24. Vesper
VESPER
At first, I can’t tell where the pain is coming from.
It’s so widespread on my arm, I assume the whole thing is just going to fall off.
But as I shriek and claw at my skin there, the area of pain shrinks until it’s only the length of my forearm.
I stare in horror at the spot even though I can’t see anything wrong with it yet.
It doesn’t matter. The pain is so extreme, I fall to my knees before the Ant Queen.
Locke panics and rushes forward, trying to find the source of the pain so that he can beat it up. When he finds nothing to direct his panic at, his emotions grow hot and he whirls on the Ant Queen.
“What are you doing to her? Stop it!” he shouts.
The Leafcutter Queen laughs. “I do nothing, Bone Breaker. This is part of the Beast Bound journey.” She leans forward on her throne. “Though I do quite enjoy this. How loud will she scream, do you think? Shrill enough to make the walls shake? Loud enough to rip her throat to shreds?”
I can barely focus on their words. My arm feels as if it’s been set on fire and flayed free of its skin at the same time.
When I’d entered the Harrow, I thought that was the worst pain I’d ever felt, but this?
This is a good competitor for worst pain.
The rest of my body is pain free, but that only makes me more aware of just how intense the pain in my arm is.
I stare down at it in horror, not sure what I’m expecting to happen.
Maybe it’ll fall off? Maybe I’m dying? Maybe the thing is going to shrivel up and disappear completely?
With how intense the pain is, it has to be something severe. It can’t be anything else.
The shriek that splits from my lips fades a little while I stare at my arm, my teeth grit against the pain.
As I watch, a bright pink light flares to life at my wrist, just above my veins.
It feels like a knife stabs into my skin and hovers there, the tip buried just barely in my skin.
I’m breathing hard, trying to calm my racing heart despite the pain.
If I keep my teeth clenched, I won’t scream.
I can handle this. Surely, I’ll go numb at some point.
Surely, I can’t withstand this level of pain for long.
I’ve seen people pass out long before this kind of pain hits them.
“What is that?” Locke growls. “What the fuck is that?”
I can’t answer him. How could I? I’m half afraid that when I open my mouth, more screams will come out. All I can do is grit my teeth against the pain and hope it passes quickly.
The pink light flares brighter for two long seconds . . .
. . . and then it begins to move.
Like the knife is carving through my skin, it begins to cut upwards, along my forearm, etching.
My teeth grind together as I try my hardest to hold the scream of terror and pain in.
If I clench my jaw any tighter, I’m going to break my teeth.
I can feel the soft grinding of my top teeth against the bottom, threatening to crack each of them under the pressure.
The pink light begins to swirl, moving along my skin as if its dancing. Where it touches, bright pink lines are left behind, as if it’s drawing a picture on my skin.
A tattoo, I realize.
It’s permanently carving into my skin like a tattoo.
Locke has his hammer out now, clearly distressed at having nothing to actually swing it at. He can see the pain written all over my face, can see the effort it takes to keep my screams in.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do?” Locke growls, frantically looking around.
The Leafcutter Queen’s tinkling laughter answers. “Just watch, Pretty Player. Just watch.”
The pink light dims just a little as it seems to reach the end of its lines.
I stare down at the pink lines in confusion.
I don’t know what it is. I’ve never seen an image like it before in my life.
The pain starts to ebb and relief fills me as I tug my arm closer to dissect the picture.
It looks like an insect of some sort. It has wings and a long body.
It has a small head with large eyes and antennae.
It has six legs, spread out around it, the front two held up at its sides threateningly, the tips showing off what look like razor sharp knives.
“What—” I start to ask, thinking that the worst is over. I don’t know what a familiar really is, or what it could be, but this just looks like a tattoo.
I’d thought the pain was gone. I thought I’d made it through whatever this was. I was wrong. It hadn’t even begun yet.
The pain that spears into my arm this time is so much brighter than before that it’s physically impossible to keep the scream from tearing out of my throat.
I collapse on the floor, holding my arm out in front of me in agony.
