Ito

by Kiiyoshi

Summary:

Woven threads and a tapestry frozen in perpetuity—

Answering a remote village's cries for help only came second nature to her, but Djeeta never thought she would end up on the doorstep of a resentful god instead, the knife in her back still fresh.

Betrayal sets in motion what others find untouchable, but perhaps even then, there is still something to be found in the dust left behind.

Notes:

Hello, I've decided to try my hand at a real slow burn. Not all chapters will be explicit, but those that are will be appropriately marked and warned for. As always, mind the tags.

Enjoy!

Chapter 1

When Djeeta came to, it didn’t take her very long to realize that she was no longer in the village square, but face down on an unfamiliar floor with the bitter musk of bamboo lingering in her nose.

 

She groaned softly, turning her body to try and help herself up, only to find that her arms were bound tightly behind her back with hardly an inch of space to readjust herself while her legs were in the same boat, wrapped up to the knees in something that felt like neither rope or chains. If she had to hazard a guess in the dimly lit room, perhaps it was leather from the slight stretch she felt as she tried her hardest to wriggle loose.

 

“You won’t break free any time soon,” came a deep voice from in front of her, eliciting a yelp as she lost her balance and rolled over. “Consider saving your strength.”

 

“Who—?” she found herself asking as she did her best to crane her neck upwards, only to find the silhouette of a man staring down at her while seated upon what looked like a throne that had seen better days. As she glared into the darkness, she made out a pair of scarlet eyes, silvery blond hair that shimmered in the little light that was allowed to enter the room, and the visage of a man who couldn’t be any older than his mid-thirties, yet something clicked all the same.

 

“You’re… You’re the god of this place, aren’t you?”

 

Those eyes narrowed into thin slits—from amusement or impatience, she couldn’t tell. “I am Lord Aglovale,” he intoned, and she still couldn’t tell. “A god of nothing.”

 

Djeeta’s gaze never left his face as she inched along the floor like a worm until she found enough ground to bring herself to her knees. She was able to make out the rest of him as her own eyes adjusted to the shadows—the god, or not-a-god, was dressed in several layers of silken robes that ranged in color from indigo to purple to silver, ornate details woven into the textile while his hair fell over his chest and shoulders in long, straight locks. Not a single scar or blemish could be seen on his face or the back of his hands, and to her, he painted an almost heavenly appearance as he continued gazing down at her.

 

She thought he was a far cry from the monster the villagers had described to her if he really was the god they spoke of, but as she recalled their words while the memories set in, her emotions surged forth anew—

 

“Did you… Did you put them up to this?” she demanded. “Did they lie to me? They said they needed my help, they asked me to talk with you, to convince you to give them access to the river—” she hissed through her teeth, focused once more on breaking free from her restraints. At this point, she was more angry than afraid, too angry to notice the one who introduced himself as "Lord Aglovale" rise and then descend from his throne until he was lowering himself to one knee so that he could take her face in one hand.

 

Djeeta stared at him as she felt pointed fingernails bite into her cheeks, sobering her right back up.

 

“How foul,” he drawled, lips pulling into a leer that made her heart pound. “They sent you here to die and appease me, yet you won’t even offer me your name.”

 

She blinked. “Oh… sorry,” she apologized, her thoughts drawing a blank as his proximity snuffed out the flare of her anger. “My name’s… my name’s Djeeta. I… wanted to talk to you. I think.”

 

Aglovale laughed, his voice deep and far richer than the decrepit room it filled. It was almost jarring, but she couldn’t help but feel that in a different place and a different time, it would've come across differently. “I’m afraid we are long past the point of dialogue, Djeeta,” he said. “You have been thrust upon me as an offering, an insect within a web if you will, and insects… do not bargain.”

 

Djeeta frowned as the other sat back and adjusted himself so that he mirrored her position by resting on both knees, the great excess of his robes spread neatly around him as he sat like a paradigm of dignity. If he had never introduced himself, Djeeta would’ve thought that he had been royalty, but then she wouldn’t have known why royalty would be in a place such as this.

 

“What do you mean, Lord Aglovale?”

 

“Mortals make offerings when they want something from the gods,” he answered. “It's a simple concept, really, but you are still under the delusion that we may both get what we want. Peacefully. Through negotiation. Your brethren seem to disagree and I am inclined to side with them on the matter.”

 

...It was a lie then? We were never supposed to talk it out?

 

Djeeta closed her fists as she refused to drop her gaze even as her heart continued pounding against her ribcage. Was she still angry, or was the reality of her situation finally beginning to set in? Either way— “Are you going to kill me then?”

 

“It’s an option,” Aglovale replied. “Just as killing me was supposedly an option for you had our talks fallen through—oh yes, I knew.” His lips curled. “Humans are very predictable, and you’re no exception, Djeeta… Tell me, would you like your arms back?”

 

Her emotions stuttered as she blinked again at the sudden offer. “I… yes, please?”

 

The darkness seemed to encroach on her from the corner of her eyes as she answered, and when she heard the sound of tiny footsteps from behind, she couldn’t help but whirl around, lose her balance, and keel right over to land back on her side with a small oof.

 

Aglovale clicked his tongue with disapproval, but she wasn’t given a chance to right herself when her breath caught in her throat at the sight of an oversized spider slowly making its way towards her. She counted eight gleaming eyes the color of the void, eight legs, and a pair of sharp mandibles before she scrambled away as best she could and right into Lord Aglovale’s lap.

 

“Child,” he admonished while she swore that there was some kind of twisted amusement dancing in his eyes. “You’d do best not to struggle.”

 

But Djeeta clearly wasn’t listening as she began to writhe, pressing her head into his chest as the giant spider crept even closer. The creature seemed to observe her thrashing, evidently not too keen to approach any further than this.

 

“Stay back, stay back, stay back—!” she yowled.

 

The man sighed as he broke his posture, his arms sliding around her until one hand rested atop her shoulders and the other behind her thighs. He moved so languidly and his embrace came so suddenly that Djeeta couldn’t help but fall still from the shock of it. Only when she felt the spider chew on her bindings did she realize that he was pinning her in place. She whimpered.

 

“There,” he breathed into her ear before her arms, now free, shot around and latched onto his robes. There was a pause in his demeanor that she nearly missed, but it must’ve been her imagination when he continued without missing another beat, “...Before we settle the matter of your legs, my servant would like your word that you will stay still for this.”

 

“Servant?” she asked him incredulously. “That thing is your servant?”

 

“Naturally every palace should have its servants,” Aglovale replied, mostly unfazed as he kept his grip on her. “What other creature brave your mindless flailing about to free you from your bindings?”

 

Djeeta could only stare at him as she got the feeling that he was making fun of her, only for her legs to suddenly come free before the spider scuttled back into the shadows for cover, leaving behind severed strands of what she now realized was raw silk.

 

Chest heaving, it took a moment of looking back and forth for her to regain her senses before she realized how utterly close he was, and how utterly tightly she was clinging to him as if her life depended on it. The spell faded alongside the last throes of her adrenaline when the threat vanished, and she immediately let go, scrambling out of his lap while a mess of apologies spilled from her mouth.

 

Aglovale acknowledged none of them as he slowly rose and dusted himself of the stray bits of silk. It was strange—when his gaze found her once more, he seemed like a different person to her even though he was still somebody she had only just met. The light was gone from his eyes, leaving behind an unforgiving scrutiny where amusement had lurked just moments before.

 

“The appraisal starts now,” he said almost coldly, his voice weighing heavily upon her shoulders as if his word were law. “Will you remain an offering, or is your life worth even less than that?”

The room she was given within the manor was far bigger than anything she’d ever been granted during her many travels across the countryside, but Djeeta didn't want to think about what that might've meant. There were too many things she needed to think about, too many things she struggled to wrap her head around.

 

Someone in her life had once told her that her naivety would catch up to her one day. She tried to laugh it off at the time as much as she found it annoying. She never thought of herself as much of a philosopher, but was it wrong to believe in people? Was it wrong to want to help them? 

 

“If I get stabbed in the back, it’s because that person wanted to betray me, not because I chose to believe in them.”

 

She spat those words even though there was no longer anyone around to argue with. On her way here, she felt the countless eyes of Lord Aglovale’s “servants” track her every move from the darkness, the shape of their many legs forming from the shadows as they slowly crawled along the corners where the wall met the floor, inky gazes never leaving her until the door slid shut behind her.

 

Here, she was alone, and she made sure of it after throwing open the doors to the dresser, the closet, and beating the dust out of the bedding consigned to her.

 

Well, she did find one unfortunate spider the size of a coin cowering in the corner of a shelf, and she made the executive decision to shoo it out the window after determining that it probably wasn’t part of the cleaning staff.

 

Exhausted, Djeeta couldn’t even be bothered with the thin layer of dust that still lingered when she collapsed upon the futon, staring up at the thin bamboo panels that made up the ceiling.

 

“The appraisal starts now, huh?” she echoed to herself. “What am I, a piece of merchandise?”

 

Something like that, a voice answered her from within. You thought you could be a peacemaker, but you’re moreso a piece of meat now, aren’t you?

 

Djeeta grimaced as she took her resentment out on the ceiling, glaring holes into it. “What now then? What am I supposed to do? He didn’t even give me a hint, the jerk.”

