“Kyren!” The scream cut through the music.
His eyes opened.
Darcelle was running along the Green Path with her lute strapped across her back.
Eria followed several paces behind, breathing hard.
“RUN!” Kyren looked up.
Lurline’s face was directly above his.
It was still smiling.
The mouth beneath the smile was no longer humanoid.
He threw himself forward.
A spider limb wrapped around his waist.
Kyren hit the ground.
“What the—” Lurline lifted him.
The transformation accelerated.
Humanoid legs disappeared entirely into a mass of black chitin.
Her abdomen swelled until it was larger than a horse.
The piano collapsed beneath her, keys scattering across the roots.
Several remained suspended in the air, continuing to play by themselves.
Darcelle tore the lute from her back.
“LET HIM GO!” She swung it like a club.
The instrument struck one of Lurline’s forelegs with a hollow crack.
Darcelle stared at the lute.
“I immediately regret that.” Lurline hissed.
One limb swept sideways.
Darcelle ducked.
Eria thrust both hands forward.
Frost spread over the ground.
Ice climbed Lurline’s legs.
The Jorogumo jerked backward.
“Again!” Darcelle shouted.
“I’m trying!” Eria’s arms shook.
She had never possessed particularly powerful ice magic.
Frost thickened around two joints, then cracked when Lurline moved.
Kyren clawed at the limb holding him.
“Put me down!” Lurline’s humanoid face returned for a fraction of a second.
“But we were having such a pleasant lesson.” Then her jaw opened.
The mouth beneath stretched wider than Kyren’s head.
Darcelle’s expression changed.
“KYREN!” Lurline pulled him toward it.
Something struck her eye.
SHHKR!
The scream stopped halfway through.
Lurline’s body jerked sideways.
Kyren dropped from her grasp and hit the roots hard enough to lose his breath.
A black-and-gold arrow protruded from the Jorogumo’s eye.
Everyone turned.
An elf stood between two trees.
Golden eyes.
Leather clothing fitted tightly enough for movement, with hidden pockets sewn across the chest, belt and thighs.
A hood covered part of his hair.
A bow was already in his hand.
Kyren had seen guards.
Hunters.
Scouts.
This was none of them.
The stranger looked like the killers adults warned children existed far beyond Delasai.
An assassin.
But why would an assassin be this close to the settlement?
“Move!” the elf shouted.
Darcelle grabbed Kyren by the arm.
“Gladly.” Lurline tore the arrow from her eye.
Black fluid splashed across the roots.
The elf drew another arrow.
One of his golden eyes changed.
Darkness spread through the iris until the entire eye became black.
“Lunar.” Something passed from his fingers into the arrow.
Half the shaft turned black.
The other half burned gold.
He released.
The arrow crossed the clearing too quickly for Kyren to follow.
It entered Lurline’s open mouth and exploded through the side of her face.
She recoiled.
The assassin fired again.
And again.
Each arrow alternated between gold and black along its length.
Kyren stared.
“Who is that?” Eria pulled him behind a tree.
“Not the time.” “You know him?” “No.” “Then why are we trusting him?” Darcelle stared at the enormous spider trying to remove an arrow from its throat.
“Because she tried to eat you and he hasn’t.” “Fair.” The elf moved closer.
His name was Aven.
Kyren did not know that yet.
He did not know that Aven’s kin had spent years under the influence of creatures exactly like Lurline.
He did not know that entire communities could be controlled without chains, their thoughts adjusted little by little until obedience felt self-generated.
Aven knew.
Worse, he could feel it happening inside himself.
Every second near Lurline made his thoughts slightly less certain.
Stop shooting.
The thought entered gently.
It did not sound foreign.
The children are safe.
Leave.
Aven drew another arrow.
His hand hesitated.
He stared at his fingers.
“Not mine.” Lurline’s surviving eye focused on him.
Her humanoid lips moved despite the ruined shape around them.
“Aven.” Kyren heard the name.
The assassin went rigid.
Lurline smiled through blood.
“Come home.” Aven’s bow lowered by an inch.
Darcelle whispered, “That’s bad.” Kyren watched his face.
“She knows him.” Eria tightened her grip on Kyren’s shoulder.
“We leave.
Now.” Kyren resisted.
“Wait.” “No.” “He’s helping us.” “And if he stops?” Lurline’s voice softened.
“You have been away long enough.” Aven’s black eye flickered gold.
“You don’t own me.” “Everyone belongs somewhere.” “Not to you.” “Your mother disagreed.” Aven’s face changed.
Lurline saw it.
“Your brothers disagreed.” “Shut up.” “Your entire village—” Aven released.
The arrow entered Lurline’s chest.
She screamed and lunged.
Aven rolled aside.
One of her legs struck the tree behind him and split bark from trunk.
He rose already drawing another arrow.
“RUN!” This time Eria did not give Kyren a choice.
She pulled him backward.
Darcelle followed.
Lurline turned toward them.
Aven fired into one of her rear joints.
The leg collapsed.
“Children first?” Lurline asked.
Her voice had changed.
There was amusement in it now.
“Or me?” Aven fired.
She avoided the arrow.
“Choose.” He fired again.
“You always were terrible at choosing.” Lurline surged toward him.
Aven disappeared behind a trunk.
Her front limbs struck the place where he had stood.
He emerged from the other side and released three arrows in rapid succession.
One pierced her abdomen.
Another bounced from chitin.
The third entered the wound left by the first.
Black-gold light spread beneath her shell.
Lurline shrieked.
Kyren stopped running.
Eria nearly pulled his arm from its socket.
“Kyren!” “Look.” Beneath the trees around Lurline, thin strands were becoming visible.
Webs.
Hundreds of them.
They had been there the entire time.
Some ran between trunks.
Others disappeared into the soil.
A few stretched toward Aven.
One had already attached itself to the back of his coat.
“Aven!” Kyren shouted.
The assassin looked toward him.
“Behind you!” Aven turned.
Too late.
The thread tightened.
His body jerked backward.
Another wrapped around his wrist.
His bow arm moved against his will.
Lurline dragged herself closer.
“There you are.”