ORIANA

There was something I had to do before I left. I whispered it in Arakne's ear (well, the inverted hole dusted with hair that I suspected was her ear) and she inclined her bulbous head in response. "Of course," she said, her eight eyes gleaming with curiosity.

Her brethren retreated as we advanced; despite her benevolence, Arakne was still a creature to be feared. Shooting one last glare at the bloated sun at our backs, I pulled the luxurious shift of spydersilk even tighter around me and followed her down a sloping ramp, into the chilly heart of her den.

It was more of a bustling village, really, which took me by surprise. While I was being dragged through here blindfolded (kicking and screaming), I'd pictured the cave system that Arakne's daughter, Magda, favoured. Webbed platforms extended in every conceivable direction, with vertical stretches that served as stairways for the sticky-footed weavers. They were not as tacky as the webs up above; it was either the boots I'd been gifted or a different type of material all together. Perhaps the webs above were designed to trap prey, I mused, slowing to take in the sights. Instead of squared-off huts, the weavers lived in bulbous cocoons of what look like layered silk. I trailed my fingers along the wall of one, surprised to find it hard, like clay, but textured like rough-spun bandages. Huh. Sturdy.

Something moved in the corner of my eye, a blurry streak. An alarm bell clanged in my mind and I moved without thinking, thrusting a hand in my attacker's direction.

A ward of light manifested, so brilliant I had to squint. The assailant let out a small squeak as he ran head-first into the shield, falling flat on his back. Eight little legs flailed as he struggled to right himself as pitifully as an upset turtle.

Horror washed through me. I've hurt someone again. A child, no less, and now he was crying. Letting the shield dissipate, I knelt to offer a helping hand, but a weaver-woman stepped between us, her human hands clasped in a universal gesture of conciliation.

"Please, forgive my son's impudence," she implored, turning her cheek to stare at the ground as she bowed, so deeply that her human spine bulged where it met with her carapace. "Our last guest told him many stories; I fear he is now besotted with your kind."

I'm the monster, I realised abruptly. She wasn't just bowing; she was cringing from the light emanating from my skin. It must have been painful after a lifetime of darkness. My presence was an open flame, one misstep away from torching everything they knew.

"No, the fault is mine. I reacted without thinking." I knelt down to offer the child a helping hand, realising that he wasn't crying, but laughing. Thank the Gods, I thought, hauling up to his feet.

"Do it again! Do it again!"

"Kyell, no. We spoke about this," the mother hissed. "Humans are dangerous. You cannot expect every one that you meet to be so understanding! Now please, return to your weaving. It's important, you know—"

"Again! Again! Again!"

She huffed, irritation breaking through her caution. I stifled a chuckle as the boy grinned up at me with pointed teeth. There were two human eyes in his face, large and round and brown like a regular child's, but his forehead was peppered with six tiny ones, all black. I wondered if it was a dizzying way of looking at the world. Then I wondered how I could have possibly seen any of these people as monsters. They were so innocent. So... human.

"So. Which story was your favourite?" I asked, glancing at Arakne over my shoulder. She had neglected to mention another visitor passed through here. It must have been in the last year or so, if this young one remembered them so clearly and fondly.

Maybe it was even more recent than that. My heart squeezed at the ludicrous thought that it was somehow Sebastian.

"The story of the Moon Cub," he said automatically, and my heart skipped a beat. Could it be...? "Oh, but I also liked How the Kyrin Came to Be. And..."

He prattled off a list of tales, most of them familiar from my time as an apprentice lore-keeper, some of them not. They seemed to speak to various peoples and religions, not just the shyfters, which made it hard to pinpoint where the traveller may have come from. Not Sebastian, then. My shoulders sagged. But a curious fellow, to be sure.

"You should write them all down," I said, smiling as I rose from my crouch. It didn't quite reach my eyes, though. The skin there stayed stiff.

Kyell frowned. "Write..."