 

Yes, the jerk who can kill you at any minute.

 

Her inner voice was being far from helpful, so she shooed it away and closed her eyes.

 

Lord Aglovale… truly was different from the monstrous god of the forest she first pictured. The village elders had sent out a call for help, and she was the humble traveler who had answered it. Falling to their knees at the sight of her, they poured out what she thought were their long-held woes as they decried generations of suffering.

 

According to them, a cruel god presided over the forest and all of its bounty. The dry season was fast approaching, and they needed access to the river after their own reservoirs had dried up. Their god had refused them. He had no use for the water himself, but his insatiable greed deafened his ears to their cries for mercy. Or so the story went.

 

“I’ll talk to him,” she had promised them, kneeling as she took withered and pleading hands within her own. “And if he won’t listen, then I’ll force him to.”

 

Not that anything came of that. The old bastards must’ve drugged and dumped her at the foot of the forest, and even she wasn’t stupid enough to think she’d see her sword and belongings anytime soon.

 

Thinking about it only made her angrier, and so she shooed those thoughts away as well as she rolled onto her side and curled up.

 

Yet despite the betrayal and word of the god’s cruelty, Djeeta was still very much alive enough to be angry about it. As much as she hated to admit it, there really was nothing she could’ve done to defend herself, but for reasons beyond her, the monstrous god went through the trouble of not only freeing her, but finding her a real bed to sleep on to boot.

 

She closed a fist and then let go, recalling the feel of his silken robes grasped between her fingers when she had been burning with humiliation for it earlier. She had imagined a towering beast with fangs and horns and scraggly fur that might’ve been crusted with both dirt and blood from living in the wilds, but the supposed god the villagers feared was only a man whose scent reminded her of crushed pine needles and the softest notes of juniper. She recalled the glimmer of his ruby red eyes, the loftiness of his demeanor, and the harshness of his laughter—the only things that didn’t make her feel angry as his lingering touch plagued her thoughts in the way wood-boring beetles would chew through furniture.

 

A veil hung behind his eyes, and his hands hadn't brought harm to her, not yet at least. But now she knew that there was more to him, to the forest, to the village. She always wanted to believe in the best of people, but the trust this time couldn’t come to her as easily as before, and that realization alone stung her. It wasn’t about being wrong or right anymore—it didn’t matter to her, an outsider, if he were a god or not, when it was now her own life on the line.

 

But even with that knowledge, a quiet uncertainty still lingered in the depths of her heart. Echoing, echoing, beating… faintly.

Chapter 2

She couldn’t move her body no matter how much she struggled, her limbs having turned to lead as she dangled in the air with no way to tell up from down or right from left.

 

She didn’t think she could see either, but she felt the weight of a great shadow bear down on her as every cell within her body screamed for her to break free, to run. Countless legs formed a cage around her paralyzed body instead, the bite of the monster’s breath encroaching ever closer to her exposed throat.

 

“It makes no difference to me if you are to be my meal or my bride.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Djeeta startled awake, rolling out of the futon in a panic before she ended up flat on her back again, chest heaving while she struggled to regain her breath. Cold sweat clung to her skin as she stared wide-eyed at the ceiling before she realized there was a soft, but insistent knocking at the door leading to her room.

 

Swallowing thickly, she wiped her sleeve on her brow before she crawled over to answer it, her heart still hammering within her chest while she had no idea who or what she was expecting.

 

She tried not to dwell on the lingering dream.

 

However, it was only a change of clothes and a tray of food that awaited her when she slid the door open. Poking her head out, she glanced from side to side, her heart nearly jumping out of her ribcage when she caught sight of several eyes watching her from the other end of the shadowed hallway. She swallowed again, urging herself to calm back down as last night's run-in came back to her.

 

“Thank you?” she managed to choke out. The dark shape melted back into the shadows after a flurry of movement, its eyes disappearing with the rest of it.

 

Letting out something that was halfway between a gasp and a sigh of relief, Djeeta took the clothes—its silkiness soothing to the touch despite all else—as well as the tray of food, carefully sliding it past the threshold before closing the door for some privacy.

 

Breakfast was a slice of fish, a bowl of rice, a bowl of soup, and a small plate of vegetables that she didn’t recognize. Studying the food laid before her, one half of her thought of the fairytale witch who lured children to her cottage to fatten them up, while the other simply mulled over the fact that poison was most certainly a thing that existed.

 

You can eat the food before you, or you can crawl around outside looking for berries that won’t kill you before starvation does.

 

She was never one known for having an overabundance of caution, and so her appetite won out in the end as she swallowed the rest of her lingering reservations. For a prisoner, or an insect as Lord Aglovale so graciously likened her to, she was being treated suspicously well nonetheless.

 

The rice was hot and fluffy and the fermented bean soup steaming. The fish was as fresh as the rest of the ensemble when she picked apart the flakes of meat to plop a piece into her cautiously eager mouth. It melted on her tongue, a perfect blend of spice and saltiness and texture, and Djeeta had to set her bowl and utensils back down as her stomach fluttered at how frustratingly delicious everything was.

 

She decided to embrace her streak of optimism and dug back in, alternating between shoveling food into her mouth and fanning her tongue to keep it from burning.

 

Someone had to have cooked this for her. Whether it was Lord Aglovale himself and all his haughtiness or an eight-legged chef would be another question to keep her up at night.

 

After her first foray of the manor, Djeeta learned several things.

 

First, a child used to live in the room given to her. She found sticks of colored wax at the bottom of one of the drawers, but they were so old that one of them crumbled in her hands when she tried to pick it up. Another drawer housed a stack of drawings that looked just as old, but she returned all of them to their proper places without lifting the first page. If they didn’t belong to a child, then maybe they were a seamster's private sketches, she figured when she found spools of ribbon and the rustiest pair of scissors she had ever seen in another compartment. The blades were a hundred years too old to be any kind of replacement for her sword, but perhaps the rest of it would come in handy for something one day. For what, she had no idea.

 

Second, there were no guards, at least, not of the two-legged variety, and even then it felt strange to think of the spiders as guards when they moreso lurked rather than guarded, and when they were... well, spiders. She wasn’t sure if that made her feel any better, but needless to say, it didn’t take her very long to learn to look where she walked.

 

Third, there were no roads that lead to the manor which seemed to have somehow sprouted from the ground in the middle of a dense forest. Making a run for it still might’ve been an option for somebody like herself, but the distant fog that filled whatever space she could make out between the trees only had her turning back around again when she tried to scout a path.

 

Fourth, all of the mirrors inside of the manor were covered by a cloth. Shielded from years of dust and moisture, their polished surfaces shone like the moon when she pulled away the covering of one such mirror propped against the wall. However, when she passed by it a second time, someone—or something—had covered it back up again.

 

Fifth, there was a garden behind the manor, and while it had seen better days, it was still nice enough that a strange-fitting sense of peace washed over her when she first stepped over the mossy cobblestone to walk along the edge of a small pond.

 

Sixth, sharing a wall with the garden was a spacious room with a large loom planted in the middle of it. Seated before a half-formed tapestry was Lord Aglovale himself, dressed in his royal blue robes as his slender fingers made careful work of the delicate threads arranged before him. Having managed to evade her captor for the better part of the day, Djeeta found him when she passed by the open doors, the dappled sunlight pouring in from the atrium painting the scene before her in warm hues of gold and green.

 

If Aglovale picked up on her presence, he showed no indication of it. Yet for somebody with no audience, he moved with the utmost grace as if she had stumbled upon him in mid-performance. There was not a single imperfection in the way his robes draped over his body, nor was there a single strand of golden hair upon his head that was out of place. His imposing stature aside, he reminded her of a porcelain doll that had been meticulously posed and groomed and fussed over for hours, yet he was clearly alive as he pulled the comb over the threads and added yet another line to the unfinished tapestry.

 

Djeeta didn’t know how much time she let slip away as she stood there, silently watching him work. Only when she lowered her gaze did she realize with a small jump that he wasn’t alone at all, that a handful of his so-called “servants” had formed a half-circle behind him, equally enraptured, if not moreso, while they watched their master weave in silence.

 

She felt something crack, something dangerous, and Djeeta broke away from it all without another sound.

 

It took some time for Djeeta to admit to herself that she was meandering at this point. Without the familiar weight of her sword at her side to ground her, she felt that a single gust of wind was all that it would take to blow her away. She grasped her sleeves, tugging on them as if to pull herself back together, but even then she still couldn’t help but think about how the robes she now wore were probably more expensive than anything she could ever afford in this lifetime.

 

But maybe even a sacrifice could wear something nice once in a while, she thought rather sardonically.

 

Through the fog of her thoughts, Djeeta found herself back in the gardens, but the branches of maple and juniper that she had thought were beautiful before now looked more like the bars of a cage. Even following one of the cobblestone paths away from the manor didn’t feel like a choice she was making for herself when the uncertainty of her future hung over her head like an approaching stormcloud she had noticed too little too late.

 

“Snitch on me to your master if you want,” she grumbled, turning around to catch one of the god's attendants ducking too late to hide behind a small boulder. She bit back a shudder at the sight of it, and it stared unblinkingly back at her with its eight round eyes, front legs held close to its body as if in some kind of apology. “I’m not running away. I’m just taking a walk.”

