Tatters of the King (The Warren Brood Book 3)

by Bartholomew Lander

  Raxxinoth and her followers were her burden to bear and hers alone. She wouldn’t let anyone else, least of all Mark, be hurt by them again. And yet that was an impossible ambition. The screams behind her filled her stomach with acidic regret. There was nothing she could do about it now. She couldn’t shirk the responsibility hard-coded in her blood.

  Nervous tremors dominating her spider legs, she once more began to carve the intricate sign of the King into the stone floor. She ignored the ache of chitin grinding on stone and forced herself to complete it, ending with the vertical stroke that split it in two. An electric shock assaulted her mind. The jolt rattled her legs, sending a sharp nerve pain up and down her spine. A spasm racked her shoulders. “God, no,” she muttered. Why wouldn’t it work?

  In a panic, her legs traced the sigil yet again. Once more she felt that jarring ripple from the sign, as though the portal spell had struck a physical barrier and ricocheted off. It was the same as when she tried to use the sign to escape the Web. It was all the same. No matter how many times she tried, the gate wouldn’t form. And yet she couldn’t stop herself from reaching out and frantically carving it again and again, just as she’d done the first time she’d looked up at the maddening sky in Zigmhen.

  Mark’s final words to her kept ringing in her ears. The certainty of the farewell was ominous, and she was now certain that he was responsible for disrupting her gate. This was the same power that sealed the Web from the opposite side. The seal that made passage to Zigmhen a one-way trip was now two-layered. Flames. The barrier had been woven of something like the Flames of Y’rokkrem. An ancient spellwork. Mark was the linchpin. He’d sealed it off so she couldn’t return and risk her own safety over him. You selfish bastard!

  She drew the sign again and again in the stone, growing more and more desperate. The design ceased to resemble anything coherent as recursive layers formed. Logic broke down. Her thoughts and actions flowed no longer from any semblance of reason. Instinct. An animalistic need to return. “Damn you, Mark,” she muttered. “Damn you, I won’t let you do this. You can’t do this on your own, not against him. I’m the one who has to . . . ”

  All she’d wanted was to put an end to the pain that enveloped her family. All she’d wanted was for her parents and siblings to be happy, to be able to live a normal life without fear. She’d been willing to sacrifice herself for that, but it seemed fate hadn’t punished her enough. It was all, inescapably, her fault. Had she only stayed with Mark and Annika and Arthr instead of running off on this suicidal mission, none of their lives would now be in danger. This was her curse.

  Goddamn you, Mark! I won’t let you martyr yourself because of me! I forbid it! I absolutely forbid it!

  The sound of footsteps echoed from the mouth of the alcove. The whoosh of fabric over stone made her heart race. Shaking her head, she just tried to force the gate open. That singular idea was the only thing that mattered.

  A wet voice from behind chilled her to the bone. “Here you are,” Nemo said in a malign hiss.

  Spinneretta just gazed into the rock in front of her, her legs quivering as they tried one final, futile time to open the portal to the Web. A hard blow took her in the back and sent her crashing to the hewn stone floor. A wedge of pain spread heat up and down her spine in waves. She sprawled on the ground, spider legs scrambling to maintain her balance. Before she could regain her footing, an impossible force crashed into her and sent her rolling.

  Dizzy, she tried to get back up but found her perception fuzzy. There was something holding her back, numbing and paralyzing her. Her spider legs were as heavy as stone. Her fingers felt like they weighed a thousand pounds each. At the mouth of the chamber, Nemo held one hand out toward her, from which the paralysis flowed in oscillating strands of magic.

  The Helixweaver cackled, and the bloodied skin of his face seemed to weep as he did. He made a jerking motion with his fingers, and Spinneretta was lifted by the spell. Her whole body twisted until she came to rest in a kneeling position, unable to move a muscle.

  “I’m afraid I can’t allow you to escape again,” Nemo said as he sank down in front of her, drawing near enough that she could taste his breath. It smelled like mass extinction. He raised a hand and gently caressed her cheek. She cringed, her heart pounding. As his hand moved, a spike of chitin cut a hot gash across her face.

  Her jaw was tight. Heat ran from the shallow cut, dripping down the side of her chin and onto her neck.