"Or show them," I said, realising my mistake. What need did these people have for words, when their tapestries spoke volumes? "Where I grew up, we had lots of art on the walls. They showed the different stages of the stories of our people. Maybe you could decorate your village with the same."

A light entered his eyes. "Yes!"

"It would make you a Lore Keeper," I mused. "A very prestigious station in a community. It would be your duty to connect the past with the present, and help people to avoid making the same mistakes."

"Can I?" he asked, looking imploringly at his mother.

She in turn looked at Arakne, but the Spyder Queen merely nodded. "You may. We so often look to the future, but perhaps it is time we looked back as well."

He scampered off, whooping with joy, and the mother bowed again. "It is our greatest honour."

Arakne merely nodded and turned, continuing on her journey. I had to hurry to keep up with her long strides.

"Why aren't there many murals here?" I blurted out. "Weren't you famous for your works?"

Arakne sighed. "I banned art many years ago. It is what earned me the wrath of a Goddess, after all."

I thought of Magda, who loved to create. Even if it was with the body parts of various innocent creatures. Perhaps that passion had driven her to defect to the Wylds, after it was stifled here... wherever here was.

"What do you call this place?" I asked aloud.

"Home," Arakne replied, amused.

"No, really."

"It has no name, child. You will find it on no map."

"But surely it's known by your people informally," I pressed. "How else would you distinguish this place from your other colonies?"

Her pincers clacked in eerie semblance of laughter. "I call it home, but some call it Úramore."

I tried to repeat it and failed miserably. "What does it mean?"

"It is an old word, from an even older tongue. The tongue of my people, before I was made thus." She paused, as if reliving a memory, then explained: "Wyrm's Glow. The phrase is used to acknowledge a small good thing in a bad situation, like the light of a glowwyrm on a dark night. It is not the most auspicious name, as we are not the most auspicious people, but this place offers hope to many of my kind."

"I see. So it's sort of like 'every cloud has a silver lining'," I mused. The shyfters had always seen silver as a good omen on account of Nya's Grace, and looked for the silver-edged clouds in the midst of every storm.

"Yes," she said simply, and that was all, for we had reached our destination on the outskirts of Úramore.

The chamber before us was ten times the size of the homes we'd passed. It sat staunchly like an onion, reinforced by webbing on every side, like an egg sac. Hastily constructed (but expertly so), it served to shelter Bannor where he had fallen, as he was too large to be brought further into town.

Beyond the makeshift infirmary lay... nothing. Darkness swallowed up the last dredges of light. A low moan undercut the shuffling feet of our entourage, constant and eerie. I realised it was the wind passing through the thorns in the distance; there were no leaves nor boughs to muffle its passage, lending the impression that the Thornwood was alive. And malevolent, at that.

Shuddering, I pulled my attention away from the black that swallowed up the spines. There would be plenty of time to worry about the Thornwood when I was in it.

"May I watch?" Arakne asked.

"Of course."

I approached the fallen wyvern, my heartstrings playing a sombre chord that emanated in my bones. Bannor was curled up like a cat, tail tucked under his angular chin. The scales that once gleamed like freshly cut and polished gems were now dull, flat and worryingly translucent, affording little more protection than weak fingernails.

The weavers had attended to him as best they could, but he was in a grim state. His bandages were already spotted with blood, and his chest barely shifted with each breath, which rattled faintly. There was fluid in his lungs.

I knelt by Bannor's snout, forcing a smile when his outer eyelid opened. Sluggishly, the clear inner lid swept away a sandy film of sleep. I reached out to brush away a particularly stubborn bit of grit, and he hummed in response.

A mind touched mine. It was a feeble grasp at communication, which he already found so laborious on account of the bridle, but I detected a hint of relief through our tentative connection.

A good... death, he sent.

I swallowed past a hard lump in my throat. "Don't say that. You're not going to die, Bannor."

