Everyone else would worry and wonder, but could never know her fate. Years would pass, time would press on, and she’d become no more than a memory to her loved ones. One day, even Mark would leave that memory to the dust and move on with his life. If he ever found Lily, if he ever got married and started a family of his own, she would never know. And her parents—blessed souls—they’d be left the most wounded of all. But in time, all wounds she left would heal. If her life could fulfill the singular purpose of ending the death woven by the servants of the Yellow King, then she would pay that price.
Tears of conviction running down her cheeks, she scanned the subtle laces of energy dancing along the sigil. Each cell was a gateway to a twin sign. Just as Kara had saved her and Mark from Zigmhen by homing in on their cell, so too did she now scan the mist for the echoes those signs left in the tapestry of the Web. And when she located the buzzing center, which she knew to be Th’ai-ma, she was struck by its solitude. There was not a single sigil in the whole city.
A tremor of uncertainty raced through her limbs. That couldn’t have been right. In the great fortress city of the Yellow King, how could his sacred sign not exist? Tracing the landscape the mists drew across her mind, she at last found a sigil some distance from the first. And so she focused her mind upon that signal and drew forth its latent essence.
A numb buzzing encompassed her hand, a tingling from the core of her mind. The sigil flashed, yellow light dancing along its edges. A low hum resonated from within, and then a dense fog began to seep from the center. Her shoulders shook. A tremor raced through her as the first tendrils of mist caressed her hand. The fog swirled and crawled outward until it formed a great, seething portal.
She hesitated, unable to hold back the grief that threatened to overcome her. To leave everything behind, to become a memory, to abandon all her dreams at the edge of the universe—the shattered dam broke further, and the tears came in a greater volume. Teeth tight, she whispered a silent goodbye to the wind, praying it would carry her words to Mark. Then she took a step toward the fog portal.
But as the first wisps of vapor lapped at her cheek, the sound of footsteps pounded the asphalt. “What the fuck are you doing!?” a voice called behind her.
Spinneretta turned against her better judgment. Before she could react, Arthr grabbed hold of her arms. She recoiled, trying to pull out of his grip, but his spider legs took her by the shoulders and held her fast. “Arthr, let go of me!” she said in a low hiss.
He shook his head violently, eyes wide in disbelief as he looked upon the hole in spacetime. “You have to be kidding me, after all we went through to find you you’re just going to take off again? Do you know what you’ve put us all through?”
Her plated appendages tangled with his, trying to pry open enough space for her to turn and plunge into the portal. Even putting all of her strength against his, the gaps she opened lasted mere moments. “Let go! I have to do this!” she said, just loud enough to be heard over his panicked cries and the hiss of the portal.
“You’re nuts if you think I’m backing off! You can’t just keep running off on your own! We’re a family, and we can solve whatever problems— ”
“I said let go of me!” She pulled and heaved, panic taking over her mind, but her brother’s grip remained resolute upon her wrists.
She heard a clack, and her blood froze. Over Arthr’s shoulder, she saw the door to their room open. Mark’s head emerged from the darkness within, and it took only a moment for the panic in her stomach to spread to his face. He gave a shout and began to run toward them.
“Arthr,” Spinneretta breathed, “let me go right now, or I might do something I regret.”
Mark was hurtling over the asphalt toward them. “Spinny! Stop!”
Arthr bared his teeth. “What are you thinking? Think I’m just going to let you leave after all this?” His shoulders tensed as he tried to pull her from the mist.
Mark was almost to them. Spinneretta made a split-second decision. There would be no going back. She couldn’t allow herself to throw away her only chance to put an end to the horror. She bit down hard and growled through her teeth. “Then you leave me no choice.” She slid forward and drove her fist into Arthr’s gut as hard as she could. The blow buckled his knees and bent him toward her. Exploiting his moment of weakness, Spinneretta turned around and twisted out of his grip as far as she was able.
“Spinny!” Mark’s voice was near. Too near.