 

The spider showed no signs of agreement or disagreement, or that it even understood, but Djeeta wasn’t sure what else she was expecting from the creature before she sighed and turned back around, committed to ignoring the intermittent rustling that continued to follow her no matter how much it made her skin prickle uncomfortably.

 

The winding path led her further and further away from the gardens, the mossy cobblestone becoming more moss than stone before the sound of rushing water overtook the gentle trickle of the garden ponds. Her curiosity won over her better judgment, and Djeeta continued onwards until she found herself in a clearing that ended in a steep drop-off where the infamous river that connected the mountains to the sea rushed below.

 

But what caught her eye first wasn’t the river itself, but the presence of two large stones placed next to one another at the apex of the hill. The rustling grew louder behind her, but Djeeta continued to ignore it as she stepped closer and realized the shape and position of the stones resembled that of a pair of grave markers.

 

Djeeta lowered her head, closed her eyes, and brought her hands together to offer a short prayer. She didn’t know who was buried here, or if their ashes had been long scattered across the river below—the markers themselves bore no name nor date, but the sight of them filled her chest with a somber heaviness that only seemed to weigh her closer to what her own reality was.

 

Were they old sacrifices? That didn’t seem right—there should be more of them if that were the case. Then were they the old inhabitants of the manor that was now occupied by the god of this forest and his prisoner? Djeeta didn’t know, and asking wasn’t a risk she felt like taking. Not today, at least.

 

She opened her eyes to find the giant spider perched closer to her feet than she would have liked. She swallowed another shudder, not too confident if she would ever get used to those pitch-black eyes staring up at her.

 

“You wouldn’t be able to tell me either, huh?” she asked without expecting an answer.

 

She turned back to the headstones. A single prayer seemed like sparse offerings given how lonely their resting place felt. She looked over her shoulder and towards the forest path that led her here, then she looked to her left, and then to her right, sweeping her eyes across her surroundings until a splash of color caught her eye.

 

White and blue flowers waved at her from where they sprouted from the cliffside, beckoning her closer, but as Djeeta turned to make her way over, the spider broke its stillness and jumped, scuttling around her feet and nearly sending her tumbling down the cliffside.

 

“Hey—stop that, I said I wasn’t going to run!” she snapped, doing a ridiculous tap dance trying to avoid having her toes trampled while also trying not to trample the spider itself. “I'm just trying to pay some respects here!”

 

The creature stopped and stared at her again, its distress apparent to even her. Djeeta lifted a defiant foot, and when the spider realized it couldn’t do much to stop her short of startling her into falling to an early death, it turned and ran back into the forest.

 

Well, there was nothing she could do about that. She huffed and turned her attention back to the flowers, testing the ground with her feet before she took each step. As she got closer, she realized the angle of the ledge made the flowers appear closer than they actually were, but even then it wouldn’t have been much of a problem for her if she could get on all fours and reach with her arm.

 

However, her train of thought was cut short when she felt the slightest give beneath her heel, but before she could jump back, she slipped, and the ground vanished from below her feet, the small section of cliff she had decided to stand on crumbling after spending centuries undisturbed.

 

Oh, she thought as she fell.

 

Well.

 

That was stupid.

 

So this is how it ends, huh?

 

Her hand reached for the sky overhead, straining, grasping. And then she hit the water.

 

She heard splashing and the sound of children playing, their laughter ringing within her ears.

 

“Aggy, look! Look over here!”

 

“Be careful—don’t swim so far from the shore or you’ll get caught up in the weeds—”

 

Djeeta parted her lips as she felt the tendrils of the frozen darkness wrap around her ankles, dragging her deeper while she flailed about. Is that what was happening to her right now?

 

“Aw come on, you have to relax. Anyways look at this shell I found, do you think—will…—”

 

The voices faded and Djeeta wondered if those boys would be the ones to find her body if she just gave up. She didn’t think it’d end this way, over something like this. She thrashed around just for good measure, waving her arms as she tried to carve a way back up to the surface, but the darkness was relentless as it seeped into her skin and penetrated her bones, sucking the last of her strength from her body the more she struggled.

 

If the boys didn’t find her, then maybe Lord Aglovale would, just further downstream, or maybe he wouldn’t look for her at all, chalking up her disappearance to the most obvious answer and enacting retribution on the villagers for sending him a dud of a sacrifice. They’ll never get their water, and then they’ll die a slow and painful death. Sort of like the one she was suffering through right now, except she wasn’t exactly lacking for water.

 

She’d laugh if she could.

 

They’ll die, and all because of a single choice she made. She shouldn’t care—they were the ones who betrayed her first, but perhaps she wouldn’t have been in this situation in the first place if she was ever the kind of person to convince herself that she actually didn’t care.

 

That’s right. Now that she was dying, she finally understood what that person was trying to tell her. She cared too much. About strangers. About strangers who were already dead.

 

But it didn’t matter anymore. Her arms and legs were filled with lead, just like they were in that nightmare. She could still see the shimmering glare of the sun from overhead, but even that began to fade to darkness as a shadow eclipsed the last of the light, the tendrils not only reaching for her from below, but from above as well.

 

She closed her eyes as the reeds ensnared her body like the webbing within that dream. If she had known that that was a sign of things to come, then maybe she would’ve been just the bit more careful.

 

But well, it was a little too late for that, wasn’t it?

Chapter 3

Her first thought was noise. Then her second one was pain.

 

Djeeta hit the stone bed of the riverbank, the force of the impact knocking the plug of water from her throat before she rolled over and coughed up the rest, gasping and heaving while the air that replaced the water in her lungs felt like a thousand needles.

 

She tried to stand—she didn’t know why, everything about her was a mess including her thoughts—but she slipped and fell, sloshing around in the puddle of her own making before she rolled over onto her back, coughing. 

 

The sun was too bright as she tried to make out the shadow standing over her. It wordlessly stared back while she coughed more and shook her head, trying to clear her senses and regain her bearings as quickly as possible when a different kind of urgency began to sink in.

 

This went on for who knew how long, but she was met by those familiar red eyes and drawl when her senses finally returned to her.

 

“I overestimated you,” he said quietly as he knelt down, having waited patiently for her to regain herself so she could properly receive his displeasure. “I have tried to protect your dignity with my hospitality, and this is how you repay me. By trying to escape.”

 

“I wasn’t—I wasn’t—!” Every word was like a knife in her chest as she gasped, heaving in air to try again, but she forced herself to sit up all the same only to collapse back onto her front. “I wasn’t… trying… to… run—!”

 

Lord Aglovale’s eyes flashed. “Do not lie to me,” he growled, leaning into every word. “I was naive, but no more. You will have one of my attendants accompany you wherever you go since you apparently cannot even be left to your own devices for a single day.”

 

His eyes narrowed. “And if you show me that you cannot be trusted with even that, that you wish to be treated like cattle, then I will have you chained to your bed where your food will be fed to you, and your clothes changed or stripped accordingly.”

 

Djeeta stared at him. When she realized he was serious, her gut curled like a piece of parchment in the coals of her growing fury. She opened her mouth to snarl in retaliation, but no sound left her as a sudden weight fell on her head.

 

Aglovale watched her as she struggled against the invisible hand on her neck pushing her down to grovel before him, both of his own hands in plain view of her before he slowly got up and turned to leave as if he had already made his point.

 

No, she seethed, swallowing the apologies bubbling within her throat against her will, Don’t you dare walk away. I’m not done with you—!

 

Whether it was the fear she refused to accept or a spell placed upon her by those scarlet eyes, Djeeta shoved the weight off of her shoulders all the same, stumbling forward to catch the hem of Lord Aglovale’s robes in her fist. He stopped.

 

“Kill me,” she snarled, glaring up at him with all the fury burning in her heart. “If you want to kill me, then kill me, but you don’t get to toy with my life like this!”

 

She felt him stiffen, but for a moment, he did not look at her, nor did he react in any other way. He only stood there as Djeeta gripped his robes with her shaking fist, her teeth nearly grinding themselves down to dust while a hushed silence fell over the world around them.

 

“Toy...? I will do with you as I please,” he finally whispered and Djeeta froze, each word of his drawl like a shard of glass being pushed slowly into her back. “And if I find you lacking, I will not wait for the dry season.”

 

He turned to face her again, unforgiving crimson bearing down on her with the weight of all the seething rage that the softness of his voice did not betray. “I will return you, or what’s left of you, and then I will slaughter every man, woman, and child in that small, insignificant village myself as recompense.”

 

She was brought back to her room in a daze. Nothing felt real as she slipped off the silk robe that had clung to her like a second skin when she was dragged out of the river. The anger that was so vivid in her breast felt more like a distant memory now as she hung it up to dry, wordlessly slipping into another change of clothes before she crumpled to the floor of “her” room and wrapped the duvet around her shivering form.

 

She sat like that for a while, staring at the woven patterns of the bamboo mat until her eyes drifted out of focus, but she wasn’t left to her solitude for long when a soft knocking sounded from the door. She listlessly turned her head, genuinely tempted to ignore whoever or whatever it was this time.

 

But the knocking came again like she knew it would, and she shed the duvet before crawling over and sliding the door open.

