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It took longer than a dozen lifetimes, but Amber persevered. She climbed the slope on steady feet until she reached a ledge just below the top of the mound. She hooked both hands over the rock lip and hauled herself up.
There was enough room on the ledge for Amber to sit, while the cliff behind her flared to block the sky with an exaggerated overhang. She settled against that last barrier for a moment, checking the empty slope below. The rough rock behind her caught at the silk of her bodice, but that was good. It meant ... what did it mean? Ah, she’d finally made it to solid ground. The overhang at her back was bedrock and not about to slide away. She relaxed and breathed. Such a simple thing, but it felt good.
Dim light pulsed from the maw just above Amber to stain the night and hide any stars. She closed her eyes against it and let her fronds keep guard. Static flashes creased their vision, so her struggles had taken a toll, but they still showed the cool ledge with lighter pebbles trickling past its base.
No, there was a spot of heat too. An orange blob moving on blurred yellow legs scuttled onto the ledge.
Amber came to her feet and a spider smaller than her palm stopped. They stared at each other.
A strand of silk, faintly visible as a silver thread shot from the spider but was released like a bullet to fly down the restless slope below. A message for its master.
A hissing shriek rose from the base of the mound, followed by a flurry of distant claw strikes. The monsters were coming. Amber felt a relief which drowned any regrets. She was above them all. That touch of hope stopped her shaking, although a finger of unexpected old-Lady-Grace malice poked through her calm.
“I hope the next bird you meet eats you,” she told the small spider. It reared onto its hind legs and waved its front claws at her. “Don’t even think about coming closer, unless you want a good stamping.”
The spider hunkered down again and slowly backed up. It sprayed web and floated away, over the impossible slope. Off to guide reinforcements no doubt.
The instant it was out of sight Amber clambered to her feet. The top of the rock face behind her perch was far taller than she could reach. It rose straight for many times her height—a last ragged cliff face that reached all the way to the lip of the crystal pit, before curling back toward her. There were no handholds in easy reach. She clenched her fists until her ragged nails bit into her palms and backed up as far as she could. A single stride. It would have to do.
Below her stones rumbled and rolled faster as monsters raced up the slope.
Fear swept through Amber, along with determination. She crouched low and exploded forward, then up. She ran up the cliff—one pace, two—and then she was climbing. The further she went the more holds she found. It felt like flying. She scurried upward faster than a desperate spider.
Her thigh muscles started cramping at the halfway point and she had to stop.
Amber hung from numb arms and risked looking down. A column of spiders boiled up the mound in pursuit. No matter how many were swept away by rolling rocks, there were always a dozen more to scramble into position. They were gaining on her.
Amber forced power through her thighs to climb again. A handhold crumbled and for a moment she swung from a single arm. The cliff seemed to sway around her, as unreliable as the churning stones, but she didn’t panic. Her scrabbling toes found enough purchase to let her straddle the cliff face and recover.
The rock above was as scarred as a pox survivor. The handholds were shallow but plentiful and deep enough for someone moving at speed.
They held under Amber’s brief weight, and she flew upward again, until the outthrust lip at the top of the mound finally forced her to stop. She paused and gulped air, studying the overhang above. It would take one last leap ...
A delighted roar flew up the slope far faster than Amber had. She didn’t need to look down to know Pierce was close.
There was no time left for fear. She unleashed her loss and desperate determination in a wild leap. She reached high while jumping up and back, muscles screaming, to claw at the lip with broken hands.
Three fingers caught and then another. Enough to let her hang there. She dragged herself up by sheer willpower. She had to reach the altar before the Devourer got close. She hoped he wouldn’t follow her to that fatal slab ... prayed it was the one place he never wanted to be.
Amber crested the rim and rolled over it. She didn’t dare stop, not even to draw breath. She rolled again to fall straight off the overhang on the far side.
The inner slope of the pit smacked into her, making air explode from her lungs. The world was suddenly distant, which was a relief as Amber bounced, bounced again, and finally rolled to meet the glowing orb below. She was moving so fast when she hit the crystal, it cracked under her.
Cobweb lines spread from the point of impact, but she felt no pain. She lay motionless on her back, sucking at air, because there seemed to be far too little of it. Her body lay like a dead thing.
It seemed she was too numb to hurt, and too hurt to move. Her mind was still there though, fuzzy and slow but working well enough. She carefully programmed her com, sending its power to a filter field and locking it there. It was almost time to bleed.
“Poor Brosia,” Pierce sang, his voice skittering down from above like one of his spiders. “It’s lovely to see you so bent. So broken. So alone.”
Amber made her eyes focus, pushing against the muck in her head to stare up at the Devourer.
