Tatters of the King (The Warren Brood Book 3)

by Bartholomew Lander

  “We need you to do that again. Open a portal, so we can save her.” When her face didn’t move, Mark took a shallow breath. “Okay, Kara?”

  She didn’t answer. She just glanced over her shoulders at the imposing robes behind her. A look of fear came upon her, and then it slowly morphed into an expression of severe certainty. Fury. Before Mark could decipher what she was thinking, the girl fanned her spider legs and swung at him.

  Mark recoiled, but he was too slow. A line of heat ripped across his face, splitting the bridge of his nose. Hot fluid splattered down his cheeks. Blood-covered hands clenched the wound, and he looked up just in time to see her pounce.

  “Traitor!” Kara shrieked.

  Mark jerked back, springing to his feet. Kara’s legs swept down and clattered against the tile ground. She cringed as the tips of her legs flexed and bowed from the impact. The Vant’therax were moving, closing on the girl from either side. Behind, Annika was yelling and running toward them. Mark raised one blood-drenched hand to the side. “Stop! Nobody touch her!”

  The yellow robes halted at his command, and the footsteps behind him ceased. The only one who didn’t stop was Kara. She flew toward him on her eight legs, a howl tearing out of her throat and chilling his blood. She lunged and swung with her anterior legs again, but Mark backpedaled out of range just in time. “Kara,” he said, “what are you doing? It’s me, don’t you recognize me?”

  “Traitor!” she screamed again, stealing back the distance. “You betrayed Spins!”

  Another swipe of chitin lanced across Mark’s forearm. He slid back, narrowly avoiding a long-ranged overhead swing. “What are you talking about?”

  “Kara, stop this!” Annika shouted.

  Faul, still flanked by Silt and Dirge, started toward the girl. Mark raised his hand toward the Vant’therax again. “I said stay where you are!” A lash of the girl’s legs nearly struck his hand. He leapt back, trying desperately to open the space between them. The girl was no more than a dark blur hurtling across the ground, dancing feints to the sides whenever he took a lateral step. “Kara, I haven’t betrayed anyone! Stop and listen! We must save her before—”

  With a howl, she dove at him. The attack scraped across his pants but didn’t penetrate. “You betrayed her! You wanted to use her for the Coronation! She left on her own to get away from you, didn’t she?” She flowed into a savage attack that Mark dodged with a sideways jump. “And you need me to follow her so you can finish NIDUS’s mission, don’t you?”

  Mark couldn’t believe what she was saying. Cringing through the pain, he took another giant step backward. “Why would you think that of me? Why would I betray her after all we’ve—”

  “The Vants are our enemy! If you’re working with them, then you’re our enemy, too!” She lunged and dove again, cutting diagonal attacks toward his constant retreat. She scuttled to the left, and Mark went right.

  “Kara, I’m not—!”

  It was a feint. The girl twisted about and suddenly flashed toward him. The attack drew a shallow wound in his leg just above the knee. He stumbled back, but she pursued and tackled him. A flurry of angry legs brought him crashing to the ground.

  “He’s innocent, Kara!” Annika screamed, her voice now closer than before. “We’re your friends!”

  “Stay back!” Mark shouted.

  Kara’s legs tangled with his arms, leaving incisions wherever they found skin. “She wouldn’t have gone through the portal unless there was no other way!” Kara screamed in retort. “What friends are you!?”

  Mark’s restrained fury surged at the remark. “The Vant’therax are trying to protect you both from the cult that wants to kill you!” He shoved his bleeding arms into the inner workings of Kara’s legs and pulled himself closer to her—too close to be hit by her attacks. He brought his face just in front of hers and met her hateful gaze. “I wouldn’t betray her!”

  She pulled back for a moment, and then her forehead slammed into his nose. A wet pain erupted from his cartilage and tugged at his scalp. He flinched, clutching his wounded face as his whole skull rang from the blow. Free from his grip, she mounted him again and shoved his trunk down against the ground. “If you cared about her she wouldn’t have run from you! You’re an obstacle to her quest!”

  “Kara, I’m not—!”

  “Shut up and die!”

