24. Nyx #2
I tilt my head, trying not to let the alarm show on my expression. “It’s been nearly a whole cycle. You should try to drink something, at least…”
“Mm. Sleep first,” she says, the words heavily muffled against Rhune’s chest.
“You’re sleepy?” Rhune asks. “You just woke up, pup.”
“Huh. That’s funny…”
“Funny? What’s funny?” He shakes her shoulders lightly, but she doesn’t answer. Instead, her head lolls back, and a soft snore shudders from her open mouth.
She… fell asleep? Just like that?
I don’t like it. Something about the timing and speed of it all settles wrong in my gut. This is not normal for humans.
“Willow? Wake up, lovely. Open your eyes for me, please.”
“Huh? Whaswrong?”
Willow’s eyes struggle to focus on either of our faces, and when I press a hand to her forehead, the heat radiating off her skin nearly makes me flinch back.
She’s burning up.
“What’s wrong with her?” Rhune whines, pulling her upright against his chest. He slides his hand over her sweat-slicked forehead, a deep crease building between his brows. “Why is she so warm?”
“I don’t know!” I snap, fear for Willow causing me to lash out. Rhune’s expression flashes with hurt, and I turn from him, taking a deep breath to calm my nerves. “I don’t know,” I repeat, calmer. “I’m going to get her some water.”
I break off a chunk of ice and press it between my palms. When it’s mostly melted, I carefully coax the cool liquid past her chapped lips. She drinks slowly at first, then greedily, and for a moment, some of the fog clears from her eyes.
“Feel a little better?” I ask, my voice a hoarse whisper. “You scared us for a minute there.”
Willow’s lips tip in a loopy smile, and her tongue sticks out in a funny expression as she makes her eyes cross. I nearly laugh, but then her eyes roll back, white and empty, and her body goes rigid in Rhune’s arms.
“Willow?” His voice cracks on her name. “Willow!”
She begins seizing, her limbs jerking violently as words tumble from her open mouth.
Only, they aren’t words I recognize. The language is guttural, with ancient syllables that scrape against something old and primal in the pit of my soul.
Something older than me or any of my brothers. Something older than this world.
Rhune holds her tighter, his face twisting in desperation as he attempts to soothe her, to shake her out of the evil spell that is gripping her. I can only watch, useless, my claws digging bloody crescents into my palms as I wait for the episode to pass.
Then, as suddenly as it started, it stops.
Willow’s eyes flutter open, and she blinks up at us, confusion written plainly across her pretty face.
“What’s wrong?”
“You… you just… Do you not remember anything?” I ask.
She shrugs, wincing as she sits upright. “The last thing I remember is falling asleep on Rhune’s chest. Everything was fine.” She looks between us, the concern in her eyes growing. “Is it not fine?”
“Um…” Before Nyx can say anything else, a deep, thudding chitter echoes just outside the cave walls, causing the hair at the back of my neck to stand on end.
“Guys. What the literal fuck was that?” Willow asks, her voice a hoarse whisper.
“Shh.” I press my fingers to my lips, trying not to let my horror show on my face. “Arachnyx. Big and dangerous. We need to stay quiet.”
Willow’s throat bobs. “Do you think it knows we’re here?”
“If it does, we’re in serious trouble,” I murmur.
Right now, it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that an arachnyx could have traveled this far from the forests. It’s unheard of… it’s… impossible…
Yet the call was unmistakably arachnyx. Nothing else in this world can produce that eerie chittering. The kind that burrows into your bones and freezes you to the spot in terror.
Could it have something to do with Willow’s episode?
I push that thought to the back of my mind. If it did, I don’t have time to worry about what it means or why. If I don’t act soon, it will find its way inside and consume us all.
I look at Rhune, sending a message through our bond. If the worst case comes true, I want you to grab Willow and flee. I’ll distract it long enough for you to get her to safety.
He shakes his head. You can’t kill an arachnyx on your own, Nyx.
The point is not to kill it. The point is to make it so you and Willow can live.
