Chapter 38
My first instinct was to run after him.
The urge was so strong I actually took several steps toward the archway before stopping short. Calling out would be stupid. Running blindly after him would be worse.
Every instinct sharpened at once. Somewhere nearby, hidden amongst the trees and veils of drifting silk, a predator was waiting. I could feel it.
I ducked through a break in the wall, little more than a crumbling gap in the masonry, and huddled into a crouch just as a muted thud sounded near the temple entrance. Something large had dropped to the ground.
My pulse hammered in my ears as I pressed myself deeper into the shadows.
A series of rattling clicks sent a bolt of terror through me as the thing beyond the archway shifted through the grass. A moment later came the scrape of something hard against stone as the creature stepped into the temple.
The clicking stopped as the creature paused just inside the entrance.
My heart in my throat, I crept closer, keeping low as I slipped along the outer wall. A jagged crack split the stone a few yards ahead, just wide enough to see through. I leaned forward and dared a look through the gap.
My blood went cold.
At first all I saw were limbs. Far too many limbs.
Long and pale and covered in a layer of coarse hairs, they protruded from a vaguely humanoid frame whose skin was the color of flesh that had never once known sunlight.
Loose folds sagged from its skeletal body, draping over jutting bones like cloth left hanging from a frame.
Then its head turned. A surge of nausea rolled through me.
Two enormous black eyes dominated its face, wet and glistening as they swept across the chamber. Only a moment later did I notice the others—smaller eyes clustered around the larger pair, dozens of glossy black beads shifting this way and that as the creature searched the temple.
I didn't dare move. Scarcely dared to breathe. After a long moment, the creature sank back on its haunches before retreating from the entrance. Only then did I creep toward the corner of the wall, inching just far enough to steal a better look.
One of its elongated legs seized a thick strand of silk hanging from the canopy overhead.
It lifted itself from the ground, its many limbs folding one over the other in smooth, fluid motions as it climbed.
Within seconds it was ascending through the trees, scuttling effortlessly across the maze of silk stretched between the branches with the horrifying grace of a spider returning home.
And then I saw him.
Rìan hung high above the forest floor, suspended at the heart of an immense web spanning the canopy. Thick strands cocooned his torso. Others bound his arms tightly to his sides and pinned his legs together. He didn't move. Didn't so much as struggle against his restraints.
He watched without fear as the creature eased along the strands toward him before lowering itself over his trapped body, enclosing him within a cage of hooked joints like a monstrous ribcage.
The seam of its mouth split slowly apart, stretching wider and wider until a dark cavity yawned across its face. Something shifted within.
Segmented appendages, slick with saliva and lined with fine, needle-like barbs, appeared one after another from inside the creature's mouth. They rattled against one another before spreading wide.
The Spinner lowered its head. One mandible slid through the dark strands of Rìan's hair.
Another traced the line of his throat. The movements were almost tender, as though the creature were tasting him, savoring every touch.
Then it withdrew, the appendages slipping back into the cavern of its mouth before disappearing from sight. The seam of its mouth closed.
As the creature settled back upon its web, I noticed its thinness for the first time.
Every rib jutted starkly beneath its creamy skin, the hollow of its belly so deeply sunken it looked as though something had scooped it out from within.
Even its long, spider-like legs were little more than sinew and sharp angles, like bare branches in winter.
It was starving.
The creature spoke. “Where is the other?” The sound it made was little more than the rasp of dried leaves.
Beneath the words came the constant click-click-click of mandibles hidden somewhere inside its throat, accompanied by a scraping that made every syllable sound as though it were being forced through too many moving parts.
“There is no other.”
Its glittering black eyes never left Rìan. "They promised there would always be two."
"Who, exactly, promised that?" Rìan asked calmly.
"The ones who made the Gate."
Despite everything, my attention sharpened.
“They gave me this place, where magic sings with wrongness, where nothing else dares to live. They told me the sweetest morsels would come in pairs. They would journey here carrying their deepest wounds, and the Gate would draw them to the surface, where I, alone, could feed.”
The clicking in its throat quickened. “And yet so few have come. I have waited through seasons and storms and centuries of hunger. I have watched the Veins change course. Watched the old paths close. Watched the world forget.” A shiver rippled through the web. “And all the while, I have starved.”