  As Kara reared back to bury her legs in him, Mark broke. With a snarl, he raised a hand and unleashed a deafening blast of magic. The force threw the spider-girl off him and into the air. She landed with a thud some distance away. A moment later, she scrambled back onto all eight, poised like a wild animal. Instead of pouncing on him again, however, she looked over her shoulders at where the Vant’therax now approached.

  “That’s enough,” Silt yelled from across the plaza. “I will not allow you to hurt her, Warren. She is our last chance.”

  Mark sat back up, a coil of guilt tightening within him. For a moment, he could only stare at the bloody slashes covering his arms, and the thick puddles in his palms whereupon his face wound wept. “Leave her alone.” His vocal cords would only permit a growl.

  Faul lunged for Kara with the hand unoccupied by Cinnamon, but Kara danced out of the way, her legs bracing and absorbing her landing. Another robe closed the distance, but Mark couldn’t see clearly anymore. All he could see was the deep red that covered his palms and arms. “Leave her alone.”

  But the dance before him continued. One of the robed horrors grabbed Kara from behind during one of her lunging attacks. Shouts of struggling came to him in warped strains. His stomach boiled; his limbs were weak, trembling. Heat flashed through his cheeks and neck. With a surge of strength, he bounced to his feet and began to shout. “Don’t you fucking touch her!”

  Faul shot him a look but trapped Kara against his chest anyway. In his other hand, Cinnamon was still thrashing, screeching louder than ever. “You had your chance,” he said in a gravelly voice. “Now it is our turn.”

  Mark scowled, lips quivering with self-hatred. “Drop her. Now.”

  Silt strode between them, chuckling. “Crass though it may be, I must confess I found your fight amusing. But, you are unfortunately not as diplomatic as we would have liked.” He looked up from beneath his cowl, a gut-turning smile on his lips. “So, we’re going to have to do this a different way.”

  Mark glared at him. “Different way?”

  “We still have to save Arachne. A lack of cooperation does not change our goal, nor the means by which we may achieve it. If Nexara will not willingly yield our gateway, then we must force her.”

  At those words, Kara fell silent and ceased her thrashing. Even Cinnamon seemed to pick up on the change in the air and quit her wild resistance.

  Force. It would be trivial to search through the strands of the girl’s thoughts and find where the secrets of the portal were engraved. And if necessary, he could even force her own muscles to move, to turn the key to the Web. Though it was heartless, if Kara wasn’t going to listen to reason, and if Spinneretta’s life was on the line, then . . .

  He shuddered. Mouth dry, he swallowed a mouthful of air. No. I couldn’t do that to her. Setting his gaze upon the leader of the Vant’therax, he shook his head violently, splattering the ground with drops of blood. He bared his teeth in the most menacing scowl he could summon. “I will not allow you to do that to her.”

  Silt’s expression fell. The dark lines and creases in his leathery face sagged, and Mark read worry in them. “Please,” Silt said. “We have tried the diplomatic solution. We must now consider our options, Warren.”

  “Options? Here’s two for you: let her go, or I’ll kill the three of you right here and now.”

  “Mark?” Annika appeared at his side and grabbed his shoulder. “What the hell are you doing?”

  He didn’t answer; he just kept glaring into Silt’s soulless eyes. The Vant’therax pursed his lips, sizing him up. The creature was attempting to read him, to determine whether or not the threa
t was genuine.

  A long moment passed. The dry evening breeze rustled the robes of the creatures in unison. At last, Silt scowled and turned back to the Vant’therax restraining Kara. “As he says. Release her.” Faul hesitated, and then dropped her once again, clearly irritated at the encore of the command.

  When she touched down on the ground, Kara spun about and scuttled away from them, casting glares in all directions. “Now drop Cinnamon,” she said.

  Faul considered the now quiet creature in his hand but did not question her. He gently lowered Cinnamon to the ground. As soon as her spider legs found the mosaic tiling, she slithered out of his grip and scampered to Kara’s side.

  Panting heavily, the girl twisted her head over her shoulder to snarl at Mark. He peered into the depths of her hate-filled eyes. Resentment rolled off her with each breath—it was thick in the air, palpable. As the lonely reality of her loathing solidified, Mark swallowed hard. “Go,” he said. “Get out of here. Do as you will.”