 

A tray carrying a teapot and a single cup greeted her, resting upon a stool to keep it off of the ground. Djeeta stared at it for a moment, uncomprehending before the rising steam snapped her out of her stupor and she took the tray into her hands.

 

However, she felt something fuzzy brush against her fingers when she lifted it before she noticed too little too late that the “stool” had eight legs, eight eyes, and was covered in the offending fur.

 

Djeeta yelped and dropped the tray, sloshing boiling hot liquid onto herself as she scrambled away from the giant spider. She clutched her injured hand to her chest, cursing, before her head shot back up at the sight of it slowly approaching her with its front legs lifted inches from the floor.

 

“Stay away!” she snarled, kicking at the creature. It flinched and hugged the ground, but it soon lifted itself back up after a tense moment, its raised legs slowly bobbing up and down as if it were reaching for her arm.

 

“I said stay away—!” she screamed, voice ringing throughout the hallway as she grabbed the tea cup and lifted it without thinking, but that seemed to get the message across when the spider froze in its tracks. It watched her, unmoving, then slowly backed away and disappeared behind the sliding panels altogether.

 

Djeeta sat like that for a moment longer, arm raised and chest shuddering as she stared at the open gap in the door just in case the monster returned, but it never did.

 

She then slowly looked down at the blisters forming on her skin, then at the teapot sitting in a puddle of its former contents. Djeeta stared blankly at it before she wobbled back over to the tray to place the cup where it belonged.

 

It was still warm, she realized as her hands hovered inches away from the teapot. It was warm, almost comforting.

 

And then it hurt. Everything hurt. Her hand, her head, her body—everything.

 

Clear droplets splashed onto the bamboo as Djeeta brought her hands to her face. Her shoulders bowed under the weight of her creeping regret until she was nothing more than a ball curled up on the floor, sobbing.

 

“My lord, heed us…”

 

Aglovale couldn’t bother to dignify his latest intruders with any form of an answer, the only thing standing between them and his mixture of apathy and impatience the fog itself, but even the fog wouldn’t be enough to protect them the moment they drew his hostility.

 

It would be a simple decision. If they ran, then it would be an effort saved on his part. If they insisted on their meandering, then he would kill them.

 

Luckily for his trespassers, they fled the moment his shadow cut through the fog, throwing themselves back onto the mountain path and making themselves scarce, but not without leaving one of their own behind in the dust.

 

She was a girl lying on a bed of flowers that had been meticulously arranged, her wrists and ankles hogtied together as if she were nothing more than the centerpiece of a banquet lying on its side. She might as well be, in the presence of something such as himself, but the gaudiness of the arrangement only made his lip curl with distaste.

 

His servants carefully crept up to her in their growing curiosity, tilting their bodies from side to side to study her sleeping face before the most audacious of them crawled close enough to nibble on her sleeve as if to sneak a taste, but it scattered alongside the others when Aglovale knelt down to behold the girl for himself.

 

“She is the fairest amongst us,” the vermin had cried when they threw her at the foot of his forest. “Accept our offering to you, my lord, and open the path to the river.”

 

He was beginning to regret not slaughtering them where they stood for their impudence, but another opportunity would be upon him the next time they tried to make a demand of a god. For now, his hands were occupied with a different matter.

 

The girl carried a scent from a faraway land, and it didn’t take him long to discern that she was not of their people like they initially claimed. His lips twitched—it seemed that treachery still flowed within the blood of that village for they were not above offering the life of a guest as a sacrifice to this end.

 

But it did not matter to him, he thought as he cut through the rope and lifted the girl into his arms. Aglovale cupped her cheek and combed the hair away from her face, drinking in the softness of her skin through his touch. To their credit, she smelled far more delicious than any piece of vermin scurrying across his doorstep, and her warmth only drew him in closer as he allowed her head to roll back and expose her neck to the open air. Blood was blood, and flesh was flesh. She was young and her meat would surely be far sweeter than anything else he’d indulged in before the last winter had set in—

 

“—Then we are in agreement.”

 

Aglovale froze as a voice he could never forget sprouted uninvited from the dredges of his memory and sunk its thorns into the softness of his appetite.

 

“Your precious brothers may keep their lives. In exchange, you will belong to me, and you will answer me. I will do unto you all that I wish, for this is the recompense of your trespass and your conceit—”

 

Those words faded, and then came laughter. Cackling. The sound of whimpering that was not his own as four tiny fists clung to his sleeves. 

 

But that too faded, leaving him to sit in silence until an insistent tapping on his arm drew him out of his trance. He slowly took his hand away and the girl’s head rolled back against his chest as he stood up, bringing her with him in his arms. His attendants pawed at the hems of his robes, chirping softly as they listened to their master’s stuttering heartbeat, but he was calm again within the minute. He was calm.

 

This was not the place to sort through his disobedient thoughts as he felt knifelike footsteps pace along the perimeter of his territory, hungry jaws snapping at the distant aroma of young meat that had awoken it from its slumber. The other master of the forest was nothing more than a bottomfeeder he could crush beneath his heel, but he would rather not court trouble while the children still pawed at his robes as he carved the path back home.

 

“You don’t get to toy with my life like this.”

 

Aglovale absentmindedly rubbed his thumb against the frame of the giant loom, staring pointedly at the notch in the tapestry that saw no progress from the time the sun set, till now, with the moon hanging high above the canopy of the atrium. He was broken out of his reverie only by the sound of his absent attendant crawling back into the room to turn into a dejected lump in front of the furnace.

 

“I told you, did I not?” he asked without looking at the forest spirit. “That she would not be receptive to such an ill-timed gesture.”

 

Its only response was to hug the ground in defeated silence while the furnace continued to crackle, its brethren rustling in sympathy as they all found comfort in the warmth of the flames.

 

Aglovale glanced only momentarily at the teaset that had been placed to the side of her door, the pot, lid, cup, and saucer arranged neatly on the tray. The door itself then silently slid open to receive the lord of the manor, and Aglovale stepped past the threshold, leaving the darkness of the walkway for the moonlit room.

 

He knelt beside her sleeping form, the crimson of his own eyes and the dyed silks they both wore the only color within the monochrome room. She was utterly unconscious, too tired to even stir or make a sound as Aglovale tilted his head to study her a moment longer in silence.

 

Her eyes were puffy, traces of salt stuck to their corners while she held her hands close to her face as she slept. He reached out and pulled the duvet just a few inches lower so he could properly observe the extent of her scald—the sight of her blisters had him clicking his tongue.

 

What a troublesome child.

 

He was wrong. She was foolish, yes, a danger to herself, yes, but she wasn’t as predictable as he first thought. Even if what his attendant told him was true, leaving flowers at the graves of those who had nothing to do with her only meant that she was an idiot rather than a liar, and his decision would not have changed lest she wander off again and get snatched up by the Oomukade for all he knew.

 

Her tears meant nothing to him, but troubling uncertainty still stirred within his depths as his gaze found itself wandering back to her slumbering visage. She looked almost peaceful compared to before—her words of defiance had caught him off guard, but rather than cut her down when he had killed others for less, he stumbled and allowed his own temper to take control instead. He couldn’t remember the last time he allowed the words of a mortal to graze him, but it wasn’t something he would let happen again.

 

Aglovale took out a shallow container from the hollow of his sleeve and unscrewed the lid to reveal a translucent balm inside. He brought the medicine close to his mouth, warming the wax with his breath before spreading a helping of it onto his fingers.

 

Djeeta didn’t stir even as he lifted her arm. She was exhausted, and unsurprisingly so given the toll her near-death experience must have taken on her. After carefully spreading the medicine over the extent of her burn, Aglovale lowered her hand onto his lap and patiently waited for the wax to set.

 

When her skin was no longer sticky to the touch, lines of silk formed from the tips of his fingers as he flexed them back and forth. The silhouette of his hand danced in the moonlight while he worked, the silk congealing between the spaces of his fingers into threads, and from the threads formed gossamer which he gently wrapped around her hand like gauze.

 

Aglovale lowered his gaze as he replaced her hand in its former position, leaning over her to pull the duvet over her shoulders. Only then did she stir the lightest bit when his hair slid from his shoulders to brush against her skin, murmuring something unintelligible as her fingers twitched.

 

He settled back on his haunches as Djeeta grew still again. There was no need for him to linger any longer—foolish as she was, she had enough sense to dry herself off as soon as possible, and he sensed no fever from her. Her burn would have healed with or without his intervention, and yet here he was, telling himself that he would rather not risk her picking at it, giving herself an infection, and then rendering herself inedible.

 

There was no one else in the room to witness the uneasiness buried within his scowl. But no matter how he went about it, he couldn’t deny that it would’ve been far less effort to devour her the moment he brought her into the manor. The halls would be silent in her absence, but at least life would be simple again. He opened his lips to make room for the ebony fangs sharpening in his mouth. It wasn’t too late. He could eat her right here, right now. It’d take only a single bite to immobilize her, and then she would never trouble him again—

 

Aglovale planted both hands on either side of her head as his shadow grew and grew, eclipsing the face of the wall that had been painted white by the moon before eight arching limbs pulled themselves free from his silhouette.