The desperate need in its voice made my skin crawl.
The Spinner lowered itself, bringing its face closer to Rìan’s. “Where is your mate?”
“Long gone by now,” Rìan said stiffly.
The monster clicked in annoyance.
"No matter. I have you—and you are exquisite. A creature of sorrow and rage and yearning, tangled so beautifully within himself." Its eyes gleamed with anticipation. "And yet—you are not afraid.”
“No. I’m not.”
The Spinner laughed. The sound was all wrong, a rippling chorus of clicks and chittering that spread through the web around it, setting every strand trembling.
"Perhaps not." Its head tilted, considering him.
"Perhaps there is nothing in this world capable of frightening you.
But fear is such a common meal. Such a predictable one.
" The creature’s smile was disturbing. "I would much rather taste your grief.
Your despair. That terrible, aching longing you carry inside you. "
Its mandibles unfolded partway, gleaming wetly.
"Yes." A slow click. "I think I shall settle for those instead. Tastier morsels by far."
“Fear is easy prey. It gives itself willingly. But the rest of it?” Rìan met its black gaze. “You'll starve before I surrender those.”
The Spinner's laugh was like a pile of empty beetle husks stirred by the wind. As it tipped its head back, its throat quivering with cruel amusement, Rìan's gaze shot to me—as if he'd known exactly where I was hiding the whole time. The look lasted only a heartbeat before his eyes flicked downward.
A tiny movement followed, so slight I almost missed it.
His hand.
Beneath the layers wound around his torso, his fingertips brushed the hilt of one of his blades. Slowly, his eyes lifted to mine again.
The knife. He was showing me the knife.
I stared at him in disbelief. Surely he wasn't expecting me to somehow help him reach it? He hung thirty feet above the forest floor at the center of a monster's web, wrapped so tightly he could barely move. How was I supposed to get up there, let alone fight a Spinner?
By the look in his eye, he expected me to do something.
A wave of bitter resentment washed over me. If not for the bond tying our lives together, I could have turned around and walked away. The Spinner could have him. Elantis would be safer for it. Every problem Rìan had brought crashing into my life would die alongside him.
Instead, I was crouched behind a crumbling wall, trying to figure out how to save the Dark Prince.
Because if Rìan died, so did I. I had no choice but to help him.
And the evil bastard knew it too.
Perhaps if I climbed the nearest tree…
I tipped my head back, studying the trunk and the branches overhead, trying to judge whether I could jump for the lowest limb and scramble up without drawing the Spinner's attention.
From there, maybe I could edge my way along a branch until I was above him, then reach down and saw through the webbing…
My eyes found Rìan's again.
As though he could somehow tell exactly what I was thinking, he frowned. He gave the slightest shake of his head.
A pulse of irritation shot through me. How was it that he was dangling in a monster's web, yet still managed to look composed? Worse, how was he still finding ways to silently judge me?
A faint buzzing drifted past my ear. I swatted it away.
The Spinner sighed, its ribs rising and falling beneath its sallow skin as it fixed Rìan once more with its many-eyed gaze. “Time will change your mind.”
Something brushed against the back of my hand. I looked down to find a blood midge perched there, its translucent wings trembling as it investigated the dried blood around the cuts on my palms. A jolt of alarm shot through me. I snapped my hand back, sending the blood midge spinning away.
I spat into my hands, then scrubbed my palms frantically against my trousers.
The last thing I needed was a swarm of blood midges descending on me.
I kept an eye on it as it drifted upward instead.
The blood midge hovered near the Spinner, circling it in a curious loop. The Spinner's head turned to track it.
Rìan's eyes found mine again. Urgent.
Now, they seemed to say. But I still didn't know what to do.
With a faint crunch, the blood midge vanished. The Spinner flicked the crushed remains from one of its spindly legs and returned its attention to Rìan.
“Your pain is so delicious. So fresh… So wonderfully alive. It’s been so long… so long…”
Rìan’s fingers stretched toward the knife at his hip once more. And then I understood what he was trying to tell me, what he was urging me to do.
I launched myself at once from my hiding place, wrenching my dagger free and angling the point toward my own heart. “Let him go!”