Page 45 of Vasmora

“Oh, yeah. A couple dozen or more slaves over the last few centuries.”

Something about that didn’t seem right, though. The general was far too careful to let a couple of slaves slip through every so often. “It seems she would’ve closed that off by now.”

“Oh, none have ever survived. Most drown in the quicksand. See, in order to slip through the reservoir, you have to exhale entirely, making yourself more dense than the water.”

As I’d suspected.

“Then, the couple who actually reached the caves died from the noxious gasses in what’s known as the Dead Man’s Curve. A fairly long stretch that winds beneath the old dragon’s pit. Lots of nasty molds have grown up there over the last millennia.” He waved his small hand in his face and shook his head as if he’d gotten a whiff of it right then. “The general didn’t bother to remove it. You’d have to hold your breath going through there, which is impossible unless the current is fast enough. But all of this is neither here, nor there, seeing as you’re locked in this cell.”

Lips flat, I turned away from him. “You’re just brimming with optimism.”

A wet drop hit my face with a startling chill, and I swiped my finger across it, staring down at the glisten across my fingertips. Frowning, I lifted my gaze, and my breath caught at the sight of glittering threads woven from one wall of the cell to the next. An icy web that shimmered like starlight in the darkness overhead. Water plinked onto the floor beside me, and I turned to see the Golvyn examining the ceiling, his small brows pulled tight.

“What is it?” I whispered.

“Never seen anything like it.”

Another drop plopped beside him, and when he bent forward to examine it, I spotted something emerging from the darkness behind him. Something he apparently hadn’t glimpsed yet, as he munched another bite of his dead bug. Venomous embers hung static in the shadows, glowing just beyond the Golvyn. Dozens of eyes trained on him, looming over him in a way that I could estimate the threat was at least twice his size. Maybe bigger.

“Golvyn,” my voice shook. “Come here. Quickly.”

The Golvyn’s body trembled as he spared one slow glance to the side. He turned back to me, his eyes sad, and the bug ticked onto the floor where he dropped it.

“No!” I lurched forward, fingers outstretched, my hand grasping at empty air as the shadows uncoiled and a long, jointed limb struck first, lifting the Golvyn by his head. The spider stepped into view, revealing the horror I hadn’t seen in the moment before. The Golvyn dangled from its two massive fangs that completely engulfed his head.

An obnoxious crunch drowned the Golvyn’s faint cry, his legs kicking, twitching.

A whim of fury washed over me, and I swiped out with my metallic nails, slicing through one of the creature’s legs. It dropped the brutally mangled Golvyn and launched toward me in a blur of motion. Fangs sank into my leg, the repulsive tug of blood through my veins stirring a queasy flutter in my gut. Panic jarred me, and I gave a violent kick, my scream bouncing off the walls around me.

The spider let out a high-pitched squeal, but released me and scampered backward, as if I’d somehow wounded it in my reaction.

Its body trembled and collapsed, legs curling inward, and when it hit the ground, the tiny spiders that emerged from its back trudged across the floor as if they’d gotten themselves trapped in thick mud. One of them burst into black, viscous liquid.

The larger spider stilled, the inky fluid dripping from its fangs into a widening pool beneath it.

The door to my cell flew open with a crack, and Captain Drefan stood alongside another guard, only seen in my periphery since I refused to acknowledge their presence.

I caught a glimpse of the aftermath, the wound at my leg, pulsing and bubbling with the same black ooze that spilled from the spider. It was too dark to be blood, the way it moved over my flesh like living tar.

“What in the gods is this?” the captain asked, but I ignored him, reaching for the macerated skin on my leg.

The blackness trickled over my calf, the wound convulsing, steaming and hissing, as if rejecting it. Each contraction drove it out, purging it from my body.

Drefan stepped inside and knelt beside me.

On instinct, I kicked my leg away, not wanting him to touch it, but he gripped my ankle, pulling me back. “That’s a nasty bite,” he said. He twisted back toward the spider that seemed to be shriveling on the floor as more fluids pooled around it. “Seems he didn’t care for your blood much.”

Seemed not. The wound pushed out the last bits of black, and I watched as the ends of the torn flesh came together in an angry red seam that pinkened by the second as it sealed itself.

Drefan stepped closer to the spider, drawing my attention to the dark fluid that sank into the stony floor, and the curls of black smoke drifting upward.

“Godsteeth, I’ve never seen anything like that,” his subordinate said at his back.

“Nor have I.” Drefan tipped his head and lifted his gaze toward the shadows, brows pulled tighter as he tipped his head back, presumably catching sight of the icy webbing overhead. He pushed to his feet and reached up, running his finger over a thin, gossamer strand that sprinkled water onto the floor. “A web made of ice.”

I dared myself to look at the Golvyn that lay motionless, its head crushed, black oozing out of it, as well.

“Seems I missed a bit of a spectacle.” Drefan rubbed his fingers together and wiped them across his trousers.