One scorpion infant tumbled off. Saul tossed it into their mouth and swallowed. “I am not the keeper of Ix’s happiness. They are. We have full control of but one thing in life, our spirit.”
“You are a voice of reason living at the edge of the wilds,” Hiresha said. “Did you argue with Ix?”
“After the hex, after my blood ran green, I had an awakening.”
“Died a man, reborn in venom,” Tethiel said.
“In poison, my dear. Poison,” Hiresha said. “Did you not see the deadly oiliness of their skin?”
“Quite right, my heart.”
Saul stared down at the centipede devouring the scorpion and its young. “We could not be together because Ix couldn’t imagine us apart.”
“I like this one,” Tethiel said.
She did as well. This Green Blood would serve them better than Ix. “Have you considered being a king?”
“We always planned to, Ix and I. To become Green Bloods and rule together with venom and poison.”
Saul hefted the giant centipede. It coiled around their chest. Despite its name, the centipede only had forty legs, which drummed helplessly. The Green Blood inhaled, nostrils flaring inches away from the clicking pinchers. Toxins spurted from the tips. Saul smiled to the ears then bit off the insect’s head.
“Then I changed,” they said, “and I saw that nobleness of the spirit came not from achieving your desire but giving it up.”
“No, only cowards shy from their hungers,” Tethiel said.
Hiresha shushed him.
“What makes a king grand? Only his spirit. The same is true of a slave.” Saul pulled out the purple string of the centipede’s intestines and slurped them down. “King and slave are both my kin, and I will not poison them.”
“Technically, you’re no longer related,” Hiresha said.
Tethiel hushed her.
“I’ll not poison for you,” Saul said, “even if it means my death.”
Discovering this Green Blood charmed Hiresha more than finding a lost emerald in a cloak pocket. The Lands of Loam needed more deep thinkers, ones not quick to kill for power.
Hiresha glanced to Tethiel. His left pupil winked at her. Yes, they could make good use of Saul.
“You are a thoughtful being, and you deserve the truth,” Hiresha said. “We came wishing for you to influence Ix.”
“We can’t intimidate the rudely fearless,” Tethiel said, “but we can do worse than threaten. We can help you.”
Tethiel might be of the same mind as her. At the least, Hiresha expected him to support her in this scheme. “You told us both king and slave are your brothers, and yet you isolate yourself from them.”
“Only to protect them.” Saul tossed the remains of the centipede off the branch. It tumbled into the depths of the forest floor.
“You can do better,” Hiresha said. “Your power to kill must be matched by your power to save lives with antivenom. You could go from village to village, scent the local deadly fauna and flora, and concoct a cure for each.”
“I’ve given this thought,” they said, “but my antivenom lasts only days.”
“In the heat,” Hiresha said. “The villages could have a cache of your cures, chilled by snow from the Cloudcrusher Mountains and stored deep in a cool cellar.”
“It is true,” they said, “the goal of the spirit must be to help mankind.”
“Especially noble if you’re an abomination,” Hiresha said.
“As all men are.” Tethiel brushed a leech from his shoulder.
“Perhaps I could visit nearby villages.” Saul ran their fingers over the slick greenness of their arm. “But northern cities would dry me out.”
“A city can be most withering,” Tethiel said. “Nothing kills more people than civilization.”
“We could hire you attendants,” Hiresha said, “to keep you damp with vapor sprays.”
“Lightly flavored with nightshade, of course,” Tethiel said.
Saul gazed into the misty distance and released a wistful hiss. “Even if your spirits are pure, others would seek to capture me for power.”
“They would not dare.” Tethiel smiled more pointedly than a scorpion stinger. “You have our promise of protection.”
“Hiding can consume a life,” Hiresha said. Tethiel had been right about that. She took his hand and caressed it with her jewels. The pulse of his magic throbbed against her. “And more than one.”
The Green Blood was tapping their red chin with a black claw.
She and Tethiel, they had Saul.
Hiresha and he left the Green Blood with the Mimic. Saul would leave the jungle, join with more men loyal to Tethiel, and make a circuit toward the City of Gold. Hiresha would see to that.
