Then our lips touched. His were soft and full, and I pressed against them hard and needful for a long moment… until he went oddly stiff, body tensing and twitching.
I tried to pull back, but his arm behind me wouldn’t budge. Yet even this close, I could see the confusion and panic in his eyes.
I drew away from him to the side and was stunned to see him unmoving, completely frozen, a few muscles twitching.
Oh…Auwei breathed.I… I think we’ve just found a new power. Her tone was somewhere between bemused, confused, and horrified.Some spider bites can cause paralysis, and your kiss might be sort of like a bite…Now I could tell she was trying not to laugh, though it was an I’m-sorry-for-you, pitying laugh.
“Bloody bones!” I hissed the curse. “Really?”But then why didn’t I do that to Silence when we…?
I don’t know, but my guess is that you felt something far different when kissing Silence and this was more of a survival instinct, so… yeah.
That made sense. The trouble was, I didn’t know how toxic my poison kiss might be. I didn’t want to accidentally kill the crown-prince, no… he was the king now. “Bloody bones.”
Yeah.
“Who’s he?” I spun at the sound of Amber’s voice. She had come out from a room, with a satchel stuffed with something, probably important papers.
“The crown prince. I… I think I poisoned him… by accident. I kissed him… to distract him… and I think I have poison now…?”
“Isn’t that just the topper?” She grimaced. “And it’s new, so you have no idea how bad it is.” She nodded to herself. “Blasted, bloody bones!” She was thinking, her eyes shifting, probably trying to figure out what to do. I was still just a little too weary to figure that out.
“Pits… bring him with us.”
“What?” I didn’t think I’d heard that right.
“We don’t want to kill him, and if we leave him, we don’t know what will happen. Yet, if we bring him back with us, we can hopefully find an antidote and give it to him. Either way, we need to go now.”
“I can’t carry him.”
“I can, he’s not that big. But I can’t carry both of you, so shift back will you.” She slung the satchel over her shoulder and came to us. I veered into my spider and hopped onto the prince who Amber picked up roughly and slung over her shoulder. She didn’t move quickly, but we made our way across the living area to an arch which led to a second living area and out from there onto a balcony. Two wide sets of steps led down to a long roughly triangular garden area, which I recognized as being the top of the jutting peninsula. It was deserted, and we made our way out to the edge. There was an awkward moment, during which I had to shift back and help Amber get the body over a low wall at the top of the cliffs.
It was only when we stood upon the bit of land between the wall and the sheer drop, that we realized our problem. I could walk down the side if I needed to and Amber could fly… but the prince…
“Use your silk, it’s strong enough to support a person, yes?” Amber said.
I nodded. Laying the prince on the ground his eyes the only thing moving as I wound him up in my silk to ensure I had a good hold. “Sorry about all this,” I said to him. “We didn’t mean for any of this to happen. We’ll fix you up and send you right back. I promise.”
“I’m not sure if your diplomacy means much after poisoning him,” Amber said.
True. “Ready,” I said. “Can you fly out there and make sure he doesn’t hit anything too rough on the way down?”
She nodded.
I anchored some webbing to the low wall, using that as a brace point. Then brought the several strands holding the prince together into one woven strand. I threaded that through the loop of bracing on the wall, then began to feed out more silk to lower the prince. I used my own weight as a counterbalance, my bare feet on the wall to ease the tension on me. Still, I was not strong in that moment and it took everything I had to hold the prince steady and lower him slowly. It seemed to take forever. My arms began to burn with fatigue, then turned soft, like jelly. Still, I held on. I didn’t know how I was managing to do any of this in my condition, but didn’t question it. Then….
A flapping of wings, and Sparrow appeared beside me. “Need help?”
“Oh, Spirits, yes, take this line!”
She did, bracing herself as I had, and taking over bearing the weight as I let out more and more silk. Then finally we felt the line go slack. We waited, resting, until Amber appeared next to us.
“Sparrow, good, carry Legs down.” To me she said. “I made sure he went down smoothly and landed softly.” Good. “Now let’s get out of here!” She was back in her butterfly form in an instant.
I became a spider. Sparrow picked me up and we were all soon at the base of the cliff.
Sparrow helped Amber carry the prince off the rougher rocks, to a more level stretch of beach where it would be easier for one person to carry him.
And we didn’t have to carry him far, as Fin moved out from the shadows of a shallow cave into the moonlight.
