Still, everyone knew she was pregnant.
Berrick watched her with the same sinking feeling that accompanied everything. If he could have for even an instant shaken the doomed feeling in the pit of his stomach, he would have been happy for her. He should have been happy.
Why do I feel nothing but hopelessness as my daughter walks down the aisle? He watched Marim. The color of fresh blood crowned her hair as it toppled over her shoulders adorned with little white flowers. Her eyes had faded to the night.
Marim reached the flower-strewn arbor and set her hand on Darith’s shoulder. They should have seemed ridiculous, or at least pitiful. She was so young, though Polly had not been much older, still his views had changed since then. And Darith could not even stand for their nuptials. They looked dignified. Pride covered them. Pride in each other and pride in themselves. She did not kneel to come even with him. He did not crane up at her or look overly doleful. There was no performance for watching eyes, just a doting smile passed from one to the other.
Berrick stared at her stomach and wished the laws on abortion were not so stern. Had the punishment not condemned Marim even without her having knowledge of the act, he would have destroyed the thing inside her. He’d considered it still. The proper herbs would be in lockup somewhere and it would be a matter of minutes for him to access them. Perhaps he should have.
The thing inside her was not a baby. It was a spider. He would kill it when it emerged, when it crawled from her womb. Then its death would only be on his head. Marim would never need to suffer again. He could give her back her life, her freedom, and this man she loved, who loved her in return.
She would feel Berrick’s absence. She loved him too. He was not oblivious to her devotion. Adoration for a father was a loss that could be overcome. A father comes second to a lover.
Berrick had long ago condemned himself to this. He had grown accustomed to drawing ever closer to his incarceration. What he would never become accustomed to was how much Darith and Marim looked like Halis and Silvia.
Would Darith’s paralysis someday be no more than a slight shuffle in his step? Perhaps his skin would darken like a shadow had passed over it. Then from a yard or two away he would be almost Darith’s double. Day by day, Marim became more like Silvia. Her hair darkened, along with her eyes. Even her body bloomed to look more like Silvia’s. Is her chin changing? He knew her steps had become more graceful.
She should be growing to resemble her mother. If I had cut the child from her, would she have grown as she was meant to? Would it have made a difference? He never thought of anything else.
Marim lifted the cup of wine to her lips and then passed it down to Darith. He drank. Then he lifted her hand and touched his mouth to her pale skin. She gazed down at him with a soft smile suffusing her eyes. Had he seen that smile on Silvia’s face when she’d looked down at Halis? No, surely, Marim’s smile was still her own.
Then Marim’s head turned slightly, and her dark eyes met Berrick’s. The soft smile continued. It stung his heart. Her love took his breath away like a painful blow to the gut. She was in there, his little girl, behind the eyes. She was in there, and he plotted to hurt her.
As she turned back, he saw her hand lift to rest on her protruding stomach. Not for the first time, Berrick wondered if she knew what he planned. Perhaps she forgives me? The hope was more painful than despair.
Darith kissed her hand before they turned and traveled down the aisle together. She shone, as a bride ought to.
Chapter 16
What Walks the Night
With hair made pitch-black by the night, Silvia stood, her face turned to a house above them on a rise. Its wide windows faced out to the sea, on the edge of which Silvia stood with Halis. Her black hair was pulled back in a plain braid. Her dress too was plain. She shone from amid the night’s shadows like a star.
Halis did not. His dark skin faded with the dusk and left him nearly invisible in the night. Where she shone, he moved like the shadows children see lurking at their bedsides. He was the boogeyman. If the face he wore was wonderful, it was clearly only a guise for evil. He stood behind her, the demon at her back.
“I want that one,” Silvia said, lifting one moon-white hand to point at the house. The house itself was not the largest on the cliff overhanging the moon’s cratered surface. Its gardens were its real beauty. They spread out on every side, even up to the drop-off to the moon’s barren surface outside the protective air-shell of the colony. They were a rich man’s gardens and a rich man’s house.
