The cavern plunges into utter blackness. The fire sputters and dies with a hiss, replaced by a deep and foreboding silence. Then, an explosion of sound. A single obsidian leg, jagged and bladed, punches from the swollen cocoon, impaling the ground. The shockwave splits the stone floor, echoing with a sharp crack. Another follows, then another. Eight in total, like colossal blackened spears, spidering outward until the cocoon rips open in a shower of silk and rot.

  She emerges.

  Her body is immense, the glistening segmented abdomen of a monstrous spider dragging behind her. But where a head should be, there rises a human torso. Feminine and unnervingly beautiful, her pale skin glows like polished bone, crisscrossed with black jagged lines that shimmer like web-strands. Her breasts are exposed, pendulous and cold, the claws of her fingers long and curved like obsidian sickles. Her face is perfect, inhumanly so, untouched by flaw, framed by a silken waterfall of silver hair. Her eyes remain closed as she crawls forward, her monstrous limbs cracking stone beneath her.

  Then, her lids flutter open.

  The orbs within are pitch black. Bottomless. The cavern shudders around her gaze.

  She unfurls her human arms wide, her posture elongating with a grotesque elegance. Dark mana pours from her like smoke, so dense and alive I see it coil through the air, even without Maldor’s spell. Luna and I stumble back. Breath catches in our throats; eyes wide and trembling.

  Then her gaze locks on us.

  Our bodies freeze immediately.

  She advances, the great limbs of her spider-half clicking against stone, until she halts before Maldor’s severed head. Her arachnid body bends, lowering the pale, divine form that crowns it. Her humanoid half reaches down with a reverent slowness and lifts the head, cradling it gently.

  “Shukran... dearest father... for thou hast birthed me anew.”

  Her lips stretch into a serene smile... then crack. The flesh of her mouth tears wider, cheeks splitting open to reveal jagged black teeth glinting in the firelight.

  She lowers Maldor’s severed head into her waiting mouth, then bites down with a sickening crunch. Blood sprays across her pale chest as she chews, savoring the meat with slow, deliberate movements. Her throat pulses as she swallows, lips streaked crimson, her eyes rolling back in delight.

  Then, once more, her head snaps toward us.

  She resumes her crawl, each leg crashing into rock with dreadful weight. Luna, trembling, somehow summons the will to raise her wand. But before she can form a word, one of the colossal black limbs lashes out in a blur.

  "Gnngh-"

  Luna is struck and sent flying, her body cartwheeling through the air before slamming into the far wall. She hits the ground with a wet thud and doesn’t rise.

  The spider does not even glance her way.

  Her attention is locked on me.

  My skin prickles in revulsion, every inch of me aware of her monstrous lower half clicking and twitching... while my eyes are drawn, helplessly, to the divine, naked form rising above it. Cold perfection and grotesque horror, stitched together in divine mockery.

  She smiles with unsettling warmth as her colossal arachnid form lowers, legs folding in on themselves with an eerie grace. The towering body kneels, allowing her humanoid upper half to descend and face me more intimately. Her obsidian eyes, depthless and wet draw me in.

  “Shukran... my kindred... for aiding father in my birthing.”

  Confusion floods my thoughts, until the memory surfaces... my hands, carving the limbs for Maldor... the men.

  Is she... thanking me?

  She lifts my hand with delicate reverence and presses it to her cheek, nestling into my palm as though seeking warmth. Her skin is cool, damp, and strangely supple, alien and yet intimate to the touch. Her lips curl slightly. “Thou wearest my sigils still,” she murmurs, voice soft and coiling, as her clawed fingers glide down my forearm.

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  Where her touch passes over the scars I carved, heat erupts, each mark flaring with dark mana, pulsing with unnatural power. Then she guides my hand downward, slowly, possessively, across the porcelain skin of her collarbone, until it rests atop her left breast—cool, firm and throbbing faintly with the beat of her heart.

  She leans in close, voice like velvet. “Bless me, my kindred,” she breathes. “Let me feel thy strength within me.”

  Runes ignite behind my eyes, much like the scroll I read earlier, but etched directly into my mind, poured into me by her presence.

  "Bl?ctr?l."

  My mouth moves on its own, guided by the magic coursing through me. Black threads explode from my hand, stabbing into her chest. I feel them twine around her heart like wire, coiling tighter with every beat, binding her to me in a weave of shadow and blood.