Tethiel stepped into his saddle. His horse rose from its kneeling obeisance. “We must bring the two Green Bloods together again. Ix will be delighted to see Saul, or furious. Either will serve.”
“If Saul’s spirit is as noble as I suspect,” Hiresha said, “I will reward them.”
“Should Saul begin to spoil Ix with selfish ideas like humility, we’ll turn them into rivals.”
“And if Saul is agreeable, they may act as advisor to Ix’s rule.”
“The two may reign together after all,” Tethiel said. “If Saul swore never to be king, crowns will rain on their head.”
“There may actually be a measurable correlation.”
“And a more direct one between Ix’s toothy displeasure and a subject’s death by poison bite.”
“Venom, my dear,” Hiresha said. “Venom.”
“Quite right, my heart.”
“The most important part of a plan is a readiness to make a better one. I believe we exemplified.”
“Hiresha,” Tethiel said, “I love nothing more than conspiring with you.”
“And sometimes, Tethiel, you’re distinctly better than tolerable.”
He and she could achieve anything together. Hiresha soared with the thought. It might even be true.
She lifted her engagement necklace and ran her thumb over the red paragon Tethiel had given her. How pleasant to touch such perfect smoothness. Diamonds lasted long, and enchanted ones would forever endure. She held a god-blessed piece of eternity. The jewel shone brightest with Tethiel nearby, and if that was illusion, so be it.
Saul the Green Blood strode onto the crystal ceiling. They crossed between the podiums bearing the engagement necklaces with the dawnstone sapphire and red paragon.
The speckled face of Ix lifted with what Hiresha interpreted as surprise, trembled with outrage, flushed cyan with desire, and then tightened with contempt. Ix lifted their blue chin, rolled their shoulders, and straightened their back. It might’ve been the first time they hadn’t slouched in years.
Tethiel whispered near Ix’s ear. “We invited Saul as a gift to you.”
“And helped them find purpose,” Hiresha said.
“But they are not yours,” Tethiel said, “not anymore. You must start anew.”
Ix had already fallen back into a stoop. They set their hands on hips and pushed, trying to stay upright and proud. “You think I’d start anything with that? I’d sooner kiss a wicker-barb snail.”
That last remark they had spoken loud enough for all the guests to hear. “Ix,” Saul said, “you’ve kissed a king’s palm, which is worse. You’ve given yourself into his keeping.”
“My venom glues the kingdom together.” Ix stabbed a claw at the pale blue of their own chest. “What’ve you done with yours but weep it into tree roots?”
Tethiel’s fingers prickled up Hiresha’s arm. He leaned close behind her. “They despise each other. That’s as good as devotion.”
Hiresha reprimanded him by flicking one of her citrines to bounce off his cheek. She guided Saul to their seat beside Ix’s place. “Saul has been far from idle,” she said. “They’ve advised me on how to poison leeches. In addition, over a dozen villages and this city have been equipped with antivenoms.”
/> “What could they know of banes?” Ix sneered with fangs extending. “They’ve wasted all their time talking to themselves in the middle of nowhere.”
“Know that I never pitied you,” Saul said. “Locked away in your city as you were, without any fresh banes. Every day in the jungle I discovered a new venomous spider.”
“Speaking of deadly delicacies,” Tethiel said, waving servers forward with cages, “these rainbow locusts are jumping with freshness.”
The veiled men presented one locust to each of the Green Bloods. Saul snatched out theirs and pinned it between their claws. The insect had red spikes on its back, blue antennae, yellow spots on its thorax, and green stripes on its legs. Even its wings were prismatic.
“It’s beautiful,” Saul said.
Tethiel nodded. “And very loud with venom.”
“Poison, my dear,” Hiresha said. “Poison.”
“Quite right, my heart.”
Ix had not yet opened their cage. The rainbow locust kicked against the wicker.
Hiresha shivered when Tethiel stepped closer with his heat. His thoughts tickled their way into her mind. Ix fears their reflexes are too slow to catch the locust.
She raised a brow to him.
If we allow Ix to embarrass themselves in front a former lover, all might be lost.