The grounds appealed to her. She could relax and listen to the moon-sand pounding against the air shield amid the moonlight and watch dewdrops glisten on spiderwebs spun over unending months across branches and paths. She could bathe naked under the stars in the splashing fountain. Most importantly, the life growing inside her would be able to learn magic, as she had from her own mother, by bending nature to its will.
Halis smiled. His teeth glowed as Silvia did. “The house shall be yours, my queen.”
Silvia touched her stomach. It was not as flat as it had once been but it was just as hard. “It’ll be ours.”
She’d spoken to herself, as Halis was already climbing up the cliff. His human form discarded easily. Now a different form of blackness slunk among the true shadows. Silvia smiled brightly and tilted her head up to stare at the house she had chosen. The current owner was the only impediment. Soon he would not be.
Two birds with one stone, as the humans said. Halis would feed, and the house would be for sale.
Wealth was a simple matter. For years, Silvia had ferreted money aside. If Yahal had not been so backward, had used electronic currency, it would not have been possible. But paper was easy to hide to store and to exchange.
What she hadn’t managed to save, well, that was easy enough. Silvia closed her eyes and thought of the first ship they’d boarded after their vacation to see the remains of Revia drifting in space. A small, sleek black vessel captained by a strange furry fellow. They used pods to put passengers in stasis, so the speed of the flight did not cause them illness. No one had woken up, and when the ship had come to harbor, the officials had labeled the stasis pods as malfunctioning. Inside each was a corpse. But oddly, money had been withdrawn by each deceased passenger after the flight.
Halis said the furry captain tasted foul.
Silvia sank into the cover of trees that lined the drive up to the mansions on the hill. Once there, she wove strands of the surrounding blackness. Energy crackled around her, and her human form faded. Using all eight legs, she pulled herself into a tree and waited for Halis’ return.
∆∆∆
Darith reached out across the bed, where Marim tossed and whimpered. The two months they’d spend apart before the wedding had altered her—and not for the better. These nightmares that hounded her gave neither of them peace. As his hand fell on her shoulder to wake her from the visions that haunted her, she turned to him.
Her large eyes swirled with inky black. Like Silvia’s eyes. A shiver ran down him.
“Gods, Marim,” he said.
He let go of her shoulder. How could he wake her from this?
Why is it doing this to her? The night filled his blood and like a web. Energy pulsed through him—in the distance Silvia lurked. The eyes within the web were Silvia’s and even now the shadows danced with her form. The voice in the web was not Silvia’s, but a hiss of thousands of voices.
In the night, he saw the web as it linked to him. But Marim was not attached as he was. She was trapped, stuck to the strands.
Darith set his hand on the still slight swell of her stomach.
Marim gave a screech and her hands flew up to her face, her nails scoring her pale flesh.
Darith grabbed at her thrashing hands and pulled her close against him.
“Give her back,” he said into the web. “You cannot have her.”
The voices hissed their wordless hunger.
“Come back to me, Marim. Co
me back.”
“The eyes!” she screamed, struggling against him. “They watch me.”
“I’m here. Come back to me.” The words were a mantra. Gretta said they worked better than anything else, she’d found. Darith faced Marim, still leaning his weight on her and holding down her writhing arms.
Black eyes stared back at him.
I can’t help her. She can’t hear me.
But the strands inside him tugged with her struggles. Disturbingly thrilling jolts of her fear coursed through him, but something else too. In the darkness, he tasted Marim’s adrenaline, her tears like an aphrodisiac.
That’s not me. Those are not my emotions, not my desires. Yet the hunger flowed in him. A metallic tang hung in the air and it jolted through him.
“Marim. Marim, I’m here,” he said.
As if responding to his wants, a strand of darkness deepened, widening like a road. He threw himself forward into the dark, tasting her, seeing her. He played the strand and moved closer to Marim. He found the baby there with her, half-formed, just a mess of legs and eyes.