  She gasps, her pitch-black lips parting in pleasure. The threads coil tighter inside her, but instead of pain, her face blooms with joy. She smiles at me with dark affection and whispers, “Shukran,” her clawed hand rising to caress my cheek with reverent tenderness.“We are bound, dear kindred.”

  But then.... her gaze narrows.

  Her eyes sweep slowly down my body and back again, and something cold settles into her expression.“Mm... but what is this?” she murmurs, her silky voice now containing a hard edge.“Thou art already offered... to Vael?”

  I shudder at the name, but it is a distant tremor, overshadowed entirely by the awe-inspiring aura radiating from the entity before me.

  She knows Vael....

  She leans in, her lips brushing my ear, and her tongue slithers over its edge. Her whisper breathes against my skin. “One such as thee should not share himself with one so unworthy.”

  Unworthy? What does she....

  I find my courage and steady my voice. “Are you... a demon?”

  She leans back, her smile enigmatic and slow. “Some might name me such,” she says. “Others...” Her black eyes gleam. “...might call me goddess.”

  The word echoes unnaturally from her lips. The cavern groans around us as if recoiling from it, the very stone shivering beneath the weight of that blasphemy.

  I can already imagine the outcry the priests of Lumina would raise at the mere thought, heresy of the highest order.

  And yet... Maldor seemed to worship her.

  “What do you want from me?”

  She tilts her head, the motion slow and gentle, her claws resting lightly upon her breast where the black threads still bind her to my hand. "Naught but to grant thee comfort... and love," she murmurs, the words soft and sweet. "The heart of sloth.... so deeply mired in acedia..... how thou must suffer, bearing it alone." She shakes her head slowly, a shadow of sorrow veiling her gaze "Yet fret not, dearest kindred. For thou mayst draw from mine own heart, that which thine lacks... and more besides."

  I swallow hard. “I… I don't understand. Who are you?”

  She rises slowly to her full, dreadful height, towering above me in impossible grandeur. Then, with surreal grace, her massive arachnid body bends in a low, formal bow, like a noble at court.

  “Nadrazulmah. The Mother. The Binder. Visage in the Dark. A pleasure to make thine acquaintance.”

  She straightens, obsidian eyes glinting, and tilts her head. “And who art thou?”

  Her claws trail lightly across my chest. Compelled, unable to resist her command, I answer, “Seven.”

  She closes her eyes and nods. “A fitting name.”

  I hesitate, then ask, “Why do you call me kindred?”

  She lifts an eyebrow, her expression almost amused, as though the answer should be self-evident. “Because we share blood,” she says, voice thick with meaning. “Canst thou not see it, in mine eyes?”

  I peer into the bottomless black of her gaze, feel it pull at me like a tide. For a moment, I nearly lose myself in the void... until, deep within, a glint of crimson flickers. A flash of red... the same hue of my own eyes.

  It can't be...

  “Are you saying… I’m a demon?” I ask, voice low.

  She laughs, a soft, resonant sound. “Of course not,” she says. “Now, enough questions. There is much yet to be done, children to be born, webs to be spun. And Vocna... he calls for me.” Her voice lowers, husky with strange affection. “But do not think me ungrateful.”

  Her hand slips behind my head and pulls me forward, her fingers tightening possessively. Then her lips, black and cold, press hard against mine, sealing my breath in a kiss that drowns all thought.

  A dizzy rush overtakes me, knowledge, raw power, ancient and alien, flooding every vein. My vision fractures upward, beyond the cavern roof, past the sky and stars, into the black tapestry where constellations spin and spiral into the dark runes. Each one etches into my mind, deep truth burned into my sight, imparted by the creature embracing me.

  Then... her lips break from mine.

  She gazes at me one last time, a smile of both affection and hunger curling her mouth. Then her jaw opens, glittering fangs flashing.

  Wait, she's not-

  She sinks them into my neck.

  I gasp, a choked gurgle escaping as she drinks deep. My blood floods into her, pulled greedily between those perfect black lips. The room spins. My strength bleeds away. Consciousness dims to a flickering ember.

  At last, she pulls back, tongue flicking over the wound as my vision goes dark.

  “Make good use of my threads, dearest Seven,” she whispers. “Until we next meet.”