 

She smelled sweet even in her exhaustion as saliva began to slowly drip from the fangs protruding from his mouth. He understood this. Hunger was a question he knew how to answer, rather than whatever it was this girl confounded him with. He breathed deeply then, tempering his appetite just for the moment before he drew closer, and—

 

“Aggy, please eat.”

 

“I swear I’ll never make you angry again, so please… please just eat—”

 

Nausea gripped his stomach as his fangs retracted back inside of his mouth. He pulled himself away as the darkness that had enveloped the room vanished as quickly as it had formed.

 

He was being impatient. Troublesome as she was, he made a choice and the appraisal had not yet concluded. To betray his own decision meant bowing to the will of the humans who had dumped her onto his lap as if they were feeding scraps of meat to a beast within its enclosure.

 

That was all. Nothing else.

 

Aglovale collected the medicine, rose, and without sparing her another glance, left Djeeta to the solitude of her rest.

Chapter 4

Morning hit her like a sack of bricks just like she thought it would.

 

Every bruise and every ache in her body greeted her as Djeeta unraveled across the futon, groaning. Only as she stretched her arms overhead did a familiar glimmer catch her attention—a strange material that was too thin and airy to be a bandage was wrapped around her hand like one, but she had no idea where it came from. She rotated her hand in midair, visually tracking the length of the fibers wrapped around it as the texture reminded her of a spider’s—

 

Djeeta scrambled, an impulse away from ripping the silk off of her hand before she stopped herself just in time. Willing herself to calm back down for yet another morning in a row, she swallowed a shudder before she caught a whiff of something that was not-so-unpleasantly herbal.

 

She frowned, turning her hand over again before she poked the silk and winced, remembering belatedly how badly she scalded herself the night before like an idiot. Regret slowly crept back to her, softening the lines of her frown as she cradled her bandaged hand in her lap. Despite what she’d done, one of them went through the trouble of returning to her room while she slept to treat her. Was it the same spider who brought her the tea? Did Lord Aglovale force it to?

 

The glare of his angry crimson while the sound of the river roared within her ears had her scowling again as she furiously shook her head.

 

“Forget that,” she muttered to herself as she glanced back down. Lord Aglovale aside, she couldn’t bring herself to be angry at whatever had snuck into her room last night, especially when it was clear to her now that it had only meant to help her. Perhaps if she hadn’t threatened to throw a cup at it, then it wouldn’t have needed to sneak around in the first place.

 

She wondered then, if she would ever see it again.

 

As if on cue, a gentle knocking that already felt routine to her sounded from the door, and Djeeta wasted no time opening it before her visitor could flee.

 

It was the spider’s turn to startle, having just finished straightening out her breakfast of wheat noodles in a bowl of clear broth so that it was nice and tidy for her. It stood, frozen and eyes unblinking as they always were, before it jumped again to turn its body and run.

 

“Wait!” Djeeta called out after it had already managed a handful of steps. It hopped around to face her again. It had no real face, but now that she was paying attention, she could see the apprehension and question in the way it held its body.

 

“You’re… you’re the one who brought me tea yesterday, right?” she asked as she realized to her own growing horror and embarrassment that there was no way for her to tell the giant spiders apart from one another, but with the way it reacted, she was sure it was the one. Maybe. “Y-You are… aren’t you? Right?”

 

The loom was left to the corner as Aglovale sat in the center of the bamboo mat, idly contemplating the swirl of steam rising from his teacup.

 

The attendant responsible for today’s breakfast returned from its duty, and he lifted his eyes to watch the giant spider do what he could only describe as a strut across the hearth, stealing glances at him to see if he had noticed the very bright and very pink ribbon tied around one of its front legs.

 

He raised an eyebrow as his attendant came to a stop on the opposite side of the room, basking in the rectangle of morning sun as its brethren emerged from the shadows, chirping curiously as if they had never seen a ribbon before. It tapped its legs, showing off the brand new accessory as everyone gathered around, taking turns to paw at it. One particularly bold spirit started nibbling on the ends of the ribbon, to which his attendant answered with a few angry swats, but it all began to unravel from there as a couple of them took that as an opportunity to try and snatch the ribbon for themselves while others were climbing over each other just to see the damned thing up close.

 

Aglovale looked away from the commotion budding right beneath his nose to find Djeeta standing outside the doorway.

 

“I see you’ve recovered well enough to sow discord amongst my ranks.”

 

“Oh.” She blinked as if the growing pile of giant spiders throwing legs at each other for a chance to touch, steal, or eat the ribbon had nothing to do with her. “I needed a way to tell everyone apart, so…”

 

Aglovale sighed, taking a sip of his tea to clear his throat before he set his cup down with a distinct clink. “Enough.” The mass of spiders jumped in unison before they all scattered and returned to the duties they had abandoned. The one marked by the ribbon scurried back over to return to Djeeta’s side as today’s chaperone, to which she only smiled, a tiny gesture that didn’t go unnoticed by him.

 

“About that, actually…” Djeeta began after a moment, bringing her thumbs together as he took another sip. What he thought was her steadfast confidence was crumbling before his very eyes, but he couldn't blame the girl when this was their first exchange since the... inconvenience. Any other mortal would come short of even showing their face to him, but there was a thin line between bravery and stupidity. “I sort of, um—”

 

“The walkway is not a place to speak at me from,” Aglovale said, gesturing dryly. “Take a seat first, Djeeta. You are not a housemaid.”

 

There was no way around it. Djeeta gulped and mustered her resolve as she stepped over the threshold with her new acquaintance dutifully shadowing her footsteps. She took a seat opposite of Lord Aglovale who hardly spared her a glance while another one of his attendants wasted no time retrieving a second teacup. She didn’t realize at first that it was meant for her until he filled it and handed it over.

 

“Oh—” Djeeta said as she hastily accepted it, her fingers clumsily brushing against his own as if she had forgotten how to hold a cup for a moment. “Thank you.”

 

Aglovale returned to his own. “Continue.”

 

She swallowed again, gripping the ceramic as its heat warded off the morning chill before she took a deep breath and ripped off the bandage. “I’m sorry for going through your things and using them without asking.”

 

Aglovale didn’t answer for a moment, and she hesitantly looked back up to find his gaze resting on her handiwork tied around his attendant’s leg like a garter. “...You will wear us both thin if you have to ask me for permission for every little thing,” he said. “If you’re unsure, my attendants will serve as a vote of confidence.”

 

Djeeta pursed her lips together, glancing at the spider who stared back at her, oblivious to the shame curdling in her stomach as she recalled what happened at the cliffside. “Right,” she managed, hands closing into fists atop her lap. “Lord Aglovale, I… um…”

 

He gave her a moment while she stuttered until he finally sighed and set his cup down, tilting his head as he scrutinized her. “I can tell you’re not accustomed to this manner of speech, Djeeta. Speak plainly, as you normally would.”

 

“But—”

 

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Propriety means nothing if you cannot even eke out your thoughts.”

 

Djeeta pressed her lips together again as she stared intently at the tea leaves at the bottom of her cup, mustering her resolve once more. She hated that he was right, that he noticed this about her. She almost hated that even this could be a form of compassion, just like the night they had first met—

 

“...What I wanted to say is that I’ll apologize if I did something wrong, Lord Aglovale,” she told him, looking back at him just as intently as she did at the leaves. “But I wasn’t lying when I said I wasn't trying to run away yesterday.”

 

Aglovale calmly regarded her with something unreadable while his hands rested on his lap. After a moment, the silence between them broke as he laughed. It was a sharp, dry, and sardonic sound before he sobered up. “You are… woefully stubborn, Djeeta,” he said without any of the venom from before. “Say that what you speak is true, then will you apologize for your foolishness instead?”

 

She couldn’t swallow the glare that instinctively bubbled up to the surface in time and his lips twitched again.

 

She couldn’t read him. She didn’t want to call someone like him soft, but she didn’t know how else to describe him at this very moment—was that a smile she saw, a glimpse of amusement, an apology, or was he actually just patronizing her?

 

She didn’t understand, but that didn’t mean she had to buckle, not even when the god suddenly lifted his hand, reached over, and gently cupped the side of her face.

 

“You could have easily hit your head on the rocks and died,” he said softly as he held her gaze. “The fragments of your skull turning into river sediment, the rest of your body carried downstream. You may think of this as freedom or rebellion, but it is simple insolence to gamble with a life that does not belong to only you.”

 

That should’ve set her off in some way, but to her own surprise, the anger didn’t come. There was no force in the way he touched her like this, but she couldn’t bring herself to shove his hand away either. Only the ghost of an ache sounded from within her chest—it echoed so faintly that she could’ve gone on without ever noticing it, but she did, and it had her frowning.

 

In lieu of pressing her for an answer, Lord Aglovale’s hand slowly traveled down until it came to a rest at her collar. Djeeta held her breath when his fingers slipped beneath the silk, brushing against one of the many bruises she earned from her tumble, but they went no further than that as she witnessed the reflection of her own ache in his eyes.

 

She must have lost some part of her mind, because what she swore she saw was worry.

 

However, before she could dig any deeper into it, Aglovale took his hand away, but there was a slight jolt or abruptness in the way he moved that didn’t show on his face.

