AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It’s a rainy day, with the sun hiding behind the clouds, and the view outside is nothing but gray. Gray skies. Gray water. Gray mountains. It’s as distressingly gray as the interior of the tower and it sours my mood. I eat a piece of fruit while sitting on the counter in the kitchen, and eye the large wooden door. I suspect it leads outside, though I’ve never tried it. Where would I go? Even just walking around outside isn’t necessarily safe. Vitar, one of Aron’s men, died to a thing that lives in the lake.
But today, I consider it. I consider going outside just to see if the Spidae will chase me down and bring me back. At least then I’d get some attention.
I’m…bored.
It’s pathetic. I’m as safe as could be. I have all the food I could want, all the pretty material to make myself dresses and all the time in the world. And I’m going mad after a week of this.
I finish my fruit and hop off the counter, washing my hands clean of sticky juice. If I’m unhappy with my situation, I need to change it. I keep thinking about the dark-eyed Spidae, and how he hasn’t sought me out, not even once. Is he unhappy with my presence? Is he waiting for me to approach him? I decide I should find out.
So I finger-comb my hair into a semblance of normalcy, smooth my new dress that I’ve made for myself (a ruffled creation of a deep, luscious red, my favorite color) and head up the ramp, seeking him out. All is quiet, and there’s no sign of the other Spidae, yet I get the sensation that they are here, somewhere. Or do they all fold into one another when I’m not around? They’re one god, but three facets of him, and I still haven’t entirely figured out how that works.
Then again, maybe it’s not for me to know.
I pass by a few of the inner chambers, the ones that I’ve never been in. The blue-eyed Spidae told me to stay out of them when they were sealed off, and right now, their doors are covered with a heavy glut of webs. Inside, I hear a faint, humming music, but I know better than to touch something that I’ve been forbidden, so I keep on going. It’s at the very, very top of the tower, when the ramp is so steep that I worry I’m going to slip and tumble all the way down to the base of the tower, that I find an open door.
Inside, one of the Spidae sits on the floor, cross-legged, surrounded by a mass of glowing red strands. They seem to emerge from the walls themselves, crisscrossing the entire room and taking up every bit of free space. I can’t get to the god without touching the threads themselves, but that somehow seems wrong. As I gaze upon them, they seem to pulse and throb, as if attached to a beating heart. I look over at the god again, and his eyes are closed, his hands resting on his knees, his head tilted back. He seems to be in communion with the webs in some way, and I hate to interrupt.
Yet the door was open…
“M-my lord?” I call out. “May I join you?”
His eyes open, and I see the dark, unsettling gaze of the third Spidae. Somehow I knew it was him, but now I have confirmation, and I smile broadly at him.
He flinches at the sight of me.
Oh, dear. “Am I bothering you?”
The Spidae shakes his head and immediately he gets to his feet and the strange, reddish strands melt away. I jerk back in surprise, gasping as the room empties out. He approaches me, and as he does, I notice he won’t look at me. He keeps his gaze averted, first to my dress, and then just anywhere else he can. “What is it you need?”
“I don’t need anything,” I confess. “I simply wished to talk to you.”
“What about?”
I smile to take the sting from my words, lest he think I am pouting. “You’ve been avoiding me, my lord. I wondered if my presence offended you.”
“Offends me? No. No offense.” He blinks and then his gaze flicks around the room. “Happy. Very happy.”
He…doesn’t seem happy. His expression is distant, and he still won’t look at me. “Is there anything I can do for you? To please you?”
I hold my hand out, and he shies away again, flinching backward. Oh. That’s not good.
“Touching,” he murmurs, looking anywhere but at me. “Too much touching. I don’t like it…do I?” He makes a distressed sound in his throat. “You are always smiling at me, Yulenna.”
I am? “Is that bad?” I ask. “Should I not smile at you, my lord?” After a moment, I realize he’s called me by name. It’s the first time any of them have. “You know my name?”
“Know everything about you,” he murmurs, and the sound becomes curiously soft and affectionate. “My soft, sweet-smelling Yulenna.” His gaze goes distant. “You always know how to make me smile. Even after centuries.”
Centuries? I blink in surprise, because I just got here a few days ago with the others. “Do you see the future then, my lord?”
“What will be,” he mutters. “What will be. What could be.”
How fascinating. No wonder he seems disoriented. It must be confusing for him if he’s seeing the future, even right now as he speaks to me. Centuries, though? Does he truly see me living at his side for centuries? Or is he simply seeing some other vision and interpreting it as me? Entirely possible, given that he won’t look at me.
“Will you tell me more about what you see?” I ask him, keeping my voice gentle. “So I can understand?”
“I see everything,” he says, lifting a hand. As he does, the red threads rise up out of the floor around us again, weaving their complex web. “All the fates of all in the world. What can be and what will be. A million futures, spread out before me.” He twists his hand, making a fist, and then lowers it again. The strings vanish once more. “But it is all death.”
I swallow hard at that, a knot forming in my throat. Death? As in, my death? Or everyone’s death? “But you are Fate, right? Not the god of Death?” I thought that was Rhagos, but maybe mortals are wrong about that sort of thing.