  On guard, she gave Annika and each of the Vant’therax an uncertain glance in turn. Then she bolted from the plaza, toward the bleached skeleton of town with Cinnamon just behind her. She gave not a single look behind her as she flew on all eight away from them. Soon, she was just a heat-twisted blur, and then a shadow.

  Silt crossed his arms and sighed in anger. “I hope you are planning on enlightening me regarding your plan now, Warren.”

  Cringing at the hot pain covering his face and arms, Mark hobbled toward the nearest stretch of the cream-colored building surrounding the plaza. “I have no plan.” He put his back to the wall and sank to the ground. The sharp pain receded beneath a shroud of despair.

  From the sun-stained center of the plaza, Annika drifted toward him. “Mark, what in God’s name is wrong with you?”

  Her shadow fell over him, blocking the low-angled rays of light. “Is it wrong?” he asked, tongue resisting each motion. “That I thought, for just a moment, that I could do it? That I could force her? If I had just stopped her muscles and shoved my thoughts into her mind, I could have made her do exactly as I wanted. But if I did that I’d be no better than those monsters who created their own Conduit.” He nodded toward the Vant’therax, and a few more drops of blood plopped against the tile. “No better than the bastard who created them. Spinneretta would never forgive me if I did that to Kara.”

  “Newsflash: she’ll never have a chance to decide for herself if she’s dead!”

  “Then that’s her decision. Not mine.”

  Annika fell silent.

  Mark tried to quell the storm of insects devouring him from the inside. “If she cared about me,” he breathed, “she wouldn’t have run.”

  “Oh, you’re shitting me.” Annika looked to the Vant’therax, who still stood in their loose formation, as though she expected them to chime in. She gave Mark an indignant shrug. “Please, don’t you dare tell me you’re deciding this based on some fucked up emotional response.”

  “Kara’s right, Annika. And so were you. Spinny just sees us as obstacles now. Even if I forced Kara to open the portal, it wouldn’t matter in the end. There’d be no way for us to get back. And worse, it would just be delaying the inevitable. I tried to convince Spinny. I tried to get her to see reason. But she still chose to go and fight the Yellow King. She still thinks she’s responsible—for things that the goddamn King bears the burden for! No matter what we do, she’s going to keep running. From us. From her family. From life. Back to the King. And there’s nothing I can do.” He was choking on the syrupy misery. “I have no right to take her choice from her.”

  “Holy shit. Who are you? The Mark Warren I know would never be stopped by something as malleable as impossibility or morality.” She crouched down beside him and grabbed him by the arm. “If you really cared about saving Spinneretta, then you wouldn’t hold back.”

  He gritted his teeth. “If I never held back, there’d be only ruin.” Last time he’d let himself slip, he’d paid a price still all too fresh in his mind. Ellie . . .

  Annika’s other hand shot out and grabbed him by the collar, slamming his back against the false-adobe wall. “When did Mark Warren become such a flaccid little bitch? Why did you come this far, Mark?”

  When he met her gaze, he found her brown irises smoldered with an uncharacteristic contempt. He could only look at her for a few seconds before his eyes drifted to the ground in shame. “Ask not such pointless questions.”

  She shoved him again, and the rattle of his shoulders on the wall split his head with a deep ache, making him wince. “Answer my fucking question!” she yelled. “Why did you come this far? Why have you spent so much of yourself on this stupid family of half-spiders?”

  “You know better than most,” he said, voice weary. “The damage a cult can do. Just look around you. At everything here in this town. This is what their faith yields.”

  “So, out of the goodness of Mark Warren’s remorseless heart, you’ve risked life and limb for this family, letting your own search for Lily lapse? Like I’d believe that’s all there is to it. Is this some kind of atonement quest? You want to pay back your debt to the cosmos? Some kind of moral obligation to your bloodline?” She paused. “Or is it that you love her?”

  At that moment, he hated Annika more than anything; asking such a trivial question—one that he’d just so recently answered for himself—helped nobody. He wouldn’t be able to speak if he opened his mouth, and so he clenched his jaw and rolled his blood-slicked fingers into fists.

  “A simple yes or no will do it.”

  “It matters not. My own emotions have no value at all in this.”

