Chapter 38 #2
The Spinner whipped around, its many eyes finding me immediately. For a heartbeat it simply stared, taking in the dagger, my shaking legs, and the terror I was trying desperately to hide. A delighted shudder rippled through its gaunt frame as it laughed.
Then it spat a strand of webbing and dropped, streaking through the trees as it clung to the trailing silk.
I barely managed to hold my ground as it stopped abruptly before me, hanging upside down from the web by a single thread. It swayed gently, its many eyes fixed on me.
“Two,” it breathed. It chuckled low, carrying the scent of wet earth and decay. “As promised.”
“Let him go,” I said again, trying to steady my voice and failing. “Or I'll plunge this blade into my heart.”
The knife tip grazed my skin and a bead of blood welled beneath it. The Spinner hissed at the sight. “Your death means nothing to me. His suffering alone will sustain me for months.”
“If I drive this blade home, your meal dies with me.” I licked my cracked lips. “Our lives are entwined. If one of us dies, so does the other.”
The creature stilled. The clicking started up again at once, fast and furious, like a thousand insect legs skittering across stone.
“Kill yourself then,” it snarled, “I will not release him.”
Shit. It wasn't fooled. It would risk losing us both before it surrendered its meal. It was too hungry—too desperate—to let Rìan go. Not until we were both dead and had nothing left to feed it.
I swallowed hard, my thoughts racing as I searched for a way out of this.
What had Rìan said about Spinners? They fed on emotion, not unlike my own Eidrae magic, except they preyed only on those they could provoke. Fear. Pain. Feelings that burned hot and fast. But every flame needed fuel, and at the heart of it all was…
My pulse quickened as an idea began to take shape. A terrible idea. The sort of idea that was either going to save us or make everything catastrophically worse.
Unfortunately, it was the only one I had.
“I can make you an offer,” I said.
The Spinner snorted. “Nothing you could offer would make me surrender him.”
“Love.”
The creature froze, motionless. Even the soft clicking in its throat ceased.
Above us, Rìan went rigid.
“Eidra—”
I shot him a warning glare. He glared right back but, thankfully, fell silent.
“It's tempting, isn't it?” I said softly. “You've tasted terror and grief and rage and despair. But have you ever tasted love? If pain can sustain you for months, how long could that kind of joy sustain you?”
Its many eyes remained fixed on me, riveted.
“Years,” it whispered.
I had it. The one thing it couldn’t refuse.
“Then that’s my offer,” I said. “Release him, and that is what I will give you.”
For a long moment, the Spinner simply stared at me. Then, slowly, carefully, it released its hold on the web and dropped to the forest floor before me. Fear lanced through me. This close, I realized that if it straightened to its full height, it would stand as tall as two full-grown men.
“I will take it as a memory,” it said, easing closer. “Then I may taste it again... and again.”
My mouth went dry, but I inclined my head. “Fine.”
“Your happiest memory.”
The implication settled over me slowly, each piece falling into place until the true cost became horrifyingly clear.
Not just any memory. The happiest one. The brightest. The most precious thing I possessed.
To surrender it would mean losing it forever, having it stripped from me so completely that it would be as though it had never happened at all.
And yet, if the cost of freeing Aedric was a single memory, however precious, what right did I have to hesitate? Once it was gone, I wouldn’t mourn it. I wouldn’t even remember enough to miss it.
So what did it matter, really? Memories were dead things.
Shadows of moments that no longer existed except within the confines of our own minds.
Even the precious ones had a way of haunting you, drawing your thoughts backward toward things you could never touch again.
Perhaps I would be lighter without it. Freer.
Perhaps surrendering it would be a kindness to myself rather than a loss.
High above, Rìan stared down at me, his brows drawn together so tightly that even from this distance I could make out the deep lines between them. His fingers worked frantically against the hilt of his blade, straining against the silk that bound him.
The expression he wore was clear. A warning. A plea. Perhaps both.
But it changed nothing. This was the only path I could see.
I dragged my gaze from him and looked back at the Spinner.
“Agreed.”
The creature chittered with delight, and the sound turned my stomach.
“Release him first.”
“Drop your blade, and I will release him.”
Its many eyes remained fixed upon the dagger still angled over my heart.
It didn't trust me any more than I trusted it. I would have to make myself vulnerable first—place my life entirely within its reach and trust that a monster starving for centuries would honor its word.
Slowly, I lowered my knife and tossed it in front of me. Immediately, the Spinner kicked it into the underbrush.
A loud crack split the air as the strands binding Rìan snapped all at once. His body crashed through the canopy in an explosion of breaking branches and falling leaves before striking the forest floor with a brutal thump somewhere in the undergrowth.
Silence followed.
He was still alive—he had to be. I was still breathing. I could still feel the bond.
Another blood midge flitted past, and my pulse lurched. Was it drawn to Rìan? Was he lying somewhere in the bushes, bleeding out? My gaze tracked it through the trees. It darted between the trunks before veering deeper into the forest, its buzzing fading into the distance. I let out a slow breath.
The Spinner edged closer, filling my entire field of vision. Whatever patience it had possessed was gone now, stripped away by anticipation until only naked hunger remained in its many eyes.
“Now.” The clicking in the Spinner's throat rose to an eager rattle. “Your memory.”
Every instinct screamed at me to back away, to run. Somehow, I held my ground, staring up into its hideous face. My heart pounded so violently it felt as though it might burst through my ribs.
“How?”
The creature's eyes glittered. “Lift it to the surface. I will do the rest."
Its mouth opened, and those awful, brittle appendages extended toward me. I squeezed my eyes shut. I felt them brush my skin first, almost tenderly, tracing the curve of my temples and forehead. Then the barbs bit deep.
“Give it to me.”
A sucking pull started deep within my mind, as though a parasite had fastened itself to my very being and begun to feed. An overwhelming urge to surrender—to give the creature exactly what it wanted—washed over me.
My happiest memory. There had never been any question which one I would give it. I reached deep into my heart and found it waiting there.
I drew the memory upward, reliving every moment in painstaking detail for what I knew would be the last time. Then I held it at the forefront of my thoughts and offered it up like a feast carefully laid upon a table.
A flash of silver exploded behind my closed eyelids, a cool awareness sweeping through my mind. The Spinner drank, slurping greedily at my memory—my beautiful, cherished memory—and I felt it slipping away, felt it being taken.
I gave it the delighted laughter. The scent carried on the air. The warmth of his strong arms around me.
The colors faded. The sounds grew distant. The faces blurred. I reached after them, desperate to anchor myself to a piece of it—to something, anything—and then it was gone.
The silver light slipped slowly away, and the stinging pressure eased as the Spinner's mandibles withdrew from my skin.
My eyes fluttered open, tears streaming down my face. I couldn't remember what I was crying for. Couldn't remember what I'd given. There was a gaping emptiness inside me that hadn't been there before. An absence. A wound. The unmistakable shape of something that had once mattered beyond measure.
A stifled sob escaped me.