  Nemo’s lips pulled back, and his thrush-covered tongue flopped out. In a fluid motion, he lapped at her bloody cheek. Spinneretta tried to scream, and the paralysis was the only thing keeping her modest stomach contents in place. She wanted to yell. She wanted to thrash and strike him, to kill him. And yet she could only sit there and allow herself to be violated. The Helixweaver’s tongue lashed at the wet nape of her neck and the exposed skin of her collarbone where a few stray drops of her blood had landed. Then he played at the wound itself, prying open the split skin just a little and aggressively attacking the raw tissue. The pain was nothing compared to the revulsion of the act.

  When Nemo had slurped the blood from her face, he drew back a little, smacking his lips and laughing a hoarse, breathy sound. “I have waited so long to see the enemies of the Yellow Dawn brought to their knees. Bordon. The Warren. You little spiderlings. Do not worry. In only a matter of moments, your beloved siblings and friends will be cut apart by my servants. But you I will take particular pleasure in killing.” His fingers shuddered, and a malevolent wave of magic rippled outward, falling into Spinneretta’s body like a volley of arrows.

  Agony painted her mind stark red. The magic attack buried searing spear-points into her skin and muscles. The pain spread like lava through her veins. The harsh contraction of her limbs broke through the paralysis as she crumpled into a heap. Every nerve in her body erupted into flames. She began to scream. Her muscles clenched in violent spasms, each so hard she thought her bones would snap from the stress. A foot came to rest just before her. Her whole body rigid and fixed, her heart racing at a lethal rate, she could only stare up into the Helixweaver’s frightful rictus.

  “It would be so simple. To crush your skull. To rip open your throat. To bend your spine to the breaking point. But these damn memories of mine. Dwyre had such hope for you. Such respect. Paternal, in a way. Is the part of me that is still Dwyre sabotaging me? This hesitation I now feel . . . is it mere anticipation?” He licked his lips. “No, it cannot be. I have no qualms about killing you. But I wish to savor the death of the King’s eldest child.”

  He leaned in close to her until their faces were a mere inch apart. She willed herself to spit in his face, but those muscles, too, were frozen by his torturous spell.

  “They say man’s true aspect is revealed when he stands at death’s door. So what, then, is yours? What have you become?” His green eye flashed with an internal light. Spinneretta cringed as the tendrils of magic invaded her eyes and soul. Everything went dark.

  Spinneretta was alone in the void. She could feel her body, her extremities, but there was nothing else around her. No walls, no floor, no air. She was neither floating nor falling; she was just existing, alone in her thoughts. As she tried to make sense of what had just happened to her, a hideous, low hum rumbled through her skull. It was a grating, electric shock that sizzled on the very threshold of her perception.

  “Incredible,” came Nemo’s voice from nowhere and everywhere. “How very delicious, this misery. I can taste it in your soul, Arachne. It seeps from every thought and nerve. Misery. Anger. Hatred. I had dared to hope I’d find such a wealth of pain in you. But I never imagined it could be so thick. So pervasive. Drink deep of it once more.”

  Transient flashes of memory ripped at her vision. Her pulse raced, and terror clawed at her mind. Spinneretta forced herself to take deep, full breaths, if only to ease the pressure on her chest. It’s just a trick, she thought. It’s just a trick. The flashes grew more frequent. More jarring. Lake Cor
morant. Breakfast. That nosy Jessica girl and her questions. Molting. The summer. The escape. Saying goodbye to Mark. Kaj. Her dad. Glass embedded in her leg. Each flash brought a deeper ache to her pounding heart, and with each extracted image the Helixweaver’s humming grew hungrier.

  “How is this possible?” Nemo asked from within and all around. “Your mind is utterly steeped in suffering, but I can find no cause of it. No origin of this pain. How are we to relish it, then?”

  A sharp burn pierced her in the back of the skull. The feeling of electricity rummaging through her brain intensified. She tried to hold back a gasp, but the thought of Amanda and Chelsea drew it out. She clenched her teeth. “Get out of my head.” The words bled into the dark, absorbed by the droning of whatever swirled beyond the phantom sight.

  “Ahh. I believe I have found the cause. Let us have a look, shall we?”