  “Look, it’s clear as crystal that you want to dip your finger in that girl’s mayonnaise, so let’s have it in as many words.” She slammed his shoulders for a third time against the wall. “Answer my fucking question, Mark!”

  Mark snapped. He grabbed Annika’s wrist and jerked her arm away from him. She recoiled, and for a moment her sharp eyes went wide with fear. Glaring death into those chocolate pupils, he snarled. “Yes, alright? But it matters not. That has nothing to do with any of this.” He looked down upon his blood-cursed hand. His heart thudded. Blood. A flashback emerged from the foaming sea of his nightmares. His lungs denied him; his whole body tingled. Letting out a coarse breath, he uttered an all too familiar thought. “I can’t protect anyone. Not my family. Not Spinneretta. Not even myself. All I do is make things worse. Best to just let what happens happen. There’s no point in anything.”

  “Don’t give me that nihilist bullshit!” She grabbed him by the collar and brought her face within an inch of his. “If you don’t let go of what happened in Arbordale, then nothing’ll ever change! Just what do you think your sister would say if she were here?”

  The question shattered his thoughts, and for a moment his self-hatred dispersed. Were such a banal afterlife to exist, what would Ellie think of him now?

  “Do you honestly think your sister would be glad to see you building a shrine to your sorrow and despair, living with her death forever chained to your shoulders? If she could see you here about to give up on your suicidal girlfriend, what do you think she’d do?”

  Mark was unable to even consider such an impossibility. “I don’t . . . ”

  “I didn’t even know the girl, but I’d wager four bullets in my Ruger that she’d smack you upside your brooding little head and tell you to go fucking get her! Because that’s what big sisters are for. And since yours isn’t here anymore, it looks like it’s time for me to step in for her.” She grabbed him by the hair, and a dull pain ripped through his scalp as she wrenched him onto his knees. “I’m only going to say this once, so get it through your skull: I’m your big sister now, and I’m not going to let you throw away both of your lives. Annika won’t let you play by those rules. Not anymore. Look me in the fucking eyes, Mark!”

  Scalp burning, tears stinging his eyes, Mark did as she commanded. Her dark irises drew his attention to focus.

&nbs
p; “Now, tell me: who are you? Are you a man, or are you a little bitch who can’t even stand on his own two feet?”

  Annika’s words reached his heart. He felt a heat spreading through his chest, igniting a thunderous zeal in defiance of his despair. “I’m . . . ”

  “Say it. Say it with me!”

  A hot breath. “I’m Mark Warren. Chosen of Y’rokkrem.”

  She nodded. “Goddamn right you are. And nobody takes from you what’s yours!” Her eyes flashed with a razor-sharp certainty. “And are you going to let the damn Yellow King take Spinneretta from you?”

  Fire in his veins, he stood. “Never.”

  She smirked. “That’s the brother I remember. Now, what’s the plan?”

  And at once, his soaring spirits began to crumble. “I . . . I know not. It may already be too late. Kara won’t help us. And even if I forced her, it would be a one-way door.” Hopelessness again began to weigh upon him, crushing the ecstasy of its momentary absence. “The only way we’re getting into the Web now is a goddamn miracle. And I’m fast running out of miracles, Annika.”

  “There’s another way,” Silt said.

  Mark jumped. He hadn’t noticed the Vant’therax making his way over to them. When his heart calmed, he nodded at the creature. “And?”

  Silt peered into the distance, toward the glistening mountains. “Nexara’s ability to open portals is a result of NIDUS tampering with genetic carriers and memory. But the skill is not unique to her. Long before her birth, the Helixweavers used the same spell to visit the Web. That is how they acquired the materials that would go on to frame the infamous projects, leading even to our own existence.” He raised one arm toward the peaks of the Calico Mountains, where the bonfires had blazed the night before. “As the heir to their memories, Nemo himself has the same power. And the archons—the highest ranking priests of the Websworn—may also know how to invoke the spell of passage. If you are not interested in forcing the girl to comply, then that leaves us only one option.” His eyes were dull but concealed a guarded intensity. “We storm the Yellow Dawn’s stronghold. We find either Nemo or the archons. And then we force them to open the portal for us.”