But—
Don’t say anything, I snap. Don’t… just promise me you’ll take care of her.
His eyes crinkle with desperation. You know I will.
That’s all I needed to hear. I take a deep breath, slowly turning to face the mouth of the cave. Let’s show this ugly bug that he picked the wrong meal.
A thin, segmented leg creeps over the edge of the cave entrance, covered with thousands of spiked hairs that provide it camouflage against the frost-colored walls. Another leg joins the first, then a third, and the rounded head of the arachnyx peeks through the circular mouth of the cave.
Dozens of cunning black eyes sit deep in its fuzz-covered face, each one moving independent of the others, taking in the entirety of the room in a single moment.
The curved feelers at either side of its mouth twitch greedily, and a stomach-churning chittering sound echoes from deep within its throat as its eyes focus on Willow. It’s almost like it’s happy to see her.
“Oh, fuck no.” Willow’s face pales as she backs up into Rhune’s chest, her eyes wide and terrified as he watches the arachnyx inch inside the cave.
“No, no, no, no, no. I am not dying via giant spider. No fucking way.” She turns her gaze to me, her desperation clear.
“You can kill it, right? Or, like… scare it away?”
“Rhune knows what to do if we can’t defeat it,” I say. “You will be safe no matter what, Willow. That is all that matters.”
The weird thing is, I have this feeling that the arachnyx doesn’t want to hurt Willow. Me and Rhune? Sure. But with Willow, it’s like the icepips all over again. It’s almost as if they’re drawn to her, like she’s made of something the rest of us aren’t.
I don’t have time to figure it out, though. Not now. Not when death is so near.
The chittering grows louder, and I swallow the lump growing in my throat as the arachnyx lurches closer. Seeing this, Kevin lets out a horrified bellow and leaps into Willow’s arms, wrapping his gangly legs around her shoulders and clinging to her like a lifeline.
The screech that follows nearly splits my skull in two. The arachnyx presses forward, forcing its massive body into the mouth of the cave, and for one desperate second I think the opening might actually be too small to let it through.
But nothing is ever that easy.
“Move!” I scream, retreating to the other side of the cave as the creature wiggles through the opening. The arachnyx slashes and claws at the walls of the cave, desperate to get closer even as the ice shards rip and cut up its legs and torso—and I know that soon, it will be on us.
“Cover Willow!” I yell, spreading my wings wide.
Rhune takes his place at my side, and we hit it with everything we’ve got. Twin blasts of magic slam into its carapace, but it barely slows the creature down. If anything, it just makes it angrier.
Desperate, I race off to the side, trying to pull the creature’s focus away from Willow and Rhune, but the arachnyx doesn’t so much as flick an eye in my direction.
“Hey!” I scream, shooting it with another blast of magic. “Over here, ugly!”
Instead of reacting to me, the spider raises its head and screams. I blink, and it’s rearing up on its hind legs, baring its mottled underbelly to a terrified Willow.
With another ear-shattering roar, it slams back down to the floor, causing it to shudder underfoot.
I barely manage to stay upright as spiderweb cracks race outward across the ice, splitting the ground and filling the air with stomach-churning cracks.
And layered beneath that sound is more chittering. Closer now, drawing nearer with each passing breath.
I look past the arachnyx toward the cave mouth, and my heart lurches into my throat. Two more arachnyx are at the entrance. Both massive, clawed, and just as determined to get inside as the first.
There’s no way out.
The first arachnyx steps closer, feelers twitching and all two dozen eyes looking straight through me to where Willow is hiding.
There’s no way out, but down.
I summon everything I have left. I pull every last thread of magic in my body, forcing it into the palms of my hands until the energy burns white-hot against my skin. When I can’t stand the pain any longer, I release it, willing it directly into the thin floor of ice beneath us.
The ground shudders, vibrating up through the soles of my feet and into my racing heart.
I lock eyes with Willow as the floor splits wide open with a deafening crack, scream her name when it explodes into a thousand jagged pieces.
Not knowing if we will live or die, I fall.