  A bright flash divided the dark. Suddenly, Spinneretta was standing in the field atop old McBlarney Hill in Widow’s Creek. Dusk drew near, painting the tall grass with golden hues. The wind rustled the stalks of grass, lifting songbirds on their voyages home. Confused, Spinneretta just stood there, scanning her surroundings. A sharp pain rustled behind her eyes, and one hand immediately snapped to her temple. I can move again? What’s going on?

  Another bright flash, and she understood at once. She was eleven years old again. Her clothes and hair were the same as they had been that day; the thoughts in her mind were erratic and childlike. But the panic didn’t hit her in full until she turned around and saw him.

  Will. Blond-haired and blue-eyed, wearing khaki shorts and a beige vest. The boy was struggling with a figure shrouded in a dusty yellow coat. Her vision ran red with her shock and horror. The image, burned into her brain from that day on, was alive right before her.

  “Run, Spins!” Will threw his shoulder low into the Marauder’s hip, toppling him with an angry shout.

  A protest came to Spinneretta’s lips, but she couldn’t speak. She was again paralyzed from head to toe, and only the terrified trembling of her muscles proved she was still living.

  And as Will fell upon the coated man, he looked up and grinned at her, raising one thumb. Never, in her eleven years, had she ever seen anything so heroic. “No looking back!” he yelled, turning her thoughts to acidic loathing.

  The terror from that night swam through her veins. Her muscles, against her will, turned her about. She began to run. She was helpless to defy history. There came another flash just as she reached the bottom of the first bulge in the hill’s slope, and time slipped backward, reeling, skipping, and resetting again. That cocky grin was still plastered to Will’s face, his thumb raised.

  “No looking back!” he said again. As soon as the words left his lips, the image froze into a three-dimensional snapshot. The wind ceased playing at her hair, and the birdsong overhead went deathly silent.

  “This?”

  Spinneretta started. Her attention snapped to the crumpled shape of a deadwood tree twenty feet downslope. There, under its gnarled limbs, Nemo sat upon his haunches, studying the scene. “This is your most painful of memories? What idiocy. With what regard could you have considered this child of ours?” His gaze drifted to her, and a mechanical smile emerged. “This child here. Blackburn. He was an ally of the cult.”

  The whole hillside seemed to grow colder. Tendrils of frost sank into her chest and appendages. Will, an ally of the cult? Air seeped away through her skin. Her stomach felt empty, weightless. The sickness began in her intestines and shook her limbs with denial. No, that’s impossible. He couldn’t have been. But at once, she knew it was true, for the Helixweaver’s consciousness bled into her own mind. Will’s lack of reaction to her spider legs was never the innocuous curiosity it seemed. It was premeditation. Nausea sank to the base of her spine and froze it, crushed it. Poisonous anger began to roil and froth in her heart.

  Nemo rose lethargically, limbs dripping to his sides. “Blackburn. I remember him well. He was tasked with bringing you into our cabal. He was to be your initiation. In the end, he failed. And that makes your guilt over it all the more baffling. Is this really the best you can do? No. Not this. This could not be the origin of the lion’s share of your suffering. This is unfit even for an appetizer.”

  The air buzzed for a moment, and Spinneretta’s anger and hurt vanished behind a wall of pain that carved her skull from temple to temple. A deafening screech came. She felt Nemo’s thoughts invading deeper, like white-hot spikes being hammered into her brain. Every synapse in her body protested with fiery abandon. The darkness fell around her again.

  “If not that,” the blackness hissed, “then what? What poisons your soul with such dark . . . Ahh, perhaps this will shed some light on it.”

  An ache in the center of her chest absorbed her focus. It thudded harder and harder, and then another flash burned away the dark. Six eyes stared up at her, four of them red and glazed. Her spider legs were coiled around the creature’s throat, and the thing’s wet hand sat upon her cheek. The atrophied muscles of Isabella’s arm struggled to keep itself aloft. The image blurred as old tears reemerged. No, she could hear her old self thinking. This can’t be the end. You can get out of here. We can save you. As though the poor soul could hear her thoughts, Isabella blinked four times and widened her lids.

  “I’m sorry,” Spinneretta heard herself say as tears spilled down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry.”