Fighting her singular moment of hesitation, ignoring the sound of her brother retching, she gave one final shout to the world. “I’m yours forever, Mark.” Then, she threw herself into the seething vaporgate, Arthr’s arms and spider legs still wrapped around her shoulders and wrists. She dragged him until she felt cool vapor swallow her body, and then a nauseous twisting sensation sucked her consciousness from the Earth.
Chapter 32
At the Threshold
When Spinneretta regained consciousness after passing through the mist portal, everything was still all bendy. It felt like her body had been turned into molten taffy and sucked through a whirlpool. When the sick sensation ended, she hit a wall of chilling vapor and plunged once again into a world of gravity and rules. Her stomach did a perfect somersault. She twisted and rolled as she hit the ground. She absorbed the brunt of the impact in her spider legs and shoulder, eyes clamped shut from the jarring sensation. Despite the loud ringing in her ears, the thud and grunt just behind her came loud and clear. The sound startled her out of her portal-induced daze.
She flipped herself into a crouch and turned around. When she opened her eyes, she found a dull gray mist clinging to the uneven earth. And beneath that rolling layer of vapor, Arthr lay sprawled upon the cracked ground. Her breath escaped her. “Oh, shit . . . ”
At the sound of her voice, Arthr snapped to attention and clumsily rolled into a half-crouch. The mist billowed off him as he rose. “What the hell happened?” His jaw went slack. His wide eyes darted to the sides. With shaking shoulders, he turned to examine their surroundings. Mouth dry, Spinneretta could only follow his gaze.
They were upon a vast, mist-covered plain. Ruins lay all around them. Less than ten feet away, the skeletal remains of a large stone arch stood at the edge of a great mound of rubble. A low, broken wall traced a hexagonal perimeter around the remnants of the structure, but it failed to hold back the overflow of megalithic, blood-red shards. At the top of the preserved arch was a deeply carved relief; surrounded by a worn yet elegant cartouche was the sigil of the Yellow King—the anchor from which they’d emerged. Despite the erosion and damage to the arch and the half-destroyed walls around it, the arabesque spider-leg motifs were still clearly visible as they spiraled about the broken columns and intersected in irregular lattice patterns.
Brittle, cracked earth paved with flat stones stretched all around. To one side of the shattered temple, the barren landscape was populated only by a sparse trail of bloodstone columns that shot up from the dust at seemingly random intervals. The most complete of those pillars must have risen higher than thirty feet. The rest were little more than a quarter that, their remaining height scattered about their bases in loose heaps. Whatever those columns were meant to demarcate, however, was lost upon Spinneretta as the mists swallowed their procession into the distance.
In the opposite direction, the flat horizon morphed into high peaks that rose from the crawling fog and pierced the storm-gray clouds above. The dull glow of one of the Web’s stars shone from beyond those mountains, little more than a baby-blue halo contaminating the twilit gloom. The irregular series of broken pillars continued on toward those mountains, rising along the contours of a long, sloping hill at their feet.
Arthr’s eyes were wide with horror, and his lips began to tremble. “Holy shit. What is this place?”
Spinneretta couldn’t stand to look at him. Her stomach tightened with the agony of the realization. She curled up into a ball and laid her head upon the stone-cluttered ground. “Fuck
, Arthr.”
“S-Spins, what the hell is this?” The note of panic in his voice was more desperate now, more pitiful.
She said nothing. The ribbons of mist kept wafting past her cheeks, tracing cold patterns across her tear-damp skin. Above, the wind racing over the endless wastes droned on. Her eyelids fell shut and her spider legs shivered beneath Mark’s jacket. This couldn’t be happening. She couldn’t have dragged Arthr into this, too. This was her burden and hers alone—the last thing she wanted was for anyone else to have to suffer for her decisions. And yet the pain of the pebbles biting into her knees and arms did not awaken her. This was no dream. This was her sin.
Arthr expelled a shaky breath. “This . . . is the Web, isn’t it? This is that place that you . . . that, that Kara . . . ” He crawled over to her and grabbed her by the shoulder. “Spins, you’ve gotta get us out of here. O-open the gate again, get us out of here, alright?” When she didn’t answer, he started again with a panic. “H-hey, are you listening? Open the portal, Spins.”
