8. Flavia
Flavia
M y sleep was broken by the same nightmare I’d had for years. Hands grabbed me in the darkness, laughing faces, and hot metal pressed against me as the smell of my own singed flesh filled my nostrils. But for the first time, my wicked dreams were disturbed by someone else.
“Damn it, neidr, you’re disturbing my entire web.” A strong arm locked around me, pulling my back against a broad chest. But it wasn’t hot or confining. I should have fought, should have tried to pry myself away, but his venom running in my veins knew its home, and it curled up, content.
Ysu shifted behind me, his spider limbs winding around us in the darkness, and I was cradled as silver threads wove around me. But it wasn’t a trap or a prison, not this time. His cool fingers traced down the side of my cheek.
“Sleep. You are mine. No harm will come to you.”
For some reason, I believed him, and sleep found me easily.
This time, my dream was different.
The villa burned with cold fire.
I watched from above, suspended in darkness as Ysu moved through the corridors I knew so well. His true form filled the space between floor and ceiling, eight legs carrying him soundlessly while his inhuman arms reached into rooms, plucking soldiers from their beds like grapes from a vine.
Marcus emerged from his chamber, sword raised, his familiar wine-courage making him bold.
The blade passed through empty air where Ysu had been a heartbeat before.
Then silk wrapped around the Roman’s throat, lifting him until his feet kicked uselessly above the mosaic floors.
I watched his face purple, watched recognition dawn in his eyes as he realized the nightmare that now had him in his grasp.
Screams filled the air. Gaius’ high, boyish shriek cut through the night as silver threads dragged him across the heated floors he so loved to watch my blood decorate.
Other soldiers rushed from their quarters, but the trap had been set.
They ran into silk barriers that sliced through bronze armor like parchment, leaving them tangled and bleeding, suspended like offerings to this dark god.
Through it all, Tiberius’ voice rose above the chaos, shouting orders that no one could follow, demanding explanations from Roman gods who had long abandoned him.
Ysu approached the wooden double doors of Tiberius’ private chamber, and I heard the frantic scratching as furniture was pushed to barricade the other side.
Ysu laughed, that cruel, slow laugh—like something so trivial could stop him.
He slammed his claws into the wood and the door shattered, dust filling the air as Ysu’s monstrous form filled Tiberius’ sanctuary. My former husband scrambled away, fleeing for the balcony.
Ysu was no longer silent. He let his claws click across the tile floor with deliberate slowness, his mandibles emitting that incessant chittering that echoed off the stone walls.
His claws pierced the tile around Tiberius, caging him in, and his screams filled the air as Ysu descended.
The dream shifted, and I was the web itself, strung throughout the villa’s sprawling halls.
I felt every vibration as my victims struggled.
I tasted their terror through the silk, sweet as honeyed wine.
Then I was something else, something with scales and a hunger so deep that I could think of nothing else.
I slid across the heated tiles, towards a soldier caught in the web.
He screamed, but it died out as my jaw opened impossibly wide, and…
I woke with the taste of iron in my mouth.
The grove was painted in dawn’s grey light, and below me, Ysu fed.
His mandibles worked methodically, piercing the torso of what had once been a man.
The sound was wet, organic—flesh parting, fluids draining.
The body was wrapped in silk from neck to knees, face mercifully obscured, but I recognize the bronze studs on what remained of the armor.
A villa guard. One of many complicit in my torture.
I should have felt horror. Revulsion. Fear. Instead, I watched with the same detached curiosity Ysu had shown while cataloging my scars. The darkness in my belly stirred, not with hunger exactly, but with something adjacent to it. Understanding, perhaps. Satisfaction, at my justice served.
A thought crossed my mind. This could have been me, suspended and drained. It should have been me, but Ysu’s venom had not taken root. Even knowing that, I felt no remorse for the man’s fate.
“You’re awake.” Ysu didn’t look up from his meal, but several of his eyes tracked my movement as I descended from his web.
He had woven me what might have been considered a hammock, the web less sticky so I could sleep without restraint, but still held safely.
I climbed down awkwardly, feet and hands catching on various threads, making the whole web vibrate as I tugged free.
Ysu shivered with the disturbance, but said nothing.
The tingle that had subsided during my time with Ysu had returned, more ferocious. It felt like the same cold fire the villa had burned with in my dream.
I approached Ysu, his victim now reduced to nothing more than pools of viscera on the forest floor, bones shining bright white in the early morning light.
“Did you destroy them all?” My voice was steady, but my hands shook.
He paused in his feeding, mandibles retracting as he turned to face me fully.
Gore painted his mouth and body, but his smile was almost fond.
“Every last one, neidr. We had a deal, didn’t we?
” He leaned his head down and to the side, his long tongue extending to lick the blood off his bulky shoulder muscle.
I enjoyed the sight far too much, remembering exactly what that tongue had done.
“I want to see it.”
His laugh rumbled through the grove, disturbing the morning birds.
“Do you now? How delightfully morbid.” He rose, leaving the half-consumed corpse behind.
I watched as hundreds of insects rose out from the forest detritus to overtake it, like they’d been silently waiting their turn.
“As it happens, I saved something special for you. A gift, one might say.”
The way his multiple eyes glittered with dark amusement made my pulse quicken. “A gift?”
“Think of it as a wedding present.” His mandibles chittered with his own amusement.
“Show me,” I commanded, surprising us both with the authority in my tone.
His grin widened, clicking in approval. “Anything my bride desires.”