 

“Regardless,” he continued nonchalantly. “I must accept some portion of the blame for leaving you to entertain yourself. You must have been bored—”

 

“I saw you weaving,” Djeeta blurted out without thinking, still reeling from that strange lapse between them as her eyes frantically swept the room for an idea on what to say when they landed on the loom sitting quietly in the corner. “What… What were you working on, Lord Aglovale?”

 

He paused, turning slightly to follow her gaze. Her gameplan from before was already in shambles, but if Aglovale noticed her scrambling, he didn’t show it. Or rather, he simply went along with it.

 

“Nothing in particular,” he answered. “The loom is a way to pass the time, so I do not think much of the final product. Although, that reminds me…”

 

He looked back at her and Djeeta found herself sitting straighter than before.

 

“The clothes I’ve given you are ill-fitting,” he pointed out just as she felt the silk slide the tiniest bit down her right shoulder where he had touched her. “My attendants can take your measurements and work on the necessary alterations in the meantime, but you’ll be better off wearing new clothes that are more appropriate for your penchant to wander.”

 

Djeeta glanced at the hem of her robes where the silk had frayed from being dragged across the ground where she walked. It should’ve been obvious the moment she saw him work, but she never realized until now that Lord Aglovale had weaved the silk and sewn the panels together himself. A tinge of guilt pricked her like a needle.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

He smirked. “So you’ll apologize for this and not the trouble you’ve caused me by falling into the river.”

 

The more they spoke, the more Djeeta realized she didn’t understand him at all. Knowing that he eventually meant to kill her would’ve been easier for her to understand than whatever this was as Aglovale stood up and motioned for her to follow him. It would’ve been easier for her to understand why she would rather spend her days in her room plotting her escape than to figure out why she so easily listened to him as she took a seat beside him at the loom.

 

She didn’t know what he wanted from her, nor did she know what kind of standard he was supposed to be judging her by as he let her touch the tapestry and take in all its details while her curious eyes glimmered despite everything. Here, the stormcloud that hung over her head seemed so far away.

 

Aglovale noticed how careful she was when she touched the threads that made up the grid stretched between the wooden frames of the loom. “Spider’s silk is not as fragile as it may look, especially when spun as tightly as this.”

 

He plucked one of the strings before Djeeta glanced from the spider perched not too far from her feet, to her wrapped hand, and then to him. “Spider’s silk? So this tapestry, and the clothes you’re wearing, and the clothes I’m wearing are all made out of…?”

 

“Of course,” he said. “Naturally, this is one thing that I am in excess of… next to time.”

 

Before she could ask what he meant by that, he took what looked like two oversized sewing needles through which the threads of silk were strung and handed her one of them. Djeeta took it, laying it flat on her palm while she rubbed the point of it with her thumb.

 

“The wood will break if you try to use it as a weapon,” Aglovale said, and she scowled, clearly offended by the assumption.

 

“I don’t… I don’t get you, Lord Aglovale,” she finally said, the weight of the confession leaving her shoulders as a different kind took its place. “Is this your way of toying with me?”

 

For a moment, Aglovale didn’t answer her and Djeeta closed her hand over the needle as she wondered if she had crossed the line again, but she didn’t feel any anger from him when she managed to bring herself to look at him.

 

“...I bear no warmth for humans,” he then said, voice as level as the lines of silk strung before them. “Gods and mortals exist in tandem to use one another, but you are a mortal who prizes honesty, Djeeta. As such, I will offer you my own honesty in turn.

 

“No matter who or what they deposit upon my doorstep, I will not yield the river to that village.”

 

The loom rattled and the spider at her feet startled when she shot up without warning, glowering. Some part of her knew that he was baiting her, but she was too angry to care as she decided to let him have his cake and eat it too. “You… you can’t decide that after all of this—!”

 

“I can, and I have,” he said calmly. “It was decided long before you took your first breaths, just as how I’ve decided that you belong to me, Djeeta.”

 

Aglovale’s hand was already wrapped around her wrist when she moved to bring the needle down on him, locking her arm in place before he swept her feet from beneath her, slamming her to the ground as the bench toppled over and his attendant scrambled for cover.

 

He straddled her, an eerie calm plastered on his face as he pressed the point of his own needle to her throat. He left one hand free, not that it did her any good as she squeezed his wrist helplessly, inhaling sharply as she felt the edge of the wood dig into her throat.

 

“Did you think I was soft?” he asked her. “Did you think I was so incapable of upholding my own word that I’d fall to such sloppy technique?”

 

She responded with a kick that got her nowhere.

 

“To make a sacrifice is to offer something of worth,” he whispered as he bore down on her, face hovering inches from her own while she glared at him. “You wear your heart on your sleeve and you reveal your cards much too quickly. You’re worthless as a negotiant. As an outsider they lured to this forsaken place, you’re no better as a sacrifice, but they offered you up in place of one of their own all the same.

 

“But I will allow you to make a case for yourself, Djeeta.” She grit her teeth together as the needle pressed deeper into her skin. “If you truly believe that your own life is enough to answer their prayers, then allow me to kill you right here, and that village will have its river.”

 

“Forget it,” she snapped.

 

“Oh?” He tilted his head as he relieved some of the pressure on her throat, but not enough for her to slip free. “You won’t even take a second to consider?”

 

“Why should I? You just said so yourself that you wouldn’t do it, and if I’m dead, there’d be no way for me to know if you’d keep your word.”

 

Aglovale tossed the needle aside and it hit the floor with a clatter while she closed her eyes and swallowed her relief. “So you do value your life. Good girl,” he said, having no business sounding as pleased as he did when he was just threatening her moments before. “That will be the first and only lie I will ever tell you.”

 

Djeeta breathed deeply, her grip falling slack when Aglovale released her arm. She didn’t think he’d let her go so easily when she felt him pause, only for that very same hand to brush along the length of her arm before coming to a rest below her chin, and then it very suddenly occurred to her that he didn't need a weapon to snap her neck.

 

“It would… have been a waste.” The sudden drop in his tone had her opening her eyes to look at him again, only for her heart to stutter when she saw how close he still was. The loftiness that was there before was gone now, replaced by something else—something she didn’t know if she should chase trying to figure out as she felt his fingers travel upwards to cup her cheek for the second time this morning. “You are… far too taintless for this worthless cause.”

 

“Lord Aglovale—” she began as her brows knitted together, wondering if she was supposed to be fearing for her life while her thoughts splintered off searching for something to say. What did he mean? What was he talking about? Was he playing games with her again? Instead— ”...Are you okay?”

 

She thought she moved past this. She thought she knew better now than to spare somebody like him any bit of her concern, and she hated how tiny her voice came out, but it was somehow enough when she saw something flicker behind his eyes. The distance returned between them as Aglovale’s face wiped itself clean, the god regarding her with something that was halfway between the coldness that was familiar and the softness that was more than that.

 

“...I got carried away,” Aglovale replied, slowly releasing her in earnest before he cleaned up the mess that came out of their scuffle.

 

Djeeta sat up, feeling like she just had a year shaved off of her life as one half of her tried to make sense of what just happened, while the other was still focused on him.

 

“If… If you hadn’t been lying, then what would’ve been my third option?” she asked him. When she came here, she knew that there would’ve been some kind of risk, but she never planned to die, especially not for the people who ended up stabbing her in the back. She was sure Lord Aglovale already knew that even without her saying though.

 

“There only ever would have been one other,” he said, looking back at her again as his attendant carefully crept back to her side when it determined that the excitement had passed. “That is to live and worry more for yourself. No one else is more deserving of it after all.”

 

Djeeta lied on her side, staring at the spider that stared back like it always did.

 

“You know, you guys really aren’t that scary compared to him,” she muttered as she slowly reached over. The reflection of her hand shone in its pitch-black eyes before she finally brought her hand down and carefully patted it on the head. Its “fur” was strange but not entirely unpleasant to the touch as she continued petting it almost absentmindedly. The big round eyes that unnerved her before were almost cute now that she was used to them, and the pair of fluffy toes with slender claws poking from the fur that made up its feet reminded her of paws.

 

Unable to help herself, Djeeta gave one of them a slight squeeze and the spider lurched out of surprise, but otherwise let her do what she wanted, even going as far as nodding with its pedipalps when she spoke to it.

 

She smiled. “You’re cuter and way less complicated,” she continued. “I don’t understand Lord Aglovale at all.”

 

“I will have something made for you, and then I will think of what to occupy you with,” he had told her. “It will keep you out of trouble at least.”

 

Djeeta rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling, quietly grateful for the company before she wondered if she had actually gone insane. The spider rested its two front legs on her arm as if to console her, the pink ribbon still tied neatly around one of them.

 

“I don’t understand,” she said as she closed her eyes. “But I want to. I can’t help it.”

 

Lord Aglovale stood in her mind’s eye, his golden hair flowing behind him as weightlessly as the silk that both adorned and concealed his body. She never thought of scarlet as a cold and calculating kind of color until she experienced the bite of his gaze for herself, but even then, there was always something else there, something disquieting that lurked in his shadow that was more than just anger or arrogance. The mystery of it drew her closer despite her better judgment, or maybe she was only projecting her own anxieties onto him in her near desperation to catch a glimpse of whatever it was that went through that head of his.

