“I warned you, did I not?”
Shadows dim the edges of my vision. Inky oil smears and seeps into the pages from where my thumbs press against it, like branching veins, until the red ink turns black.
My eyes cool and I know the green and whites of my eyes are shifting until they reflect the same matte darkness. My voice distorts when magic sucks harshly from my soul as my curse drinks with greedy gulps without my familiar present to protect me.
“You take what is mine and I’llruinyou.”
Hissing slowly penetrates my awareness. The soft whispering from the books before me. A warning.
I throw myself to the side seconds before something massive and black hits the bookshelf. The force of it knocks me off course. I shriek, the slate ground unforgiving as my elbow slams down first to take my full weight. Then my head crashes into the meat of my arm. I draw in shuddering breaths, heart pulsing haphazardly and my ribs tightening, as a sharp pain shoots through my chest from the sudden disconnection from my grimoire.
I flex my fingers to summon a spell, but the pain is blinding. The disruption mid-feeding my curse has left me drained. My Soul Threads are writhing, and the burning worsens as each attempts to destroy the other to gain dominance over my soul. I swallow, my shaking hand clutching my chest.
I should’ve waited to do the communion slowly with Jinx, who would’ve protected both my body and my soul during the communion. But there’s nothing that can be done about that now.
I roll, my teeth gritted hard together, and scramble to my feet to face my attacker. “Who the fuck…” But my words run dry and my blood goes cold.
Feeding the curse awokeThe Arachnomicon. The priest’s grimoire is no longer a book with legs—it’s a foul, spidery beast, massive and fast. Easily the size of a horse, it turns to me. Fear drips down my insides, bile surging in my throat. I never wanted to know what a spider’s face looked like up close and here it is in all its horrific glory.
I’m going to die.
No, fuck that. I snarl, teeth bared as my magic stutters into existence. The pain in my heart and in my soul nearly robs me of sight, but I force through it to roar, “Transform back!”
I’m ignored. The spider surges at the same time my knees give out and my left hand swings down to the slate floor. My fingers sink into the stone, my vault recognizing my flesh and magic, and I grip until my joints ache. I pull, Transformation magic pulsing through me. A chunk of slate slams up, hitting the spider’s abdomen and sending it ramming into the ceiling.
I bolt to the door, my fingers slipping free of the stone and the spell dissipating. The spider crashes to the ground with a hiss. My exit is only a few steps away, but the spider is fast. My legs knock out from under me. I crash into the iron door, the momentum swinging it open. I rise on my forearms but hit theground again as my leg is yanked back. Two long forelegs have my boot in a vice grip, dragging me towards disgusting fangs with long tendrils of green slime dangling from the sharp tips.
Oh fuck no.
My nails scrape uselessly along the floor, right arm screaming in pain. It’s mottled and wrong looking and my heart is still beating oddly after being torn so indelicately from my grimoire. I’m lucky that I’m alive. I try to sink my fingers back into the stone, but the fucking thing is dragging me too fast into the vault to get purchase.
I scream, the sound echoing through the stone, “LUCAS!” And even louder, I call down the invisible thread that connects my soul to my familiar,JINX! GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE AND HELP ME!
I don’t wait for a response, flipping and whipping my left arm out. A spell surges from it and hits the spider square in its disgusting face. The exoskeleton glows and absorbs the power like a sponge in water.
My eyes widen as the spider metabolizes my magic to strengthen itself.
A sharp crack echoing through the basement snaps me out of it. I have just enough time to cover my head before fire roars above me, golden threads encased in flames arching across the room, the heat singeing my shirtsleeves.
The spider shrieks, releases me, and flees up the side of the basement wall. Its dark, inky body perfectly camouflages with the high ceilings.
A strong hand grabs my right arm and I scream. Lucas drops me, eyes wide, before snapping his gold threads towards the spider again to keep its grasping front legs and repulsive pedipalps from getting closer.
“We have to run, Tor!”
But I’m not listening. This book is way more than what my research described. Could it be a priesthood-founding doctrine that escaped the purge? I didn’t get a good look at the grimoire’s core before and I’m not passing up the opportunity a second time. Light sparks in my irises, growing brighter as I ignore my pain and pour more precious energy into them. It takes seconds to spot the spider hiding along the ceiling, its long legs tucked up as it watches and prepares to strike. The priest’s Soul Thread that bound the book glints. It’s just as difficult to identify the magic source as before and I don’t hold back. More and more of my dwindling power pours into my endeavor, my brain aching with the effort, until I spot it.
Within the core of the creature is not one thread of magic, but two. Entropy and Transformation. A Dual Thread grimoire, the legacy of a powerful Dual-Threaded priest.
My eyes sparkle, my lips parting. I’ve spent years looking for evidence of other Duals surviving to adulthood and mastering any sort of magic, only to encounter the same accounts of children horrifically dying. After all, the Soul Thread is the primary source of power, an anchor for all spells to orbit around. It’s why Preservation and Transformation weavers cannot wield each other’s magics. Their sources are in direct conflict. Same with Creation and Entropy. That is why Duals have such tragic fates. When there is more than one thread within a soul, they war with each other for dominance, making proper mastery of either source deadly or difficult.
The Dual who createdThe Arachnomiconmust’ve been a force of nature and ancient. Only decades of pouring potent and powerful magic into a grimoire could transform it into such a thing. Their secrets held within those pages could be the key to my long-term survival.
A tremor courses through me when a flicker of hope sparks. I must read that book. I need to know more about this legacyof Duals that is not filtered through Order lore. For I am of Creation and Entropy, raised by the Order to believe that I am doomed to become a destructive explosion of conflicting sources. Yet, Viola always believed I was something more. Something wondrous. And this is the evidence I need to prove her right.
With fiery determination burning within me, I slam my left hand over my throbbing arm and clamp hard. I grit my teeth against the pain and pulse with magic. Light glows, magic knitting my cracked bone together with tiny tendrils, my forehead beading in sweat.
I step beside Lucas. “Douse your flame. We need that book intact.”
