CHAPTER EIGHT #2
The Threnai’s fuzzy arachnid body shook as a light chuckle escaped her fanged, twitching mouth. She stepped forward, each hairy leg taking its grotesque turn.
“Oh, but you have. You still remember how to fight—like it's ingrained in your bones—but the god who taught you it? The one cursed in your name? That part's lost to the poison," she said, a curious note in her voice as she nodded her head towards Noctis.
The god stopped thrashing in the spider’s webs. Stillness followed the Threnai’s words. I slowly looked over at the upside down god, but he wouldn’t look at me, instead staring down his nose.
Pitiful.
I shifted my attention back to the Threnai. “I don’t know him.”
“You will, child. Soon. You’ll remember it all. Every sacrificed merfolk does eventually, but usually only when they’re locked in cages being drained of all their power and life.”
Confusion and anger surged, prickling beneath my skin, begging for a place to escape.
Calvin cut in. “Can you tell us anything that will help us get into the Shadeborne Bound?”
“Secrets are my trade. Tell me what you hide, and I’ll tell you what you need to know.”
“You’re the Threnai. Do you not know every secret already?” Calvin asked, and I realized the truth in the question.
“That we do,” the center arachnid answered. “But we delight in secrets laid bare.”
We stood there a moment thinking of a secret grand enough to spill, until Noctis hummed to get my attention, webbed spindles covering his mouth.
“Let him free,” I demanded. “He will be the one to share.”
The Threnai lifted a spindly leg, the threads binding the god disappearing, and he collapsed to the ground with a thump. He jumped to his feet and dusted off his clothing.
“This is going to be good,” Calvin quipped.
Noctis glared at him, but turned his gaze on the Threnai. He cleared his throat before spilling his truth.
“I’ve seen the world die. Everyone and everything on it.” He froze as if the words stuck to his tongue. “And it’s all my fault.”
The oracle arachnid breathed in slowly as if absorbing his secret. Her eight eyes drifted closed. Calvin and I said nothing. Fear surged through me, squeezing my chest until I couldn’t breathe. If the spider denied his secret, I knew nothing further to give.
“And I’d like to make sure that doesn’t happen. So… The Shadeborne entrance requires a human soul as its key. You should be accustomed to finding those, God of the Forsaken,” the center Threnai announced.
Noctis took a step closer on quiet feet, eyes pleading with the arachnids.
“Will she ever remember us?” he asked, the words soft and begging as if the oracles had a hand in the memory curse.
“She will remember enough when the time is right.”
Next, Calvin inched forward. “Will I ever get the chance?”
The center arachnid paused, eyes wandering across Calvin’s somber face—an expression I hadn’t seen across it. His eyes held sorrow and pity, hands rubbing the glistening sweat from his palms against his pants.
The spider’s lips tilted upwards. “You’ve both carried too much for far too long. Let this unfold on its own.”
The spiders turned in sync and crawled away, leaving us three in the forest, gasping and gawking for further answers. Unsatiated. I was so damn unsatiated.
With fury sharp and relentless, I stormed forward until a sudden hiss of pain reminded me of my shattered ankle.
My head whirled with dizziness and nausea.
Emotions flew through me like gnashing currents of the sea—an influx of information I was berating to uncover in my own mind.
Calvin hurried to my side, steadying me by shifting his weight beneath again.
Noctis broke into a sprint to catch up.
“I couldn’t tell you about... us. I was going to, but you had already gone through so much. Please,” he begged.
I whirled, blade still in hand. The tip of the dagger rested above his clavicle. “You will tell me everything, but I will never trust you. And there is no us.” How dare he play gatekeeper to knowledge I deserved after all the hell I’d already endured.
Did he not think I was worthy to know about myself?
The god nodded once in agreement, his lips twitching in downward flinches. “I’ll earn it all back. One day at a time. One memory at a time. Until you remember it all. Until you remember us.”
Us.
I huffed and continued the staggering trek back to the ship. We knew what we needed to get into Shadeborne Bound, so my priorities were escaping the forest alive, not that his recollection of our past wasn’t appreciated.
Noctis used the eerie darkness to tell me everything I couldn’t remember. And each memory he shared, no recollection surged.
“You swam to shore the day you started questioning the sacrifices. Lively, excited,” Noctis started, the words roaming between reminiscence and dragging agony.
“And when two Thirstlings tried to drain you, I heard your prayer. It was the first one I’d heard in decades.
” He paused as if the reminder of that night physically hurt him to think about.
Thirstlings. That’s why the word sounded familiar before.
“You became aware of the Oricaan quickly on land. Just like you did all over again recently. They attacked another village, and you helped them all to safety. I thought I would lose you that day, too, but you fought hard. Your fury was going to burn the entire world, so I trained you with weapons of the Terraguard Bound—katanas, short swords, and your favorite… daggers. We spent many months together, so the day you ran away, I erupted. I thought I did something wrong, but when I searched the entire Bound and couldn’t find you, I knew you returned for vengeance against the Ocean Mother alone. ”
He is lying. I would have remembered all of it as he recounted the memories, just like every other past event that flashed in my mind as images when they came back.
Our feet crunched dead leaves as we continued down the pathway, filling in the angry silence between words.
“She locked you in a dungeon.” Gods… I remembered rocking in the chamber.
“I know, because I nearly died trying to reach you, even hiring a merfolk to commit treason just to lay eyes on you. You were so hurt. So near death. And I erupted. The day you became that decade’s sacrifice by rebelling, I shattered the leylines that carried sacrifices to the Royal Vanguard. ”
I stopped cold in my tracks. That explained how I was lost in the ocean and crawled my way onto Zahara’s ship.
“You saved me?” I whispered.
“I don’t play by any rules, but for you, I’ll break every one.”
Something within my chest ached.
I didn't have the same memories as he did—the ones where we spent much time together. The god that stood before me was vicious and kept secrets that pertained to me. The Noctis I knew only became a part of my life less than a full day ago.
So, I turned and limped away. My heart ached at the possibility of lost love, that there was someone in the realms that cared about me beyond what I could offer them.
And for some reason, I wanted him to love me…
but I also wanted to reciprocate it. Withholding knowledge only angered me, even if it was meant to protect me.
“If it’s any consolation, I really didn’t know you before you washed up on the ship. Total shock to me,” Calvin joked, and I cracked a smile.
“Thank you, Calvin, for being truthful,” I retorted with a glare over my shoulder at the god.
“Look, I’m a rogue god, not an oracle. The memory loss? Found out yesterday right along with you.”
“Don’t you dare act innocent. You knew who I was, and you chose to stay silent,” I snarled back.
Noctis grinned.
“Why are you smiling? Is this funny to you?”
“Funny? No. Just enjoying the fact that you’re still a challenge.”
The opening of Plumsu Island stood before us an hour later, a faint, flickering orange glow shining through the hole in the tree line.
I cocked my head. “It’s nighttime. Why does it look like dawn?” I asked softly. The fury dissipated into confusion.
Calvin’s eyes shot open. “We’re under attack.”