  No, she thought desperately. Stop! But it was too late. The tips of her plated legs sank into Isabella’s throat, rupturing her flesh and the stiff plastic tube within. Blood overflowed, filling the gaps in her plates and flooding her spiracles with the stench of metal and death. Isabella’s eyes bulged. She groped at Spinneretta’s face and arm, but her muscles were weak from a life of disuse.

  But she never loved you, either. Spinneretta started at the sound of her own thoughts. This time it was from the nameless voice. Something throbbed beyond the walls, and the voice spoke along its edges. Everything you touch will be destroyed in the end. That is how it has always been.

  “Is that it?” came the Helixweaver’s voice from behind. Again the scene froze into a still frame, and Spinneretta’s muscles locked. Nemo strode out from behind her, stepping carelessly into the puddle of Isabella’s blood. The ragged hem of his robe drank in the reddened chemical bath. He sank down beside the creature. He sat there for a long moment before craning his head toward Spinneretta and giving her a chilling look. He tapped his fingers along his jaw. “This is it? Another one of ours? And the Eleventh, no less! These are the only things that have truly pained you in this life? This is all the pain you have experienced? Here, at the very end, you can complain only of such petty grievances as guilt?”

  Darkness erased the scene again, but this time the Helixweaver remained, as though illuminated by lights no longer visible. He stood amidst the black void, his face flashing red. “You disgust me. Such trivial suffering. Could this truly be the cause of this pall over your soul? The boundless torment that breathes through the folds of every one of these memories? I cannot believe this. Do you not understand how luxurious your life has been? You . . . ! You wanted for nothing! You had health, comfort. NIDUS protected you, kept you safe from discovery. You were allowed to do as you pleased, all by Dwyre’s mercy. After such a sheltered existence, was it not enough? Was your entire life so miserable that it has irreparably tainted your soul?” Spittle rained down upon Spinneretta’s exposed neck. “You spoiled, entitled brat! You know nothing of true suffering, do you? All this pain of yours, meaningless, self-contrived! Don’t you dare tell me this is all you can offer!”

  Shaking in rage, Nemo stormed closer to her and seized her by the throat. She choked, coughing against the obstruction, desperately trying to remind herself it was just an illusion. “Spoiled child!” he shouted into her face. “I refuse to believe this! There must be something more! Show me. Show me! I shall not suffer you to die with these as your sole regrets! Is there nothing else!?”<
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  She felt the white-hot claws of the spell digging deeper into her brain, filling her limbs with paralyzing fire. A throat-tearing scream exploded from her lips, and the world spun faster.

  Memories and thoughts of violation flashed before her eyes. Personal, embarrassing moments, flowing backward, ever backward. In reverse, she witnessed her entire life like a film through a burning projector. Long-forgotten images, thoughts from years ago. Herself as a child, being scolded by her father. Fighting with Arthr. Crying when awakened from smoke-filled nightmares. She saw herself trying to get along with other children at Mount Hedera—but then the film strip seemed to skip and shake. The agonizing spikes in her brain pulsed, throbbing as though they had encountered some form of resistance.

  A hot breath poured from Nemo’s mouth. “Here! I’ve found it! This time I’m certain. This palpable malice. This venom. Show me what you’ve been hiding! Show me, and bask once more in the origin of this boundless misery!” Her own screams tearing out of her throat couldn’t erase the sound of his voice.

  Then, something strange happened. The pain in her mind vanished, and a luminous crack split through their empty world. But this time, the illuminating light seemed to shine from the perforated barrier in her mind. Thunder roared all around her, and she hit the ground of the memory with a thud.

  Spinneretta again found her body restrained. Her muscles fought every attempt to move from where she lay crumpled upon the ground. From nearby, a hoarse grunt came. “What is this?”

  Her eyes opened with a start, her breath coming in coarse, panicked rasps. She glanced hither-thither, taking in their surroundings. They were on a great flight of stairs, hundreds of feet wide and extending endlessly in either direction. Grand, imposing walls stood in the distance, an ocean of sharp, silver steeples and interlocking jigsaw structures filling in the gaps. A sea of bronze and sandy orange culture stretched before her, ending only when the distant mists swallowed its features. Shaking with fear, Spinneretta fought back the paralysis spell enough to turn her neck. And then her whole body went icy cold.