Hiresha opened the cage and Attracted the locust against her hand. She held it still for Ix. “Your toxins are indeed the most respected in the lands.”
“The most feared,” Tethiel said. “So much so that it commands the highest price on the black market. Or did you not know? Much of your art is smuggled from your kingdom.”
Ix bit off the locust’s head first then turned to the jaguar knight. “Is this true?”
The great cat sprawled on the other side of the table. Elbe had moved her pillow seat as far as she decorously could from him. He flexed the muscles on his back in a ripple of fur. The gesture seemed about as committal as a shrug.
Ix slammed their fist on the table. It left a smear. “No one pays more for my venom than me.”
The statement did seem overbold. At least, Hiresha reflected, Ix had overcome their lethargy.
“Tell me this, cat,” Ix said, “does Gangral’s king sell my bane behind my back? Does he also betray me?”
“He does,” Tethiel answered first.
“Knowingly or by his negligence,” Hiresha said.
“That stingless louse!” Ix jammed the rest of the locust into their mouth and crunched down. Ix ate it to the last leg’s blue claw.
Tethiel hooked a finger toward the Green Blood. His grin was so subtle that only Hiresha would be able to see it. Yes, Ix’s appetite had returned.
“I don’t wish for any violence between my guests,” Hiresha said. “Ix, you should sell your toxins to the jaguar knight directly, as much as it pleases you to do so.”
“In payment,” Tethiel said, “you may ask for indulgences like that locust.”
Ix licked their fingers. “It was juicy with heart-burst poisons. And, yes, I taste traces of oleander.”
“And flavors of milkweed,” Saul said.
“I know. I’m no back-alley poisoner.”
Ix met the eyes of Saul. Neither broke the gaze. The skin colors of the Green Bloods were different, yet their orb eyes were the same.
Saul looked down to the empty locust cage. They nudged it. “It was delicious, wasn’t it, Ix?”
“Oleander is my favorite. You would’ve known it if you’d ever visited.”
“I was always in the jungle,” Saul said, “where you left me.”
“Because you’d never leave. You wouldn’t do anything, and now, what’s this antivenom foolishness? You couldn’t spit out anything potent enough to counter so much as that locust’s stolen poisons.”
“You truly think so little of my venomcraft?” Saul asked.
Tethiel pulled Hiresha away. “We should leave them to their bliss of argument.”
“On the subject of venom, I must change into my next dress.” Hiresha clapped her hands together with a clink of gemstone. “Celaise, summon the weavers.”
Spiders waited in the shadows. Celaise swallowed black wine, and the world rippled outward from her, ready to change, waiting, urging her to spin new wonders for the lady.
She hadn’t moved toward the dressing room. A scent of ripe plums told Celaise the lady was leery of leaving the guests. Celaise would have to change her in sight of everyone. No, Celaise would get to. She had the honor. This would be unforgettable.
Legs clicked and clattered across the glass. The spiders dragged their yellow-spotted bodies up the columns. Guests pointed and jumped to their feet. Women stood atop pillows. Men checked under tables. The room filled with the aroma of juicy phobias.
Celaise didn’t even need to Feast. She was already stuffed. The black wine that teemed through her she had sucked from her brother. It’d come from murder. Her power seared her. She had to hurl it up. Celaise needed to be free of the shame and sweetness. Out, get it out! Her stomach lurched, but her throat clamped shut, betraying her, trapping in the black wine.
“Celaise?” Jerani burned her with his touch. “Do you need help?”
“Don’t look.” She couldn’t let him see this. Every stitch would come from death. She would craft splendor out of web and moonlight, and its price was the blood of family. Jerani should think better of her than this. “Don’t remember.”
Celaise motioned for the other maids of the bride to come. She would need them. Celaise created staves for them. She folded each staff out of the night. With a part of the air and a breath of black wine, another came into being.
“Not the sort of shaft I expected to handle,” Miss Barrows said. “What are they?”
“The staves of dead wizards,” the lord father said, and so they were.
“Don’t suppose they’re for crushing spiders?” Miss Barrows swung her staff downward.