... Rana?

"I did the best I could," I whispered, showing him a mental image of his sister, preserved in the crystal. "But I cannot go back to free her."

I only realised it as I said it. My eyes burned furiously when I realised I'd trapped her with no way out.

You gave... her... time.

There was no mistaking his gratitude. His outer eyelid was already sinking, though. Even regarding me cost too much energy—energy he needed to fight his ashwood wounds.

I... have faith... she will prevail.

My tells fell, turning to steam upon my cheeks. Our mental connection quietly frayed apart.

"I'm going to try something," I said, licking my lips nervously. "Try not to move, okay?"

Bannor made a noise. It was either a faint snort or death gurgling in his lungs.

Wincing, I lay a hand on his scaly muzzle, letting my fingertips brush the silver bridle.

It was like touching an open flame. My body instantly wanted to recoil, but I locked my elbow in place and gritted my teeth, determinedly curling my fingers around the celestial cord.

Malice. Pure malice shot up my arm, crashing through my nerves like an avalanche. So cruel, I thought, tears welling automatically in my eyes. The bridle was imbued with the intention of its maker, designed solely to rob its wearer of sentience and self-determination. Bannor's defiance of the dark magic was nothing short of remarkable. Through all he'd suffered, he retained his dignity, his language and his will, never once bowing to the supernatural forces that constrained him.

As I felt along the surface of the bridle, I registered small flaws in the fibres—places his resistance had worn the magic thin. I sensed that with time and sustained effort, he would have been able to break free on his own, but time was not on his side. Bannor's strength was bleeding away, faster by the second. I had to act now.

It didn't take long to find the glimmer of gold underlying the silver magic of Nya's Grace—the hint of sunlight in the moonlight from which the bridle was made. Once I spotted it, I darted forward, fingertips phasing through the bridle as I pinched and pulled on a golden thread.

I'd spun yarn before. It was one of the jobs Brollo hated most, but as the tanner who worked all of the villagers' hides, it was a never-ending job—and thus one he frequently delegated. As such, I was well practiced at plucking fluff from a wooly coat and twining it together with my fingers. I followed the motions now, pretending that a wooden spindle was weighing the celestial threads down; then I remembered I could make a spindle out of hardened light and did that instead.

Even though it was familiar, the work was meticulous and tedious. Light was slipperier than wool, determined not to comply. Sweat soaked my hair by the time I finished, for I would be obeyed, at the very least by a sparkly ball of yarn, Gods damn it. 

When it was done, the ball of silver thread sat upon my left palm, light as a feather despite its impressive volume. On the hand sat a writhing snarl of black, so heavy that my arm trembled with the strain of lifting it. It was icy to the touch; my skin purpled on contact. It had resisted my every attempt to enforce order upon it, and I stared at it with open disgust. 

"Darkness made manifest," Arakne murmured. "Can you destroy it?"

"I don't know," I admitted, my voice thick.

"Shadows flee from the light, do they not?"

Maybe she was right. Licking my lips, I squeezed the dark snarl in my fist and focussed all of my power, all of my light, into that little chamber.

It screamed. It screamed like a rodent trapped in a fire, and that awful sound stayed with me long after I opened my palm and found it disappeared, only the bruise left in its wake. Sagging with relief, I offered the silver yarn (stripped of its malice) to Arakne. 

"Your daughter, Magda, made a cloak from thread like this," I said, after a moment's hesitation. "I was able to use it to change shapes."

"I see," she said, taking the spool. "We will see that your friend is well cared for. Now that he is smaller, we can bring him to the heart of Úramore."

Surprised, I turned to face the wyvern and realised she was right. Nostalgia swept through me, fierce and bittersweet, at the sight of the midnight man curled up in a fetal position, clothed in the armour of his ancestors. He looked just like Rana had when we first met. Noble. Regal. Beautiful.

I have faith, he'd said.

I had to have faith, too.