The invisible knife is back, carving beneath my skin, digging into my muscle and veins and ripping them to shreds.
Locke starts to scream with me, his hammer raised high as if he’s going to hit me with it.
Whatever words he’s shouting, I don’t hear them.
I can’t, not over my own screams. I clench my eyes shut against the pain, hoping that this is it.
I’ll die and it’ll be over. Whatever it takes to end this agony.
My body convulses as the tattoo seems to undulate on my skin, like something large beneath it is coming to life. My eyes pop open again when I feel it move. There’s something there. There’s something beneath my flesh, living, fighting, carving its way out.
The first dagger rips through my flesh and bursts from my arm, green and about four inches long. The serrated edge cuts through my flesh like it’s nothing. Blood spurts from the wound and begins to drip onto the floor.
My scream grows impossibly shrill. I want to run from whatever is happening right now, but I can’t. I jerk my Fang from my inventory, considering cutting off my own arm to stop the pain, but Cipher’s voice stops me.
“Do not,” he orders. “You must survive this.”
“It hurts,” I sob, my voice so thick I’m not even sure he can understand it.
“I know,” he answers. “You are strong enough to survive it. I know you are.”
My Fang clatters to the ground as I give into his words. If Cipher thinks I can survive this, then I can.
“Chances?” I ask, but I don’t know how he could possibly know what I’m asking. My voice is so garbled with pain that it only comes out like an agonized growl.
Somehow, he understands me. Cipher always does. “Ninety-nine percent, Vespera.”
That makes me feel better. At a time like this, the statistics are in my favor and they make me feel impossibly better despite the literal creature cutting its way from my skin.
Another razor-sharp blade cuts through my flesh, before I get my first sight of the head.
It’s covered in my blood as it jerks and cuts and drags itself from my forearm, right where the new tattoo had been.
Its body is green and long as it’s revealed.
It carves its way through my flesh, tearing and cutting as if only my arm holds it back.
The insect continues to hack at my skin, blood gushing around it as it slowly appears, bit by bit.
My blood coats the thing, too, dripping from its body, its wings as they’re revealed, its legs.
It’s a gory sight to watch something burst from your own forearm, dripping with what should remain in your body.
I grow faint from watching it, when I realize the creature literally was born from my flesh.
My stomach cramps from the pain, but I hold myself together. Just barely.
The final tug feels as if my very bones are being scrapped with a hot knife.
My vocal cords strain as the final, rough scream rips from my throat, and then my voice cuts off as if it can’t sustain the sound any longer.
The insect looks at me with large black eyes as it pulls its last leg free and then jumps to the ground before me.
It looks up at me, this creature the size of my forearm, tilting its head to study me where I’m on my hands and knees, panting from the brutal pain I’d just endured.
The pain disappears as quickly as it came, disappearing the moment the creature is fully out of me.
My arm is raw and bleeding, my skin flayed open like someone carved pieces off.
I suppose it did just that. I’m gasping, my chest burning with the air dragging into my lungs.
Locke immediately rushes forward with a strip of cloth.
I don’t know where it came from, but he quickly wraps it around my wound, tying it so tight, it makes me grit my teeth again.
I stare at the creature before me, afraid to touch it in case it causes me more pain than before.
Familiars require respect to bond, Cipher had said. Is this thing my familiar?
My throat is rough and painful as I sit up on my knees, trying to appear stronger than I feel. I’m going to need to rest after this. I’m going to need to heal.
“Hello,” I croak. My voice doesn’t sound like my own. It sounds damaged. How long until it returns to normal?
The creature tilts its head unnaturally at me, watching me.
Locke seems to finally notice that there’s something new here and jerks back from the creature when it tilts its head. “What . . . the fuck . . . is that thing?” he asks, staring at it in horror.
It’s clearly an insect of some sort, but not one I’ve ever seen. Not in Dross and not here. I don’t know what it is either, but I can feel . . . her . . . life force I realize. I can feel her. The more I focus on it, the more I can feel her. And she’s—