Araneae Nation: The Complete Collection

by Hailey Edwards

  Ghedi shrugged. “If I had to guess, I’d say the blunt end of his glaive.”

  Henri leapt to his feet. “We’ll continue this discussion later, Zuri.”

  “Tomorrow,” Ghedi corrected. “It’s past time for proper visiting hours.”

  For a moment, I thought Henri might argue. “Tomorrow it is, then.”

  I wiggled my fingers at him. “I’ll be here.”

  His hasty retreat made me laugh.

  “Were you just…” Ghedi glanced from me to the now-empty hall, “…flirting with him?”

  “Flirt in front of one of my overprotective brothers?” I had better sense. “Not likely.”

  His hands clenched at his sides. “It looked like flirting.”

  “It looked like good manners.” I shifted onto my side. “No wonder you were confused.”

  Chapter 4

  Straining my ears, I caught the sound of Ghedi’s footsteps fading. The mission I had sent him on was simple but time-consuming since our meals were lowered down a narrow shaft built into the rear wall of the laboratory, or so he had said. I hadn’t seen it for myself. Then again, I hadn’t seen much of anything. Ghedi’s tidbit did tell me how often Henri kept his own company, which intrigued me.

  In a nest this size, why isolate yourself? Why choose to be alone?

  As I soaked in the blissful quiet, I began to appreciate the appeal of solitude.

  “It’s now or never.” I flung aside my covers and planted my foot on the frigid floor.

  My glaive was leaning in the corner. It had worked as a makeshift crutch well enough before. If I reached it, I could… Do what? Not hook it beneath my arm. The blade would cut me to shreds. Not grasp the staff with one arm in a sling or hop across the room only to fall flat on my arse in the hall.

  I stood there by the bed, my burst of frantic energy draining out of the sole of my foot.

  “Going somewhere?” Henri’s appearance in my doorway startled me.

  My shoulders bowed. “No.”

  “I passed Ghedi on my way here.” He came closer and wrapped his arm around my waist. “He mentioned you were getting restless.” He eased me gently onto the bed. “Be that as it may, you can’t be hopping around your room. Call if you need help. If you fall, you might rip your shoulder open.”

  “Don’t you mean my stitches?” I let him lift my leg and prop my cast on a cushion for me.

  “No.” He tapped his pointer with his thumb. “My silk won’t tear. You will.”

  I shuddered. “Let’s agree to never speak of that again.”

  “All right.” He sat at the foot of my bed. “What if we continue what we started yesterday?”

  “Do you mean when my gown slid off my shoulder, or when your hand was on my knee?”

  Chuckling, he cupped the heel of my unbound foot, drawing that leg across his lap.

  I almost swallowed my tongue.

  “I was thinking,” he said quietly. “We could begin our conversation where we left off.”

  I was thinking his hands were gentle and warm, skilled. I even enjoyed the tidy look of them.

  “Zuri?” His thumbs pressed into the underside of my foot, massaging the arch until I moaned.

  “Mmmhmm.” My eyes rolled shut.

  Either my feet weren’t ticklish after all or his touch was masterful enough I no longer cared.

  “Our conversation?” he prompted.

  I forced my eyes open. “If we must.”

  “Is speaking with me so taxing?”

  “It’s not you—or the topic.” I swept my hand around the room. “I’m going mad sitting here day after day with only the same four walls to stare at and Ghedi—who’s gone stir-crazy—for company.”

  “You do realize putting weight on your ankle prematurely can cause permanent damage?”

  “I know.” I punched the mattress. “I can’t afford to risk it. If I can’t walk, then…” I growled. No one would hire a one-legged mercenary. “I’ll think of something. I won’t die from boredom. Right?”

  “The northlands don’t agree with you.” He wasn’t saying anything that wasn’t obvious.

  “It’s so bloody cold. There’s paltry game, scrawny plants and all the water’s frozen.”

  “Yes.” His lips curved. “Makes you wonder how we all survive up here, doesn’t it?”