He squatted on the rim above while his horribly distorted mouth drooled venom. “So alone, my lovely treat, but not for much longer. Is this truly so bad? You’ve been resigned to it for many lives and chasing it for most of this one. I’ve had to work hard to stop you doing something foolish and dying short of the altar. You were already in despair, long before you knew I’d won. This is your chance to finally let go.”
“No.” The word escaped Amber before she could stop it—a defiance she needed to cling to, but it was so faint Pierce seemed to miss it. “I know,” she called out instead and he bounced on his eight legs.
Amber rolled onto her stomach and pain returned. Hard enough to blind her, but she stretched out anyway, reaching through the darkness. She flattened her hands against the warmth of the crystal to grip with her palms as she pushed with her toes. There was a faint screech when she drew her bloody body forward.
She stopped and her head fell to rest on the throbbing floor. It was impossible. She needed help from her com.
It took a full minute for her battered brain to redirect a little of her com’s power. A single energy packet that would make her mobile again. She lay there fighting to think, while the Devourer’s delight flowed over her. He was doubtless looking forward to replaying her struggle to the altar many times in the future.
A faint trickle of energy flowed directly to Amber’s limbs. Nowhere else. She just needed to crawl.
It took more strength than she knew she had, but she pushed herself upright onto all fours. She set down a palm ... the opposite knee, the other palm, the other knee. Like an injured beetle she jerked her way forward.
Something huge landed on the slope behind Amber, making the crystal shudder. A crack opened under her feet, and she slipped forward to escape it. More lines crazed the surface of the ancient gem to catch at her hands and knees. It felt like crawling over thin ice. Lukewarm ice.
Amber listened for the click of the Devourer's claws following her across the crystal.
There was only silence and she stopped, frozen in hope. This was the first test of her new insight. How well did she know her ex? Her limbs started shaking at the fear she was wrong—that he might grab her and tie her to the altar—but he took only a few more faltering steps onto the crystal and stopped.
That faint hope uncurled a little further. She was right about Pierce. He never went near the altar. He was still traumatized by his death on it eons ago, and never risked coming close to it.
Pierce would still send his soldiers to hold her though. He’d wrap her neck-deep in web if he thought she was planning anything.
Amber ducked her head and swayed on all fours. Her fronds bristled and swung as if exhausted, but her mind was increasingly sharp and clear. Her feelings wafted up to the Devourer like the last gasp of someone in despair. She excavated every dark place in her soul and sent all that hurt and loss out in a tangled stream.
The Devourer’s mind cracked wide in delight. Her capitulation made his mouthparts clack together in a sharp cry. He abandoned any thought of his guards dragging her to the slab. He loved a willing victim. He’d let her crawl on alone, just to prove his dominance.
To prove that she was his.
His gloating lashed Amber like a flail ... and she embraced it. She bowed her head and let his delight wash over her, even as her mind snuck towards his under the bright cover of his triumph. His thoughts cascaded past, filled with lust and hunger, and at the forefront of them all was the moment of sacrifice. The plunging blade.
Amber’s fronds never quivered, not even at that image. Her mind was lighter than the first touch of snow when she plucked free the command code for the Devourer’s crystal knife. A faint gasp escaped her tight throat and she finally looked up. The first part of her plan was complete, but the greatest risk still lay ahead. It was easy to look stricken and sad.
The Devourer stared back from the far edge of the dull crystal. His unblinking gaze was fixed on her while his front claws rubbed together with a crackle of bristles.
She bowed her head again and turned away, in a slow wandering circle, to crawl to the altar. She looked up when it loomed over her and snatched a glance at the far side of the pit. The lip above was ringed with spiders. There would be no escape this time. Amber crawled on, swinging her head as if denying what she was about to do, while searching the skyline for one particular monster.
Everything hinged on her second insight.
But she couldn’t find the one person she needed. Panic bubbled in her chest. She pushed on anyway, her gaze now fixed on the slab ahead. She hadn't given up. She was ready to fight, but the moment her blood hit the altar the crystal below would drain her dry. Along with everyone else. Everyone who mattered.
That realization was the foundation of her plan. Her blood would flow in this pit. It was unavoidable. She felt the inevitability of it, as if gravity was pulling her onto the slab. Pierce had worked hard to make this a destiny she couldn’t escape.
Her only option was to work with that fact. A prayer escaped her fronds. Her last hope was so slight ...
A laugh came hissing across the crystal to make the down on the nape of her neck stand up. "I'm finally free of you," the Devourer crowed. "No one will ever try to stop me again. They won't even see me coming."