He kneeled by them in this place that wasn’t a place.
“You’re hurting her. Let her go.” Darith reached into the web and stroked the infant’s head. Then with a sweep, he tore the strands that held Marim.
“Marim.” He fell from the web back onto his bed, back into his body. For the moment, his legs responded, pulling up so he crouched over her. “It’s me. Come back to me.”
Beneath him, Marim’s slight form relaxed, and she lifted her face. The self-inflicted scratches on her face were beaded with blood, as previous lines marked her neck and arms. But the eyes that stared out at him were no longer black. Nor were they Marim’s eyes.
Her eyes glowed a bright yellow and the tears that flowed from them were starlight, filling the dark. For the first time since the party, Darith lost the pull of the web. Feeling in his legs departed. Everything was gone but Marim and those luminescent eyes.
“Darith, the dark tugs me.” Marim touched her stomach. “She doesn’t know any better. It isn’t her fault, Darith.”
“I won’t let any harm come to your child. You must rest.”
“You can’t save me. I—”
“Hush.” Darith lay back on his pillow, tugging her against him. I can’t remain like this. I can’t help her—useless. A man with a wife he couldn’t touch, couldn’t protect. I’ll find a way.
Part 2
The Spider’s Heart
Chapter 1
Six Months Later
The Agency, as it was called, being too powerful to need any other moniker, was stationed primarily on an exquisite spacecraft. Anchored in the galaxy, it orbited a moon and waited, shields always up. Invisible to any who entered the quadrant.
Allison wondered as she stared at words in a book how long the blue metal edifice had served her as home. Hundreds of years? Thousands? Like most of The Agency’s operatives, she’d spent a great deal of time in stasis. To avoid time-madness as the owners claimed? Or do they just not want us to form bonds with each other?
It was a useless train of thought. She belonged as completely to The Agency as any slave. She’d signed over her life to be their agent and in return, they’d given her a surgery that ensured she would never age. Her body and mind would never degrade.
The cost of such a thing was staggering. When she’d been new to The Agency, she could not have repaid the debt. Now, perhaps she could, but where in the seventeen worlds could she go? Everyone she’d known and loved was either dead or also a member of The Agency. And as long as she performed well and obeyed their rules, she could have anything she wanted.
There was no point at all in thinking about freedom.
But she did.
Lifting her eyes from the unread text on the screen, she gazed at her chamber. Scarlet, crimson, and burgundy covered everything from walls to floor. From the ceiling hung a red crystal chandelier that sent claret beams darting about. Only Allison was a splash of white against the fiery madness.
Uncurling her long limbs, pale as cream, she pressed one red-tipped toenail to the floor. As if called by her disquiet, the door opened and Mr. Red entered.
Mr. Red was a handsome man. He appeared to be in his late thirties, though since he’d been with The Agency longer than she, he must have seen countless years. Only in his amber eyes did his true age make any appearance; there was no youth there. He was hard and emotionless. His blond hair slicked back away his face and lent his aquiline features a stern, meticulous cast.
The one asset the company valued above its agents. Their trainer. And the one reason she couldn’t forget the call of freedom. To be able to speak to him, to put into words the aching longing inside her when she saw his hand resting on a table and was unable to reach out.
“Red,” she said. Her voice was soft and breathy like the fluttering of a butterfly’s wing. Could she use an utterance against him as she did in the field and bend him to her will? No. That was why he was their trainer—because the agents couldn’t manipulate him with beauty and wiles. Still, at some moments, she was tempted to try. That was strictly forbidden.
Instead, she stood and extended her arms to him.
“Agent,” Mr. Red walked over to her and took her small hands. Mr. Red looked at her fingers curled over his. “I heard the other owners revoked the decision to put you back in stasis. No word yet on an assignment. Did you request this?”
Allison moved a step closer to him. She did not lower her pale lilac eyes but stared fearlessly into his face. “I appreciate you thinking of me, Red.”