 

Then again, she never thought of scarlet as a gentle kind of color either, but somehow she was wrong about that too as the ghost of his touch lingered on her skin like an itch.

 

“I want to understand,” she repeated, and the spider gently hugged her arm before it rested its weight against her like it understood. She couldn’t know for sure if it did, but she reached over and gave it another gentle pat nonetheless. 

 

He had no qualms prying her apart with his gaze alone, and she wanted to return the favor. Maybe doing so would simply be her own way of rebelling against the will of a god.

Chapter 5

The drawings Djeeta pulled from the bottom of the drawer were uneven in size and frayed around the edges as if they’d been folded and torn from a bigger sheet. She laid them on her lap, glancing back over her shoulder for good measure before she began to flip through them.

 

It felt wrong at first, but it wasn’t like Lord Aglovale was giving her anything better to work off of. Even so, the reality of her trespass sank in more and more as she glanced over the drawings and realized she could barely make heads or tails of them—they were definitely a child’s, and they were so old that someone must’ve thought they were precious enough to keep around for this long.

 

After a cursory glance, she was ready to give up and put them away again until a glimpse of writing caught her eye. The handwriting itself was sloppy and the lines were uneven, nearly running diagonally across the page, but what was important was that she could read it.

 

“It’s boring here. I want to go home, but Aggy says I can’t complain because we have food now. Why is he so annoying? I found paper we could draw on and then he said I shouldn’t use things that aren’t mine, but he changed his mind later and said we could use it for our lessons. I think he just likes to boss us around.”

 

She could’ve sworn she heard the name Aggy before, but she couldn’t put her finger on it, and that was all that was written down. Intrigued, Djeeta flipped through the stack until she found another page she could read.

 

“I’m so bored I can die. All we eat is leaves and rice. If we walk far enough behind the house, we can find the river, but Aggy keeps saying it’s not safe to swim in. Doesn’t he get bored too?” 

 

This one was shorter than the last and did nothing to answer her budding curiosity. She ducked her head and searched for the next page, but the sound of approaching footsteps cut her snooping short as she shoved the papers beneath her futon.

 

Aglovale pulled the needle through the silk, forming each stitch as easily as he breathed. The monotonous brand of work used to grate on his nerves, but he had long learned to find a certain kind of peace in it—although only for the most part. Keeping his hands busy kept disobedient thoughts from straying, but with nowhere else to go, they’d cling to him instead—the same thoughts, the same words, the same things playing over and over within his head.

 

Amongst them was Djeeta’s eyes which reminded him of clear dollops of honey, drops of amber made of a sticky sweetness that wouldn’t go away no matter how heatedly she’d glare at him. She was too easy to provoke, too easy to read. Her weaknesses were nobody’s secret, and yet he was the one who couldn’t pull himself away from the conundrum she turned out to be.

 

If the routine feeling of the silk beneath his fingers was his peace, then she was like a splinter lodged in the weave of the fabric.

 

He looked over at the girl who stood stock still while his attendants took the last of her measurements. He found it fortunate that she had somehow made peace with their physical forms when they were climbing up and down her body with segments of yarn clasped within their mouths. Unruly of a child as she was sometimes, at least she could behave for this.

 

“Lord Aglovale, why do you have giant spiders for servants?” she asked him out of the blue, nonetheless doing her best not to squirm under the number of legs still climbing up her back.

 

“They are stray spirits,” he answered, deciding that there was little harm in feeding her curiosity now and then. Her inquisitiveness was one quality of hers that he found easier to swallow, the subtle glimmer of her eyes reminding him of times long passed. “I offer them purpose and refuge, and in return, they carry out my will.”

 

It’d been a long time since somebody last asked him a question out of curiosity alone. His hands paused as he last tried to remember, the nostalgia she begrudgingly stirred within him turning into a dull ache as the untarnished smiles of those long departed returned to him. He had never forgotten them, but many days would pass where those warm memories would lurk out of sight to the point that he might as well have. It made no difference either way.

 

“Oh,” Djeeta replied after a moment. “I guess it’d be really lonely otherwise.”

 

Aglovale frowned. She clearly didn’t fear him enough to keep herself from making the inane observations that unfortunately came hand-in-hand with her questions. Loneliness was hardly a consideration, and even if it wasn’t, he only thought of the spirits as extensions of his own will. He allowed his eyes to find their way back to her as he watched her crouch on the floor, one arm wrapped around her knees while the other kept itself busy patting one of his attendants on its head like it were a house cat. The creature leaned eagerly into her touch, blessed in the eyes of its brethren by the yellow ribbon tied around one of its legs.

 

Putting Djeeta next to any other mortal was like comparing night to day. Humans knew very little more than to grovel and beg for favor, and rightfully so, but this girl lived so candidly as she walked these halls like they were her own. In the house of a god, her anger would come and go, as did her happiness and joy and curiosity.

 

He wondered how someone as powerless as her could be so carefree in spite of the yoke he had on her life and the knife planted in her back by the very ones she tried to help—

 

A flash of anger cut through his thoughts so suddenly that it unsettled even him. Nostalgia turned into a source of bitterness as a woman’s voice spoke to him from the corner of distant memories, her gentle hands stroking his hair not unlike the attention Djeeta was imparting upon his servant. He swallowed it all, the warmth and bitterness making a cocktail of contradictions as he rendered his thoughts silent before she spoke up yet again.

 

“Lord Aglovale, where did you learn to make clothes?” she asked, deciding to continue their back-and-forth as she turned to watch him work with the needle. “Why not just leave it to the spiders?”

 

The corner of his mouth twitched as he gathered the finished silk in his hands. “Weaving, perhaps, but do you think they were born knowing how to sew?” he returned. “As I’ve said before, I am in no shortage of time or materials. Weaving and tailoring are trades I taught myself out of necessity.”

 

Djeeta blinked. “Necessity?”

 

A part of him must’ve welcomed the distraction when he continued to humor her like this, the needle coming and going through the next batch of silk as easily as before. “My younger brothers outgrew their clothes quickly, and I had to learn lest they be forced to run through the woods indecent.” It was hardly an exaggeration as he smiled to himself. One of them would’ve enjoyed it, free spirited as he was to a fault, not unlike…

 

Aglovale finished the stitch and took the fabric, the shape of spring blossoms shimmering in the light as he draped it over her shoulders in one graceful motion like a shroud. Time seemed to slow to a trickle as she blinked up at him from the shadow of it, too painfully naive to show him any hint of fear or reverence as he held the silk up to her skin and mulled over the color.

 

“One was always asking questions, just like you,” he murmured. “And the other never outgrew his naivety, although he lacked the streak of rebellion that you share with his older brother.”

 

Djeeta tilted her head. The warmth of the pink complemented her hair and complexion enough for his tastes while the gleam of her golden locks matched the details embroidered into the silk he used to frame her likeness. Despite his subtle accusation, there was not a drop of fear in her soft brown depths to dull her curiosity as she held his discerning gaze. “I didn’t know you had younger siblings,” she said. “Where are they now?”

 

He knew she would ask that and so the answer came easily. “They both passed away a long time ago.”

 

Aglovale could read the girl like she were an open book, but the words he gleaned from her pages were written in a language he almost understood, but not enough. He felt the skip in her pulse through the knuckles that brushed against her skin as he held the silk in place. He felt her flinch so subtly that he could’ve missed it had he not been standing so close to her. But was it sorrow? Empathy? If it was, then what hubris did she carry within her heart that she could pity something such as himself?

 

“I’m… sorry,” she said as he allowed the textile to slip down her shoulders.

 

“I know you are,” he replied as if he understood. “That was why you prayed and sought an offering, was it not? Not to make a demand of a god, but to pay your respects to those two graves.”

 

Realization dawned on her in the form of the color flooding her cheeks as she broke from his gaze and looked away. Embarrassment was a fitting punishment for her boldness, and he almost found it satisfying to watch given all the trouble she’d caused him.

 

“S-so you already knew about that,” she muttered, her hands closing into fists. “This entire time, and you still wanted me to apologize.”

 

Aglovale smirked, amused with how quick she was to fluster. “I was informed after the fact, Djeeta,” he said. “But you could’ve as easily lied to my servant as you did to me.”

 

She turned her nose up and even further away from him, and he had to bite back a chuckle. “I didn’t though.”

 

“No,” he agreed, closing his eyes as he folded the silk until it was a neat square upon his lap. The only color he hadn’t yet tested on her was blue, but they were short of the dye. “While I still fault you for your lack of vigilance, I will admit that that is a separate matter.

 

“But reserve your grievances for later, Djeeta. You may find me and my machinations more agreeable by the day’s end.”

 

Djeeta wondered if there were different Aglovales. If telling them apart could be as simple as tying a ribbon around his arm, then she wouldn’t have to lie awake at night wondering if it was his biting words or those fleeting smiles that she should place her trust in.

 

As she gazed upon his back, his long hair flowing behind him as they scaled the mountainside on foot, he really did paint an ethereal portrait of existence. While she was picking leaves and twigs out of her clothes and hair, the wilderness itself almost appeared to bow out of his path while he walked with not a single spot of dirt to be seen on his robes.