  “Simple,” I said. “You live underground and pay to get what you don’t have delivered to you.”

  The delicious pressure on my arch ceased while Henri shook his head.

  “It all comes back to gold.” The refrain fell from his lips with the familiarity of a prayer.

  “I shouldn’t have said that.” I should have kept my mouth shut no matter how true it was.

  “It’s all right.” He traced the curve of my heel. “It’s a topic I’m well-acquainted with.”

  I waited for him to say more, but he lowered his head and kept his thoughts to himself.

  “I see.” Here was the problem. “You’re implying that I took advantage of you.”

  “Not at all.” He glanced up at me. “You saw an opportunity and you seized it.”

  “At your expense.”

  “I did hire your brothers, so yes.”

  “You needed us.” Even he must see that. “You need us still.”

  “I do,” he agreed. “All the expenses are my own fault. I should have been better prepared.”

  “Then why argue the point?”

  “You are the one arguing. I’m simply agreeing with you.”

  “Are you so coddled you expected us to work without compensation?”

  “Are you so entitled you think I ought to offer you gold simply because I have some to spare?”

  A flush swept over me. Hadn’t I told my brothers exactly that?

  “This is an old argument. It tires me. I will say this, and let that be the end of it.” He reached for my hand. “Your brothers are acting as interim guards, and they must be compensated. There are also your injuries, and Fynn’s, to consider. You were sent on Paladin Vaughn’s business. Because I failed to make the proper parties aware, you were both harmed. That makes me liable. I owe you both, and I will pay those debts, including your treatments.”

  “I appreciate the gesture.” As much as I hated to say it, I forced out, “We’ll pay our own way.”

  “You’re very proud for a mercenary,” he observed. “Most believe in taking what they can get.”

  So had I, until Henri. “I’m not most mercenaries.”

  “No,” he agreed. “You’re not.”

  His assessment of me was far less clinical than I would have liked, considering I hadn’t brushed my hair or my teeth. It was edged with heat and started those blasted tingles sweeping through me.

  When I eased my hand from his, my palm was sweaty.

  “Now that’s settled…” I poured a cold glass of water from a bedside pitcher. “Should we talk?”

  His thumb returned to making those pleasant circles in my arch. “If you feel up to it, yes.”

  More like if I could keep from falling asleep. Treacherous feet. While my eyelids grew heavy, I reflected on our conversation from the previous day. “I told you about Murdoch finding Kaidi on his clan’s property and bringing her to Paladin Vaughn. That didn’t sit well with Hishima at all. Luckily for us, it didn’t sit well with her either. She escaped Cathis—with Murdoch’s help—and we tracked them into a mountain pass joining Cathis to Titania.”

  “Kaidi escaped from Vaughn and returned to Titania.” His brow furrowed. “Why risk capture? She must have known Hishima would be waiting for her there. What was worth her getting caught?”

  “Proof,” I said. “She knew right where to find it too. In Titania, secreted away inside the crystal caverns by Hishima. Our ward was the evidence she sought. Lailah is what Kaidi calls a harbinger.” I studied his face when I added, “She is—or was once—Hishima’s mother. Did Mana tell you that?”

  “No.” His thumbs slowed. “Considering her son’s involvemen
t, and her name, I suspected.”

  His quiet unsettled me. “Did you know her?”

  “I did.” He set my leg aside. “She visited Mother several times a year. She was not kind, but nor was she cruel. As can be the case with those who wield tremendous wealth and influence, it was all my parents hoped for that she used her status well, causing as little harm as possible in the process.”

  I weighed his memory of her against the conflict brewing in his eyes, and I told him a hard truth.

  “Don’t make the mistake of thinking any part of her still remains. Whoever she once was…that person is gone. That thing, the harbinger, is all the plague left behind.”

  It seemed strange to consider that the quietly elegant Henri and brutally ambitious Hishima had been contemporaries, but of course they had been. With that in mind, I chose my words carefully.