He jerked his eyes away from hers and looked around the room. A sneer came to his lips. “What have you done to your chamber?”
“Don’t laugh at me.” She took her hands from his and turned her back to him. Her silk dress fell against her tiny waist and the slight swell of her hips. The flawless white skin of her back burned brightly against the red of her gown. It was her job to be constantly aware of these things, of her own beauty.
“What is this, Allison? Your way of sleeping with me?” A trace of mockery threaded his tone. From the corner of her eye, she caught his glance to her red bed as she moved away from him. She flinched at his voice.
Was his detachment an act, like the skills he teaches us?
“Don’t be cruel.” She glanced over her shoulder at him and he lowered his eyes away from her.
“The others wouldn’t approve.”
His voice had softened. If he hadn’t been so well-trained, she might even have heard fear in it. At least she supposed so.
“No,” Allison said.
There were words she couldn’t say, sighs she couldn’t sigh. Restrictions would be tighter for him. If he ever felt anything behind those robotic eyes, he never showed any sign. One of The Agency’s few rules for its agents was that the operatives never engage socially with other staff members. Agents were too dangerous and any attempt to fraternize was taken as a betrayal of the company, punishable by death.
He walked over to the bed and touched the velvet hangings. Did she imagine his eyes stayed longer than they ought? “You looked prettier amid all the blue.”
“I didn’t request a stay. What about the new girl, Glory?” Allison went back to her chair and sat down.
“Yes, I recommended Glory to ease her into the life.”
“Perhaps they decided I would be better.” Allison shrugged. “I’m the best, Red. The best you’ve got.”
“Don’t get cocky.”
“Did you come here to lecture me?”
“No. Get rid of this display. You look like a petulant child.”
Mr. Red had her best interests at heart. He always did. There was a constant tug-of-war between him and the other board members, and if she watched closely enough, she could sometimes catch the steps. What she gathered was that he genuinely cared about all of the agents under his care. He was their advocate.
“It’s a color, not a display,” she said.
“You think you and I are the only ones capable of reading between these not-so-subtle lines? Get rid of your little outburst. Immediately.”
“As you say.” Allison pursed her lips, not bothering to hide her discontent.
“Allison.” Mr. Red looked at her, and for all the power in the universe, she wished she could read his eyes.
“I’ll do as you say.”
“Thank you.”
The door let out a little puff of air as it closed and resealed.
Chapter 2
Birth & Death
The world split in two. In the back of her mind, Marim knew that giving birth was not supposed to feel like this. There were supposed to be boundaries to the pain. Agony as brilliant as a lightning strike drove through her and when it receded its absence left only a blind black. Her mind tore in two. One half knew that she was giving her child to the world. The other half charred amid a river of magma.
She screamed that she was dying. Tumbling into the churning nothing, she could not hear her voice. Then she sunk beneath the waves once more. Beneath the waters, her mother smiled and danced with a figure covered in thorns that pierced her. Her mother’s blood spread slowly out, staining her browned skin. With every movement, her flesh was torn, leaving more of her oozing wet. Yet she kept smiling. As she turned, Marim could see into her mother’s eyes. They were black as night, and they were leaking a tar-like substance.
Light flashed against her closed lids. It blinded her mind until she stumbled inside it. She crouched and held still, hoping to stay within the slender circle of light. The darkness at the periphery scared her. She held her thoughts close, not daring to reach out. The pain of her body rippled dimly through this mist of beautiful light.
When the light ripped in pieces, she cried. “No! Oh no, no!”
A brief vision of the room around her trickled into the crack. Darith sat at her bedside. He was crying. He knew how the web reached to claim her, clung to her, left her no more than a fly beating useless wings after its legs are entangled in the spider’s web. Words rose in her, but her voice couldn’t find purchase in her throat. She wanted to touch him, to tell him she loved him. Tell him to survive and to forget revenge. But she couldn’t move her arms. Her wrists were bound with cords to the bed. Darkness enveloped the room.
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