Her lungs fought to control her erratic breath and choke off the sobs threatening to break her. “I’m sorry, Arthr.” Fresh tears seeped through her tightly pressed eyelids. “I’m so sorry.”
She felt him shift, and then his other hand grabbed her side. His plated appendages took hold of her, shaking her lightly. “Open the portal again.” The spark of bravado failed to hide the terror ringing through his words. “I don’t know what you were thinking, but just open it again and let’s get out of here. Talk this all over, okay?”
Spinneretta pressed her burning lids into the skin of her forearm. “I can’t.”
He was quiet for a moment. She could taste a layer of sweat forming on his brow, and could feel the trembling in his chest. At last, Arthr chuckled a hollow sound. “H-hey, Spins? Th-this isn’t funny, okay? Open that portal again and let’s go home, yeah? I mean, you opened it, so you must be able to . . . ”
Biting back against her own self-hatred, she lifted her face to him. Her blurred vision turned the traces of mist into a sea of gray. “A seal was cast on the Web long ago. To keep him here. He was trapped. The Web became a prison, and what little remained of the spider kingdom fell to ruin.” Her lips quivered; the certainty with which those insane words spilled from her mouth should have bothered her, but the feeling in her stomach was too distracting. “It’s a one-way door. I . . . I told you to let go. I told you to just leave me alone and let me come on my own. Because I didn’t want to . . . I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Arthr.”
“Spins,” he said, his voice pleading, “come on. Stop fucking around. Open it and let us out. Come on, I don’t like this. I, I don’t want to be here.”
“I’m sorry.” It was all she could think to say. How had she let this happen? The guilt was a leaden cannonball, and she wanted to throw up. How many people who love you are you going to ransom for your damned guilt? she heard Annika asking her.
Arthr croaked a strange sound, his face frozen in that terrible look of disbelief. Then, he collapsed from his forward hunch into a heap upon the ground, burying his face in his arms. That odd sound came again, and then a glance of his contorted mouth stopped Spinneretta’s breath. He was sobbing. She hadn’t seen him cry since they were children; not even when Pat broke his leg and beat him raw.
“I didn’t want any of this,” he choked between tearful spasms. “I just want to have a fucking normal life. Is that so much to ask? No evil corporations. No cults. No monsters. No kings. No mist portals or other worlds.”
The way his voice warbled and broke was disarming. Spinneretta’s chest tightened, poisoned by the frigid vapor that flowed along the ground. Steeling her stomach, she crawled to her feet and brushed the stuck pebbles from her pants with a sweep of a leg. She turned away from Arthr and toward the imposing mountains that dominated half of the landscape. The breeze pulled at her hair, its droning voice the only sound besides her brother’s sniveling. She closed her eyes, trying to push away the sound.
The emptiness behind her eyelids invited her deeper into her own mind. Before long, she could feel the lines of grating force that washed over the mountains and plains and dunes. Where those lines converged, beyond those mountains, she discerned the heavy pulsing of a great sentience. It was just as it had been when she’d come to the Web with Mark, only now it was far nearer, far more tangible. It was there. There, at the cradle of the spider civilization, at the origin of the mists, at the very heart of the forbidden lands, was her objective.
“Stay here,” Spinneretta said. At once, Arthr’s sobs ceased. “Stay near the Sigil of the King right there. That way, Kara can open a portal to it and let you out when she realizes we’re gone.”
Arthr stood up, sending pebbles clattering across the ground. “W-wait, what? Spins, what are you saying?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drag you into this. But nothing has changed. I’ve come this far. I have to end it. I . . . I think this is where we part ways.” She turned to him and forced herself to smile. The thought occurred to her that this would be the last time she ever looked upon her brother’s face. “When you get back, tell Mark I’m sorry. Mom, too.” Unable to maintain the facade any longer, the corners of her lips fell. She turned and began to march toward the trail of broken pillars. “Goodbye, Arthr.”