  “She murdered her only child without qualm. She snapped his neck and was feasting on his flesh when we captured her. If she could do that, then she’s past hope. She’s become a creature of sensation who revels in the hunt. She craves that stimulation.”

  From Henri’s pocket emerged his now-familiar coin. I wondered if he could think without the comforting repetition of weaving it through his fingers.

  “I have a theory about that.” He flipped the disc. “You never explained what the term harbinger meant.” While he waited for me to explain, he noticed how I was watching him and fumbled his toss.

  “I ought to start at the beginning with that one, I think. You said the plague hasn’t come this far north. That rules out a firsthand account. You’ve read notes, though?” His nod was sharp. “Then you know there is nothing to be done for the infected but to let them die and pray they go fast and in their sleep.” The next bob of his head was more reluctant. “Kaidi proved that isn’t the case. The plague is a first stage in becoming what she calls a riser, a walking corpse. From what I understand, after an infected person dies, if their body is left intact, the corpse can be called into service by a harbinger.”

  “If the plague creates risers,” he asked, “then what do you think creates harbingers?”

  “That I don’t know. If Hishima knew how his mother had been turned, he never said.”

  Pushing to his feet, Henri began pacing across the room. “Before I saw a harbinger for myself, I would have called you a liar. I want to say the dead can’t rise, but if harbingers exist, what else is out there we have yet to discover?” He ran a hand through his hair. “You said the bodies must be whole? Is that why Kaidi was beheading them? She was trying to destroy the risers before they awakened?”

  “That’s what I gathered.” Few things survived the loss of their heads.

  “But you never witnessed the phenomenon yourself?”

  “I saw the creatures, but not how they came to be as they were.”

  His voice went soft. “I wonder if we could replicate the process.”

  “Why would you want to?” Seeing them once had been enough for me.

  “If they can rise,” he asked, “who is to say they can’t be revived?”

  “I’ll say it. Are you mad?” I spluttered. “Did you miss the part where I said they are corpses?”

  “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps they are beyond saving.”

  I heaved a sigh of relief until I spotted his hand.

  The coin was a blur. I’m sure his thoughts matched its speed.

  I swallowed hard. “You’re going to try, aren’t you?”

  “I have to know.” He turned toward me. “To end the plague, we must understand all its facets.”

  “They aren’t facets.” How he failed to see that stunned me. “They are—were—people.”

  “If becoming a riser is the fate of the infected, then it is my duty to understand how the creatures are created so that I can determine how they can be destroyed. We owe our kinsmen the certainty that their final rest will go undisturbed. Their remains will be treated with respect. I promise you that.”

  “You remind me of Hishima, and I don’t say that lightly. Unconcerned, so sure he was right. He vowed the risers wouldn’t bother us. For the most part, they didn’t. He fooled himself into believing he held sway over them because of a tenuous alliance negotiated by his mother, who he kept chained in a cavern beneath the city. He thought if he controlled her, because of what she was, that the others would bend to his will. But he was wrong. Hishima learned how wrong when we cornered Kaidi and Murdoch, when our ward feasted on her son—her own flesh and blood—with relish that makes me ill to recall.”

  He glanced at me. “Did Hishima tell you anything we can use against the others like her?”

  “Are you listening to me at all?”

  “Every word,” he said earnestly.

  He stared at me until I caved. “Hishima called them the Necrita. If that’s who they are, they’re a nation cobbled together from the bodies of southland clans. Why he believed the dead would honor treaties with the living is as much a mystery to me as all the rest. He took those secrets to the grave.”

  Henri stopped walking, and his stillness was telling. “I wonder what she knows of his plans.”

  “I doubt she understood them, if he shared them with her. She is childlike. She sees the world in her own way and is prone to fits when she fails to get what she wants. Since what she wants is to tear out throats and devour flesh, I’m sure you can imagine how often she is disappointed. Whether other harbingers are like her, I can’t say. But she is shortsighted and quick-tempered, a lethal combination in an ally and a fatal one in an enemy. If you can pry answers out of her, there’s no telling how much of what she said would be the truth and how much would be what she thought you wanted to hear in order to get a treat. You must be careful, Henri, please. Her kind is more dangerous than you know.”

