We spun, weapons extended. Noctis panicked in the binds, his body shaking desperately.
I froze. From the darkness of the dense trees, eight spindly legs like broken hands crashed into the shrubbery, leaving depressions in their wake. Hair peppered the appendages, each bending in the wrong places. The spider’s size easily surpassed that of two horses sewn together, its eyes each the vastness of a dinner plate, not just watching butabsorbing.
Four followed closely behind.
“You are the Threnai,” I choked out, the words nearly lost in my throat.
“That we are, child. Now, could you leave our dinner?” Her soft, high-pitched voice danced lightly, a stark contrast to the fear lacing me. The forest seemed to dim as if the Threnai took the light from the sun just by looking at it.
The center spider’s leg raised to point at the god. Horror spread across Noctis’s face.
“You cannot eat him. He is needed,” I replied with feigned confidence.
The oracle arachnid hummed, its multitude of eyes burrowing into me as if searching for somewhere to crawl in. “Tell me, child, can you feel it yet with the god? The memories that the Ocean Mother purged from your brain with poison?”
“I’ve never been on land before.” A hint of doubt traced my lips.
Noctis’s gaze found mine, and it clicked. He knew me all along, and I forgot it all. If embarrassment were an emotion I had room to occupy, it would have overwhelmed me in that moment.
What memories did Noctis and I have?
The Threnai’s fuzzy arachnid body shook as a light chuckle escaped her fanged, twitching mouth. She stepped forward, each hairy leg taking its grotesque turn.
“Oh, but you have. You still remember how to fight—like it's ingrained in your bones—but the god who taught you it? The one cursed in your name? That part's lost to the poison," she said, a curious note in her voice as she nodded her head towards Noctis.
The god stopped thrashing in the spider’s webs. Stillness followed the Threnai’s words. I slowly looked over at the upside down god, but he wouldn’t look at me, instead staring down his nose.
Pitiful.
I shifted my attention back to the Threnai. “I don’t know him.”
“You will, child. Soon. You’ll remember it all. Every sacrificed merfolk does eventually, but usually only when they’re locked in cages being drained of all their power and life.”
Confusion and anger surged, prickling beneath my skin, begging for a place to escape.
Calvin cut in. “Can you tell us anything that will help us get into the Shadeborne Bound?”
“Secrets are my trade. Tell me what you hide, and I’ll tell you what you need to know.”
“You’re the Threnai. Do you not know every secret already?” Calvin asked, and I realized the truth in the question.
“That we do,” the center arachnid answered. “But we delight in secrets laid bare.”
We stood there a moment thinking of a secret grand enough to spill, until Noctis hummed to get my attention, webbed spindles covering his mouth.
“Let him free,” I demanded. “He will be the one to share.”
The Threnai lifted a spindly leg, the threads binding the god disappearing, and he collapsed to the ground with a thump. He jumped to his feet and dusted off his clothing.
“This is going to be good,” Calvin quipped.
Noctis glared at him, but turned his gaze on the Threnai. He cleared his throat before spilling his truth.
“I’ve seen the world die. Everyone and everything on it.” He froze as if the words stuck to his tongue. “And it’s all my fault.”
The oracle arachnid breathed in slowly as if absorbing his secret. Her eight eyes drifted closed. Calvin and I said nothing. Fear surged through me, squeezing my chest until I couldn’t breathe. If the spider denied his secret, I knew nothing further to give.
“And I’d like to make sure that doesn’t happen. So… The Shadeborne entrance requires a human soul as its key. You should be accustomed to finding those, God of the Forsaken,” the center Threnai announced.