“That would be most insensitive,” Hiresha said, “to my religious beliefs.”
The spiders were closing in, each bigger than a fist. Kings shuffled out of their way. They were bright as wasps and black as tar. Legs like sewing needles tap-tapped nearer.
The lady feared them, but only in her spine. Nothing rose to the scent of panic. She had to be fighting against her instincts. She said, “The golden orb weaver is sacred to the people of Morimound. I will be clothed in the strands of fate.”
“Why did I ever agree to be a bridesmaid?” Miss Barrows sweated like a buttered squash in the oven. Spiders climbed up her skirt, pattered up her arms, and along her staff.
The weavers dropped down around the lady. They spun curtains between Celaise, Miss Barrows, and her daughter. The staves touched overhead. Spiders scaled to the point then sprang. They trailed silk.
Celaise made a wish to the spiders. Weave. They listened. They zigzagged over the lady, spinning a web of lace. She withstood them. Celaise could’ve made the spiders bite the lady, but their fangs would’ve broken off on her skin. She had to be harder than gemstones. Not even the Green Blood had hurt her. She didn’t flinch as spider legs spanned her face. Her hair was wrapped in a net.
Celaise breathed out despair and hardened it in her hands into black gems. Eight cold stones, eight eyes. Their darkness gleamed with secrets. They shone with merciless hunger. Celaise set four across the lady’s collar in a necklace of eyes. The rest encircled her hips in a belt of bottomless gazes.
The spiders sewed the eye gems into place. The legs of the weavers were yellow, fat and furred at the joints, and ended in spindles. They tiptoed down the new skirt. The spiders plopped to the ceiling floor, leaving the lady standing in her dress of silver.
Celaise and the maids stepped away. The guests saw the lady, and they would never forget. She gleamed as a web in starlight, and you couldn’t look away from those, not until you spotted the spider. Her dress stared back with its eight gems.
Limbs of silk reached from her back. They bristled with woven s
trands like a living spider’s. With every breath she took, the boning in her bodice contracted, and the cloth limbs behind her reached and grasped.
The lady moved to the guest tables. The men were kings, but they could not meet her eyes. She had too many. The guests couldn’t be angry. They were too frightened. Celaise could tell they feared to be close, dreaded to be sent away. They crouched and stooped before the lady and her dress. They bowed to Celaise’s masterwork. Her craft of murder.
Jerani wrapped an arm around Celaise’s waist. “Should I still not look?”
His touch made all her muscles tense, flame, shiver. She should kill him too, string out his guts to make a new dress, an even better one. The thought was terrible, but it crawled through her faster than she could stamp it out.
She had to tear herself away from him. Celaise didn’t want to. She had to, and now hurt warped the scar lines on his face. Celaise’s insides were shriveling into stinking green sludge. It would feel no worse if every spider had bitten her.
This couldn’t go on. She knew something would have to change, and it would be for the worse. “Every dress I spin gives me more fear. More power. More, more, more.”
“Too much?”
“I’m floating away from you.” And closer to the lord father. Celaise had to fight the tide of black wine. That sounded impossible. She might have to do something terrible. “Jerani, what if I never wove another dress?”
“What?”
“Would you still love me? If I stopped Feasting. If I could.”
“You can,” Jerani said, “I know you could.”
“How could you? No one can leave the family.” There was no escape, just the weight of chains no one could see. “It’s a stupid idea.”
“No, there’s a way.” Jerani patted his robes. “The lord talked about it.”
“To you?”
Jerani pulled out something shiny. Not a fang, it was a little glass bottle. The stuff inside it churned and shimmered.
Celaise grasped his arm. “What is that?”
Jerani huddled over the bottle. His fear wafted cinnamon. “It belongs to the lord.”
Hiresha cast a shadow with eight legs.
“You are looking fateful tonight,” Fos said. He propped himself on one foot, ready to rise from his pillow. His gaze darted past Hiresha, toward the pillars with the engagement necklaces. He looked back to her dress, closing one eye at a time as if to compare how the different ones saw her spidersilk. “Did the priests read marriage in your future?”
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