Page 184 of Blade of the Nightking

My first instinct was to run after him.

The urge was so strong I actually took several steps toward the archway before stopping short. Calling out would be stupid. Running blindly after him would be worse.

Every instinct sharpened at once. Somewhere nearby, hidden amongst the trees and veils of drifting silk, a predator was waiting. I could feel it.

I ducked through a break in the wall, little more than a crumbling gap in the masonry, and huddled into a crouch just as a muted thud sounded near the temple entrance. Something large had dropped to the ground.

My pulse hammered in my ears as I pressed myself deeper into the shadows.

A series of rattling clicks sent a bolt of terror through me as the thing beyond the archway shifted through the grass. A moment later came the scrape of something hard against stone as the creature stepped into the temple.

The clicking stopped as the creature paused just inside the entrance.

My heart in my throat, I crept closer, keeping low as I slipped along the outer wall. A jagged crack split the stone a few yards ahead, just wide enough to see through. I leaned forward and dared a look through the gap.

My blood went cold.

At first all I saw were limbs. Far too many limbs. Long and pale and covered in a layer of coarse hairs, they protruded from a vaguely humanoid frame whose skin was the color of flesh that had never once known sunlight. Loose folds sagged from its skeletal body, draping over jutting bones like cloth left hanging from a frame.

Then its head turned. A surge of nausea rolled through me.

Two enormous black eyes dominated its face, wet and glistening as they swept across the chamber. Only a moment later did I notice the others—smaller eyes clustered around the larger pair, dozens of glossy black beads shifting this way and that as the creature searched the temple.

I didn't dare move. Scarcely dared to breathe. After a long moment, the creature sank back on its haunches before retreating from the entrance. Only then did I creep toward the corner of the wall, inching just far enough to steal a better look.

One of its elongated legs seized a thick strand of silk hanging from the canopy overhead. It lifted itself from the ground, its many limbs folding one over the other in smooth, fluid motions as it climbed. Within seconds it was ascending through the trees, scuttling effortlessly across the maze of silk stretched between the branches with the horrifying grace of a spider returning home.

And then I saw him.

Rìan hung high above the forest floor, suspended at the heart of an immense web spanning the canopy. Thick strands cocooned his torso. Others bound his arms tightly to his sides and pinned his legs together. He didn't move. Didn't so much as struggle against his restraints.

He watched without fear as the creature eased along the strands toward him before lowering itself over his trapped body, enclosing him within a cage of hooked joints like a monstrous ribcage. The seam of its mouth split slowly apart, stretching wider and wider until a dark cavity yawned across its face. Something shifted within.

Segmented appendages, slick with saliva and lined with fine, needle-like barbs, appeared one after another from inside the creature's mouth. They rattled against one another before spreading wide.

The Spinner lowered its head. One mandible slid through the dark strands of Rìan's hair. Another traced the line of his throat. The movements were almost tender, as though the creature were tasting him, savoring every touch. Then it withdrew, the appendages slipping back into the cavern of its mouth before disappearing from sight. The seam of its mouth closed.

As the creature settled back upon its web, I noticed its thinness for the first time. Every rib jutted starkly beneath its creamy skin, the hollow of its belly so deeply sunken it looked as though something had scooped it out from within. Even its long, spider-like legs were little more than sinew and sharp angles, like bare branches in winter.

It was starving.

The creature spoke. “Where is the other?” The sound it made was little more than the rasp of dried leaves. Beneath the words came the constant click-click-click of mandibles hidden somewhere inside its throat, accompanied by a scraping that made every syllable sound as though it were being forced through too many moving parts.

“There is no other.”

Its glittering black eyes never left Rìan. "They promised there would always be two."

"Who, exactly, promised that?" Rìan asked calmly.

"The ones who made the Gate."

Despite everything, my attention sharpened.

“They gave me this place, where magic sings with wrongness, where nothing else dares to live. They told me the sweetest morsels would come in pairs. They would journey here carrying their deepest wounds, and the Gate would draw them to the surface, where I, alone, could feed.”

The clicking in its throat quickened. “And yet so few have come. I have waited through seasons and storms and centuries of hunger. I have watched the Veins change course. Watched the old paths close. Watched the world forget.” A shiver rippled through the web. “And all the while, I have starved.”

The desperate need in its voice made my skin crawl.