Amber reached the altar and groped for its nearest leg. Her fingers curled around the rust-pricked iron, and she hauled herself up. A delighted squeal escaped the Devourer.
Her hands slapped the carvings on the slab, and she jumped, to land face-down, draped across the cold iron. It took another second to push herself up and turn, until she sat perched on a crumbling edge.
Amber looked up at the excited form of her long-gone love.
He was bouncing so hard she could hear his joints creak. “Any final words, Brosia?”
“Yes.”
Eight eyes rolled at her. “Of course.”
Amber steadied her breathing. The Devourer had stolen her memories and shredded her mind, but she’d learned not to panic. She’d found a calm center that let her see through his lies. She was more than he tried to tell her she was. She knew more too. She knew him.
Pierce had provided the one thing Amber needed to take him down. So long as she could find the last piece of her puzzle. She looked around, searching the rim above while her hands clutched the altar so hard it cut into her palms.
“Your biggest mistake, Pierce?” Amber said clearly. “When you stopped being a person and I don’t mean genetically. But your greatest weakness? Surely you can guess. It’s your need for an audience. There always has to be someone applauding.”
There was a disturbance behind Amber, and she looked over her shoulder toward the far rim. A grotesque creature pushed her way forward on crooked legs, demanding a better view. Lamidia glowered from eight bruise-black eyes, now arranged in four pairs with the largest pair at the front. Her missing leg had been regrown while her swollen abdomen was as red and hooked as the Devourer’s. She snarled, scattering venom from both mandibles and fangs.
“Be done, biped,” she yelled. “You bore us.”
Amber had to hide a mighty grin in response, which was easy enough because it was too early to celebrate. There was so much left to do, and the sacrificial blade still hung over everyone. She could feel it at the back of her mind, connected to the control code she’d stolen from the Devourer.
“Pierce isn’t bored,” Amber called over her shoulder. “I’m talking because he wants me to. It’s our last moment together and he’s savoring it. You’re just here to satisfy his need to be seen.” She paused for effect and finally smiled. “Even by a depraved whore with greasy hair, the intelligence of a bovine and the charm of rotten meat.”
Amber spun to bring her legs up and slithered across the pitted surface to sit again on the far side of the altar. She raised her head to sneer up the slope at the female spider straddling the rim. That venomous hag looked poised to leap and rip Amber to pieces, but still the spider hesitated, held in place by Pierce’s orders.
This was the moment when everyone’s fate hung in the balance.
Amber drew a deep breath and projected her voice, along with her mind. “Are you listening, Lamidia?”
A spray of gold hair bobbed assent, but the sad and vicious eyes beneath narrowed impatiently.
“Pierce doesn’t just want an audience,” Amber called out. “No, he needs a congregation. A worshipper and that’s all you are to him. The most toxic of his creatures, but still easily replaced. Just one among many.” [experience, truth, pain]
Lamidia hissed and edged forward to lean past the overhang. Black claws sank into the dark rock, holding her on the very edge of falling.
“I’m the one who gets true immortality,” Amber said, “because I’ll always be his wife and all too soon his lost love. How can you compete with a memory? You can’t, even now. And after time and Pierce’s wandering mind have rewritten the past, I’ll be even more enticing. You’ll be nothing but a grotesque experiment. By the time he finishes with you, there won’t be enough of you left to hang on his wall.”
Lamidia spat venom and jumped from the rim above. She hit the slope halfway down and bounded forward.
“STOP,” the Devourer roared but the hybrid spider only accelerated. “LAMIDIA. NO.”
Amber fell from the altar to meet her, landing on unsteady feet. Lamidia’s distorted face was stretched with malice. The hatred driving her struck Amber like a blow.
“NO,” Pierce shouted again. “Lamidia, obey.”
His creature ignored him, and Amber broke into a stumbling charge. Lamidia’s eyes burned brighter as she sprinted to reach her rival, bounding straight at the altar.
Just before the two collided Amber hit the ground to skid under her foe’s belly, mule kicking Lamidia as she went. Spider-hag weighed more than guilt, but Amber unleashed all of her rage to catapult Lamidia high above the hard curve of the crystal. The spider flew through the air as a dark blot with her limbs tucked tight. She was out of control and falling toward the sacrificial slab.
However, Amber’s desperate kick had been too weak to reach her goal.
Lamidia landed just short of the altar. Momentum carried her on to roll into its leg and bounce off, tumbling back across the glowing floor.
A sob caught in Amber’s throat, but she was up and moving in an instant, limping back to the altar as fast as she could. She skirted her fallen foe to reach the slab and grip its sharp edge. Blood trickled past her fingers but this time there was no reaction from the altar.
