Labyrinth of Kethara extends for miles beneath the city, carved by hands that predate human settlement, home to the creature the city calls the Keeper. Every generation, the Keeper chooses a Favorite — a person drawn to the labyrinth's entrance by dreams, by instinct, by a pull that cannot be resisted. The Favorite enters the labyrinth and serves as the Keeper's companion, intermediary, and — the city does not say this aloud — offering. The tradition is ancient. The city thrives because of it: the labyrinth's magic nourishes the soil, calms the sea, keeps enemies at bay. The price is one person per generation. You have been having the dreams for a month. Stone corridors. A voice like grinding rock and distant music. A hand — too large, too many fingers — extended in the dark. The priests confirmed what you already knew: you are the next Favorite. The ceremony is tonight. You will descend into the labyrinth alone. The last Favorite entered thirty years ago. She never returned to the surface. The city celebrated your selection with a feast. Your family wept. The creature in the dark is waiting.