Behind us, the spiders shriek.
“They’re pissed!” Sylvian shouts.
Of course they are.
“Find another way!” Cassius snaps, already turning, blade up.
My heart is pounding too fast, my thoughts scrambling, searching. And then I see it! An opening in the ceiling where rain is pouring through on the other side of the chamber.
“Up!” I point, my voice breaking through the chaos. “There!”
“Go!” Ashton orders.
Oberon surges forward, fire roaring back to life in his hands as he hurls it into the webs. Flames race upward, clearing a path just wide enough before the fire goes out. Then, he throws another fireball in a different corner of the room, drawing the creatures away from us.
The spiders react instantly, turning toward the fire, then splitting. Some still come for us. Some go where his fire still burns.
Cassius grabs my wrist and pulls me with him. “Move!”
We sprint forward. Hoping, praying, that this isn’t just another illusion. That there’s really another path out of this room that doesn’t lead to death.
18
Alette
The openingin the ceiling feels impossibly far away. Rain pours through it in sheets, cutting through the darkness like a cruel reminder of how close freedom is, and how unreachable it might as well be.
As we head through this new section of the massive room, it’s just as bad as the area we’d just cleared. Webs cling to everything, to the walls, to the floor, to us, thick, sticky strands dragging at our legs, our arms. I slash through one with my blade, barely clearing the path.
“Any ideas?” Ashton calls, dodging a snapping leg as it crashes down where he’d just been.
The opening is the only way out. Everything else is death. But I have no idea how to reach it.
“Oberon!” Sylvian shouts. “Keep the fire going!”
“I am!” Oberon growls, another burst of flame igniting the webs behind us, forcing the spiders to race to the new fire just enough to give us space.
“Ashton, can you get us up there?” Oberon throws over his shoulder.
Ashton shakes his head even as he runs. “Not like this! I’ll slam us straight into the webs, or into something worse!”
A spider drops in front of us, legs splayed wide. Sylvian doesn’t hesitate. The ground beneath it erupts, jagged stone spearing upward and throwing the creature off balance long enough for us to veer past it.
“I think I can get us up,” Sylvian continues, his breath tight now. “But they’ll still be able to reach us when we’re climbing! It’ll be dangerous!”
“Then we don’t stop moving!” Oberon fires back.
Another spider lunges, and Ashton ducks, slicing through a strand that would’ve pinned him, and grins wildly. “So that’s the plan? Run straight up Sylvian’s staircase while everything in here tries to kill us?”
“Yes,” Oberon says flatly.
“Great. Love it.”
As we near our escape, Sylvian kneels, placing his hands on the ground, his green eyes glowing faintly as he focuses. The earth begins to shift beneath our feet, the ground trembling as if it’s responding to his call. Slowly, carefully, a staircase forms, the stones rising from the ground in uneven steps, twisting upward toward the opening above.
The spiders close in, skittering faster now, emboldened, their legs scraping against stone they circle, waiting for their chance to strike. Then, finally, the staircase reaches the top, still shuddering and shifting, but high enough.
Sylvian exhales hard. “I just have to–to keep it from falling now.”