That was a good sign. Her com filter was working. Amber gulped a last breath, steeling herself for what she had to do.
She could hear Lamidia following in a torrent of limbs.
Amber spun to face her just in time. The spider tackled hard, trying to drive her to the ground, but Amber was braced and ready. She pivoted on her heels until her back was to the altar and let Lamidia force her against it instead. The slab pressed into Amber’s spine like an eager lover.
The spider’s breathing was as ragged as her tossing hair. “I’m his mate,” she creaked in Amber’s face. “Not you. Never you.”
“I know,” Amber panted. Her hands stung when she twisted them tight around Lamidia’s throat. Its sharp plates sliced her palms until blood bubbled through her fingers, but none of it was the spider’s. Amber sobbed and dug in her heels, which kept her off the slab, but nothing more. It was impossible to push the wasp back even with Amber’s full strength—which was perfect.
Fangs clattered in her face, making her gag at the monster’s fetid breath, but she hardly registered her own reaction. Her thoughts were focused on the spike above, and the frantic scuttle of spiders sprinting down the rocky slopes.
Narrow claws as hard and smooth as obsidian closed on Amber’s throat.
She kicked out again, but her strength faded, until she flailed helplessly at the mottled carapace pushed up against her. All thought vanished too, lost behind tiny points of light. This was the end.
Amber flung out her hand, reaching for the altar that ran hard across her back. She smacked rough iron and tipped her hand to spill the blood pooled in her palm across the runes. Her mind reached out too.
Far above the blade fell.
Amber abruptly stopped pushing away from the altar. The instant she didn’t resist Lamidia fell forward, driving Amber onto it. She went willingly and dragged Lamidia with her. The spider-wasp fell further, unable to stop.
Pierce shrieked.
The spike plunged.
Amber clutched the hard body above her and held on. An anchor field from her com kept them in place while an energy sleeve filtered the blood spilling from her fingers. It sealed off every cell flowing from Amber, except her red blood cells.
Lamidia’s bucking pressed them both deeper into the altar in a cloud of rust.
The spike struck.
It bit deep, driving through the spider’s exoskeleton. White pus spurted across the altar. The spear powered on to pierce Amber too. Pain as sharp as venom sliced through her. She screamed but didn’t try to pull away. Spider-froth fell like clotted cream to mix with her blood. They writhed on top of the altar, bleeding together.
Lamidia stopped moving.
White, red, and finally pink ... Amber twisted her head to watch her blood swirling through the carvings to mix with her enemy’s.
The altar groaned while the Devourer wailed.
His agony burst her left eardrum, but she didn’t care. The static that followed couldn’t dampen a far deeper warmth. Amber’s blood kept flowing and she closed her eyes. A com check showed that everything was good. Her filter field was working. It let the altar harvest her red blood cells and nothing more. The slab gorged itself on cells stuffed with exotic matter, but none of Amber’s chromosomes.
She had opened the door.
And Lamidia stepped through. Spider-hag bled out the pattern to be culled. Her twisted genes were the only ones flowing along the drainage channels.
Sound pierced the night that was growing behind Amber’s eyes. The Devourer’s shriek rose above her again, as sharp as any spear. It took an effort to lift her lids and focus on a dark smear she assumed was Pierce, still crouched far from the altar. His mind battered hers in horror. What have you done?
The Devourer flashed into motion. A mighty leap flung him high in the air and he plummeted to land beside the slab in a sad echo of the falling spike. Amber grinned in welcome. She’d done it. She’d won and everyone would live. Everyone else at least.
Pierce ripped Lamidia from the throbbing altar and flung the tattered pieces of his creature aside.
The sacrificial hook was torn free too, and Amber shrieked. Blood and froth sprayed the altar as she jerked in pain to curl on her side. Blood ran freely from her sliced shoulder despite the hand she clamped over it. The drakking knife had gone through the muscle just above her collar bone. The blade was gone and most of the flesh running into her shoulder had gone with it. It hurt like hail from an ice sheet ... but she’d live.
Perhaps.
The Devourer hunched over Amber. His quivering sting and chomping fangs were lurid bars of red and black. Both were poised above her like a promise. His mouth clacked in horror. “You ... YOU? Have killed ME? Not possible.”
Amber’s lips curved to shape words she could hardly hear. “Believe it.”
“NOOOOOOOOO.” A serrated forelimb rose to strike.
If he expected Amber to cower or look away, he’d be disappointed. She’d worked hard for this and wasn’t about to close her eyes. She watched his barbed leg stab down toward her.