  “I will be.” His faraway expression called him a liar. “I would like your opinion on something.”

  I hesitated. “What do you have in mind?”

  “You would have to see for yourself.”

  I slouched. “If it can wait four bloody weeks, I suppose you can show me then.”

  “It can’t.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “Do you have plans this evening?”

  I rubbed my knees. “If by plans you mean drinking myself into a tea stupor, then yes.”

  His lips flattened. “I left strict instructions with your brother as to the dosage. If he—”

  “I was teasing.” I mock saluted him. “Ghedi follows your orders to the letter, unfortunately.”

  “Health is no teasing matter.” His mouth pursed. “Perhaps I should reconsider my offer.”

  “No, please.” I was too eager to mind how I pleaded. “What were you going to say?”

  He drew himself taller. “Would you like to see my laboratory?”

  “Yes.” Three of my brothers had taken up residence in there. Our ward was caged in there. Besides the fact, it was the hub of this locked-down section of tunnel, and I had yet to explore it.

  “In exchange,” he said, “I would like your word on another matter.”

  “Oh?” Bargaining was my favorite part of mercenary work.

  “I have gone through great effort to mend you as best I can, and I would like that effort to come to fruition.” He crossed his arms. “I would like your word that I won’t find you again as I did today.”

  I shook my head. If he thought I would sit tight and wait for his all clear, he was mistaken.

  “Your word, Zuri.” He waited. “It’s not so much to ask.”

  I scrunched up my face. “I swear to do my best to follow your instructions.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “No, but I try not to lie in my line of work,” I said. “It’s a nasty habit that could get me killed.”

  With a great sigh, he assented. “I suppose that will have to do.”

  “Will you still give me the grand tour?”

  Mischief glinted in his eyes. “Should I ask Ghedi for his permission first?”


  I snatched a pillow and hurled it at him. “Only if you want to beg my forgiveness second.”

  “I don’t like this.” Ghedi sat at the foot of my bed, his hand shackling my good ankle.

  I broke his grip and kicked him in his bony arse. “No one cares if you do or don’t.”

  “Henri said you needed bed rest.” He stood. “Not to go off gallivanting in your condition.”

  “Visiting his laboratory is hardly gallivanting.” I watched him settle into his usual track crossing the front section of the bedroom. “Could you hold still for five minutes strung together? Your pacing is driving me insane when I can’t as much as stand on my own. If you won’t sit still, why should I?”

  His pace slowed. “You’re the one with a broken ankle.”

  “Me?” I feigned shocked. “My, my, that would explain the cast on my leg.”

  “Laugh it up, sister dear.”

  “I would if it weren’t so tragically unamusing.” I offered him the reminder I deserved. “Henri is Araneidae royalty. Royals only gallivant with the likes of us for as long as it takes to yank down—”

  “No one is yanking anything,” he boomed. “Tell me you aren’t still thinking about it.”

  I threw up my hands. “He’s handsome, wealthy and I do have a pulse. Of course I am.”

  A hopeful note entered his voice. “But you’ve decided against pursuing him?”

  “Because I would have to be the one pursuing him?” I challenged.

  “That’s not what I meant.” He stabbed the air with a finger. “You are twisting my words again.”

  “You’ve got your tail in a knot because Henri asked me to tour his laboratory. Can you imagine anything so dull? How bored I must be to accept his offer? Do you think for a moment I would be so eager if I hadn’t been stuck in bed for two entire days with nothing to do but listen to your whining?”

  “Have I come at a bad time?” Henri stood in the doorway with his hand resting on the knob.

  Dread pooled in my gut. As big as my mouth was and as riled as Ghedi had made me, I had no doubt Henri had overheard me. How much, well, it didn’t matter. I had said it all and meant it to a degree, though I hadn’t meant for him to hear it. “I’ve been waiting hours for you to remember me.”