She made it only a few steps before Arthr gave a panicked shout and stomped after her. “W-wait! You’re not fucking leaving me here in this alien wasteland, are you!? You can’t do this to me, Spins!”
“It’ll be safer if you just stay here,” she said, not stopping for even a second as she continued up the gentle incline.
He grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her to face him. His face was bright red, eyes wide and wet with fear. “Safe? What’s safe about any of this? How am I supposed to trust you, huh!? At least . . . At least don’t leave me alone, okay? Anything’s better than that.”
“Listen, Arthr. What lies ahead is for me alone. I don’t want to drag you into—”
“I get it! You don’t fucking care!” The tears in his eyes spilled forth again, and his entire body rocked with the force of the outburst. “Nobody cares about me! I get it, I get that now, okay?”
“W-what are you talking about?”
Arthr flicked his wrist at her as he wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “Because I’m not like you. I’m not . . . I’m just useless is all. I thought she was just being a bitch, but it’s fucking true, isn’t it? I tried, okay? I tried to be a good brother after all that happened, but how am I supposed to? How am I supposed to just accept all this shit you heap on me? It’s like you and Kara don’t even understand how insane this whole thing is! Why am I the only one who gives a shit? And nobody cares, either. Nobody cares that I don’t get it, that I don’t understand. Everyone’s willing to bend over backwards to keep you happy, so why doesn’t anybody even ask how I’m doing? Because nobody cares. Nobody needs me. Even the cult didn’t need me, and they’re the ones who fucking made me!”
He turned and, with a tortured bellow that rang all the way to the mountains and back, kicked at the earth with all his might. A hail of pebbles rained across the ground, and the smell of dust stirred the air. “And you want to leave me here? For, what, safety? So Kara can come and save me one day if she feels like it? What makes you think she’ll even care? Who do you think they’re freaking out about right now, huh? Think they give a shit that I’m missing? No, it’s you they’re going to be screaming about. It’s all you, you, you. You think fucking everything is about you!”
Spinneretta’s lips would barely move. “Arthr, I—”
“No, fuck you!” he spat. “You have the nerve to give me shit about my pride? My ego? I’m not the one who thinks he’s destined to save the world from some legendary king! And where’s the karma? Where’s the justice? When I was given to pride, what happened? The universe punished the shit out of me. But when you’re given to pride?” He laughed a despaired sound, shoulders slumping and anger dispersing. “It just p
unishes me harder.” His legs went limp under him, and he collapsed to the ground in a shuddering pile. “God, why? Why is this happening? I just wanted to have a normal life. Why can’t I just win once? Win something?”
Spinneretta could think of nothing meaningful to say. She’d never seen Arthr like this. Though she could taste the stench of alcohol on his breath, she knew he was truly hurting. Her heart ached for what he was going through, for what she’d done to him. And worse, she knew he was right about her. She’d been selfish. But it was too late to do anything about it now.
With a slow breath, she turned away from him, toward the mountains where the broken pillars led. “I’m leaving, Arthr,” she said. “If you want to go home, then stay here by the sign.” Her lips shuddered around the words she didn’t truly want to speak. “But if you don’t want to be alone . . . then hurry up and come along.”
She started off without waiting for an answer. The crunching of fine stones beneath her soles made her curled appendages shake with apprehension. Stay here, Arthr. There’s no reason for you to give your own life away for nothing. All she could do now was try to keep the collateral damage off her mind. Kara would certainly come for him, and by then she would be gone. It would all be over. There was some tangible comfort to be felt in that finality. Messiah complex or not, she was the end of the King’s reign.
Behind her, Arthr’s sobs went silent. It did not take long for the sound of his footsteps to replace them.
After trying three other doors with no answer, Mark pounded his fist against the door of room 117. “Annika!” he shouted. “Are you there? Open up, now!” He waited only two seconds before giving another series of raps against the door. His pulse was pounding; panic flowed through his veins like viscous wine. “Annika!”
Tatters of the King (The Warren Brood Book 3) Page 43