The blow seemed strangely slow. Time unrolled at a duller pace than usual. The world was so lethargic she almost hoped it might stop but that ragged limb ploughed on. It seemed she was taking forever to die yet had no way to escape. Her body began to uncurl but it seemed she couldn’t move any faster than Pierce.
The world turned to silver, and the Devourer became a black caricature jerking into rapid action again.
Amber clung to the slab, fighting sudden vertigo. The pit became a negative image of itself with a dark floor and silver walls. Three more silhouettes appeared, balanced on the rim above.
“We are Together,” they said, and Amber felt feathers trying to rise on the nape of her neck.
They came down on the Devourer like a hammer on a steaming anvil. He was smashed flat by a foot, a fist, and a wingtip, but that was the end of the battle. The monster collapsed without a sound.
Pierce sprawled across the crystal, which began to pulse.
He twisted his swollen head, scraping mouth parts across the gem, to gaze wordlessly at Amber. Tendrils of light unfurled from him like strands of liquid rope trying to tie him to the golden ground. The crystal sucked them in greedily. He gave a desperate groan and fought to reclaim the energy draining from him. Strands of light were peeled away from his thrashing body, only to be dragged back into his creaking carapace. He won the fight, clinging to power long enough to stretch out a beseeching claw.
“Shall we ... ”
“... finish ...”
“... him?” Together asked.
Amber hesitated, watching tears fall from Pierce’s clustered eyes.
His mouthparts scratched together in a weak echo of speech. “Forgive. Please, Brosia. I’m sorry. Forgive me. Just ... I’m scared. Don’t let me die. Please. Save me. I’m sorry, I swear. Never again. I’ve learned. Just ... forgive.”
Amber’s heart hardened. “I won’t save you. I do understand, though, and I don’t hate you. Not anymore. But there’s no true repentance in you. You’d do the same all over again.”
She rolled off the altar and might have fallen without Mistwing’s support. Amber ignored her helper and her dizziness to stalk forward. Blood rolled down her front from where the spike had taken her shoulder, but she ignored it too.
It was time to leave that drakking altar behind and the monster she’d made along with it.
Pierce tried to struggle upright when she approached. His legs scraped at the hungry gem until he managed to half-rise and block her path. Amber pushed him away with her good arm, but her firm shove against his thorax did more than force him back. His throat fell apart under her fingers.
The Devourer began to disintegrate.
His body sagged, while flesh peeled away from his face. The rest of his skin followed and the frame beneath crumpled. Pierce’s organs turned to dust. A strip of glowing ash was all that remained to darken the crystal. That shadow curled like smoke for a final instant, before sifting away on a rising breeze.
The gem beneath the altar pulsed brighter and a strange susurration came from the dark. The mound hissed like a kettle.
Spiders appeared—boiling from the night to pour over the lip and drop to the amber floor. They jerked and spun blindly around the altar, many on their backs and kicking, until they too drifted into dust. More came and more still, all drawn to protect their master and caught by the same fate. It was over.
Amber sagged and someone held her close. Mistwing she thought.
Instead of relief the girl’s grip brought pain. Amber’s shoulder screamed but so did her feet, her ankles, thighs, shins—heat rolled upward like rising lava. Air abruptly poured from her rescuer’s wings, swirling past her legs like a furnace blast, until the Flight sluggishly took to the sky, dragging Amber with her.
The crystal below was molten and looked like a rising sun.
Unfortunately, Mistwing wasn’t designed to carry other sentients and Amber was going to turn to soot if they didn’t fly faster. She added some anti-grav to their escape, but nothing changed. She gave her com a mental slap, but it was convinced she’d die of shock if it stopped healing her. She checked the data, and it was fine. She had a slight muscle-shredding puncture wound, same minor major-blood-loss, plus third-degree burns instead of legs. Maybe ‘fine’ wasn’t the right word.
An awkward look up made Amber’s shoulder scream again, despite her com’s efforts, but was enough to check their progress. Far too slow. Above her, every tendon in Mistwing’s neck stood out like razor wire. Amber was too heavy.
“Drop me,” she ordered, and the girl did.
Amber had time for a single gasp as she fell ... before fresh arms closed around her. Someone standing on the rocky lip of the mound had caught her. She cracked her eyes open, and the crystal almost blinded her, but she knew the chest against her cheek and had to be sure.
The Beserk. Of course. He looked as ragged as she felt but still offered a lopsided smile. “WE WON,” he yelled over the spitting, steaming gem.
Amber tried to tease Nikareon by claiming that technically she’d won but the words wouldn’t come. Her brain felt fuzzy again but at least the crazy light was dimmer and that helped. Her head fell back against Nik’s shoulder and her last sight was of vultures circling above. Two dark shapes soared past each other, filling ... the fading ... sky.