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What in the stars is he doing in here? Does the path before me turn at some crazy angle? Or is there even a path before me? Perhaps I’m standing on the edge of some precipice, a mineshaft that plunges straight into the mountain’s heart.
A shiver traces over my skin, pulled from my body by the cool miasma rising from deep inside the mountain. Stars, if only I had magic! I clench my jaw at the uselessness of wishing for my own fire magic, for the ability to cast just a tiny little spark. Even children can do that much.
Annoyed, I lean down, grab a rock, and toss it into the darkness. There’s a distant crash, the resounding smack of stone against stone, followed by another, softer clang, then another, and then another.
Well. At least I’m not standing at the lip of an enormous subterranean cliff, then. I take another step into the darkness, straining to see anything beyond the shadowy stones at my feet.
“Phaedron?” I say.
My voice bounces uneasily down the corridor, as if it’s following the same path as the stone. I hold my breath as my heart paces circles inside the cage of my ribs. Just when I’ve decided that I’ve lost my mind, that if Phaedron were down here he would have answered me by now, there’s something.
It’s the scrape of stone on stone, so slight that for a moment I think I must have imagined it. But then it comes again, closer this time, almost like a rock bouncing up out of the mine shaft. I freeze as nightmare images fill my mind; Phaedron crushed by a cave-in, his chest covered by stone, unable to call out. Phaedron with a twisted ankle and a gash across his forehead, his blood spilling onto the unforgiving stones of the abandoned Golden Touch.
“Phaedron!” I yell.
That soft scraping noise echoes back to me, only now it sounds like it’s coming from the mouth of the cave. I stumble backward.
And the darkness explodes toward me.
I scream as the emptiness inside the cave shatters and surges forward, a jumble of images rushing toward me. Coarse gray hair, serrated pinchers, and a fistful of gleaming black eyes. I stagger into the sunlight.
The thing comes after me. It’s only when my ankle hits a rock, as I’m tumbling down backward, that my mind finds the word.
Spider. Cave spider.
I fumble at my waistband, desperate for my dagger and only dimly aware of my own screams, as the cave spider lunges into the sunlight.Although generally reclusive, the cave spider will occasionally pursue prey into the open, my brain says, helpfully reciting information from some book in the king’s library that I had no idea I’d memorized.
My dagger comes free, and the spider is on me, a cage of legs surrounding my body. There’s a horrible sort of clicking noise as the legs close in, and then something rough and jagged twists against my thigh. Fear burns hot inside the back of my throat, mixing with my screams; I try to swallow my panic. Above me, the spider’s thorax looms like a massive, hairy wall.
One shot, I tell myself. I’ll get one shot at this monster. I tighten my fingers around the hilt of my dagger and try to ignore the way the entire world trembles around me.
There’s a hiss, a scream, and the pressure on my thigh suddenly vanishes. The spider lurches backward with another series of angry clicks. I scramble back, dragging myself along the dirt.
And a flash of metal appears between me and the spider. I watch, frozen in place. Time slows. Phaedron throws himself at the spider, his massive sword practically burning in the sunlight. The spider retreats in a hissing whisper of legs against stone, and Phaedron follows, his gleaming sword stretching up in a glorious arc and then descending on the spider’s thorax.
There’s a final series of clicking sounds, and then a sickening, low squeal splits the air. Thick black blood sprays out of the spider’s massive body as Phaderon pulls his blade free. The legs twitch and scramble, uprooting grass, spraying dirt and pine needles. And then there’s the smell, like a stagnant pool spilled out onto the grass.
I gag and scramble backward. Phaedron jumps away from the spider’s thrashing legs. He turns to me, his ice-blue eyes wide and wild.
“Are you hurt?” he demands. “Did it bite you?”
I blink as my mind processes something it failed to notice earlier.
Phaedron is naked.
I open my mouth. Close it. Open it again. Phaedron stands before me, panting for breath, his pale hair soaking wet and lying flat across his neck and shoulders. The river, my mind finally suggests. Phaedron was never in the mineshaft. He went to bathe in the river.
I swallow and try to stop my gaze from dropping. But I can’t miss the muscular plane of his chest or the crimson streaks of—
Oh. Oh, stars above. That’s not blood smeared across the right half of Phaedron’s body. It’s scar tissue.
So he wasn’t born like this, with only his left arm. No, his missing arm was taken from him. I try to swallow, but my throat feels like it’s packed with dry sand. I know I’m staring, and I know I need to stop, but by all the blessed stars and moon, what could have done that to him? What could have taken his arm and split open the entire right side of his body? And how could he possibly have survived it?
“Alindra?” Phaedron asks. “Did it bite you?”
He takes a step closer to me. My gaze drops again, and sweet stars above, he’s not wearing any pants. And he is— Oh, my stars.
I take a step backward, as if to put some distance between myself and the absolute monster between Phaderon’s legs, and shake my head. There doesn’t seem to be any safe place to look, so I slam my eyes closed.