 

A part of him seemed forever unreachable, but maybe that was only by one singular design. When he reminisced or when he spoke of things like family, he seemed so painfully human that Djeeta couldn’t stop herself from wondering if he really was as unreachable as a god should be. She didn’t even know gods could have family, that they could struggle in the same ways that people did, that they could understand the meaning of “necessity”, and that they could… die.

 

She wondered if this was what one would call “blasphemy”.

 

However, Djeeta wasn’t left to her philosophizing for long when the scent of something sweet interrupted her thoughts. Their journey brought them out of the patch of forest and to the edge of a sprawling meadow, the sight of a thousand blooming flowers stopping her in her tracks.

 

A gentle breeze combed through her hair and took her breath with it as she swallowed the great expanse of the view before her. Pure white flowers covered the horizon like a layer of snow beneath the warmth of the sun, broken by splashes of red and yellow and most strikingly of all, a blue that reminded her of the deepest oceans that Lord Aglovale wore on his shoulders.

 

He said nothing when she stepped forward without him, the forest spirit accompanying her for today’s outing following close behind as she bent down to sniff one particularly dense bush of white flowers.

 

“Lord Aglovale, it’s too early for snow, isn’t it?” she asked him without waiting for an answer, beaming as the dredges of her cabin fever melted away like magic. For what seemed like the first time in forever, she felt like a simple traveler again, the weight of her fetters gone to the wind.

 

Forest spirits were pure beings, and Djeeta’s joy proved dangerously contagious and equally distracting as Aglovale watched the creature prance in her footsteps, no more helpful than the girl herself before the pair of them finally found a spot to settle down. It was at no loss to him, however, when he had made this trip by himself many times before. At the very least, she would stay out of trouble.

 

Noon came and passed. Halfway through the harvest, Aglovale looked up from the pile of indigo he had gathered to find Djeeta weaving a wreath while the other child was a dark brown lump amidst the flowers right beside her. She proved vexing even here. Common lilies that were useless to him as dyes were flowers worthy of her admiration. She found wonder in the weeds he would crush underfoot without a second thought, excitedly pointing out how tiny their blooms were as if their size was anything to marvel at.

 

Kneeling amidst a bed of flowers while she made crowns out of daisies, she really was like a child who had forgotten the reality of her situation. Aglovale watched her as she finished the crown and placed it upon his servant’s head, the circle of flowers sitting perfectly atop the spider while it stared expectantly up at her. She beamed at it, her smile bright and untarnished while she tilted her head to admire her own handiwork.

 

Aglovale plucked the leaves from their stems. Old memories came back to him, coalescing like the sap that collected where he had separated the pieces. The warmth they granted him was as fleeting as the flame of a dying candle, but they returned to him nonetheless and he wondered how uncanny their naivety must be for him to think of Percival’s toothy grin at a time like this.

 

He gazed out past the unchanging horizon. When he brought them here for the first time, his brothers fooled around by making daisy chains too, didn’t they? Did he scold them? He must’ve, and Percival must’ve cried. He was always so sensitive. Lamorak must’ve gotten angry with him for it, and he must’ve gotten angry back, being the child he was who was too proud to admit to any kind of wrongdoing.

 

But Lamorak’s anger would quickly pass, just like Djeeta’s own. His brother was wiser than him in that respect, for he was too shortsighted to take his brothers’ smiles as they were, when he still could.

 

Djeeta’s own smile lingered on her lips as if she had never tasted a drop of resentment in her life, the sunlight crowning her features as warmly as it did those memories. When she found him watching her still, her mouth split into a wider grin as if it wasn’t betrayal that brought her to his doorstep in the first place.

 

Why had he brought her here again?

 

“You seem carefree,” he said, throwing aside the stem he stripped bare. “Have you forgotten the situation you’re in?”

 

“Maybe for a little bit,” she answered rather shamelessly while the forest spirit raised its two front legs, pawing at her for a daisy to nibble on. Nevermind the multitude of other flowers scattered around it, it had to be the one Djeeta was holding for reasons beyond him. “I was just thinking… how peaceful it is here.”

 

She fed the spirit the flower before she laid her hands upon her lap, whatever tension that was in her shoulders melting away as she closed her eyes. The flowers, the weeds, the gentle breeze that no longer carried meaning for him—he wondered if they each played a role in the peace Djeeta somehow scraped together for herself in his presence.

 

“Anyways, can you blame me?” she asked after a moment. “Most people can only dream of a place like this.”

 

That gave him pause as he allowed a sprig of indigo to rest upon his lap. He reached over and plucked one flower to replace it, spinning the stem between his fingers as he contemplated the petals. Perhaps he too thought a flower like this was worthy of his admiration once upon a time, but he no longer remembered.

 

“Humans are not so… easily satisfied,” he said as his attendant spat the daisy out, having sucked it dry of its nectar. “They may yearn for simplicity one day, but there will always be something more, something better to wish for the next.”

 

He felt her gaze when she reopened her eyes. As a wandering traveler, she should know better than anyone. Someone such as her who shone with overwhelming clarity would never grow complacent with only a warm bed, four walls, and three meals a day—was that not why she traveled? Beyond the hill, there was the mountain, and beyond the lake, there was the ocean.  To walk endlessly, forever reaching, forever searching, and forever dreaming—almost like one such brother who nearly slipped from his grasp until the pull of the forest brought him back.

 

“There’s another world beyond the forest. I’ll take you there, one day. When you’re better.”

 

Djeeta folded her legs, and his attendant took that as an invitation to climb into the hollow of her lap before it tucked its own legs beneath itself, exuding an air of comfort. She patted the furry lump that was its body, the gentleness of her hands so disparate from the time she had climbed onto his own lap, trembling like a leaf at the mere sight of them.

 

“Lord Aglovale… why do you distrust humans?” she asked.

 

He tilted his head. Her straightforwardness was only par for the course, and he should’ve been accustomed to it by now, but the question was still exceedingly ironic coming from her.

 

“Must you ask, considering only what you’ve witnessed for yourself?”

 

She was unfazed. “I don’t… hate people, but even if I did, my reasons could still be different from yours.”

 

With how fervently she was looking at him, he already knew what this was about. He crushed the flower between his fingers, casting its remains aside. “Even now, you are concerned for the wellbeing of that village, aren’t you?”

 

The way she pressed her lips together was enough of an answer for him. “I can’t blame an entire village for what only a handful of them did,” she said carefully. “Isn’t it normal that I wouldn’t want everyone to die?”

 

What wasn’t normal was her distinct lack of vengeance if she was asking for his honest opinion, but she wasn’t. He continued stripping the stems bare as the snap of the leaves punctuated the silence stretching between them. “Djeeta,” he began, the calm of his voice imploring her to think. “Was there a single person in that village who was on the verge of passing from hunger, from thirst?”

 

Her frown deepened. “I didn’t see any… but there shouldn’t have to be for them to ask for your help.”

 

“No,” he conceded as she confirmed his suspicions. She knew nothing of the ones she wanted to help, nor of the land she stepped foot on, just as the village elders intended for their naive and easily-deceived sacrifice. His tongue curled in his mouth.

 

At least his mother knew them, not that it served her any good in the end.

 

“Djeeta, what else is a river good for besides food and water?” His eyes drifted back to the horizon where one could make out a crest of a mountain, but the hint passed over her head.

 

“...Swimming, maybe,” she said after a moment, borderline grumbling when she couldn’t think of a better answer. “Drowning in, even.”

 

He chuckled dryly as he threw away the last stem and tied the satchel filled with his harvest shut. Her audaciousness had its appeal when her wit was not an entirely unwelcome break from the incessant groveling of the mortals who knew their place.

 

“We are done here, but you've reminded me that there is still one thing left for us to do.”

 

You wanted to understand, didn’t you?

 

She still did, but she wasn’t as close as she wanted to be. Aglovale had a way with dodging the questions he didn’t want to answer, and she found it… frustrating. There was an inherent distrust in the way he spoke of people—something she noticed since day one, but took for granted.

 

She just assumed it was the loftiness and arrogance of a god, but the more they spoke for better or worse, the less it sat right with her.

 

Something rustled in the brush as they both continued along the path that Aglovale had carved out earlier. Djeeta watched as a mouse scuttled out into the open before it caught sight of them approaching and fled within an instant, the spider walking beside her letting out a disappointed brrp at the missed opportunity for another snack. Prey animals led skittish lives, forever vigilant of their surroundings because that was how they survived in a world filled with things that wanted to eat them—this kind of distrust was something she understood.

 

She stared at Aglovale’s back, wondering why a god would also distrust the very people who worshipped him. All this time, she carried an inkling worry within the back of her mind that he would stay true to his threats and slaughter the townspeople if she so much as dropped a plate, but now she had to ask herself if she was worrying about the wrong thing, if she’d been too preoccupied with the stormcloud hanging over her own head to notice whatever it was the villagers held over Lord Aglovale’s.

 

But that didn’t sit right with her either. Aglovale wasn’t weak, which he demonstrated by tossing her around more easily than she wanted to admit as she scowled to herself, bruises throbbing. Even dirt found him untouchable.

 

Thinking about it any more than that made her head hurt, but she was saved by the familiar sound of rushing water as the other led her further up a grassy slope. To her right was a gorge that followed the path they took, smooth stones lining its bottom and forming a dry riverbed that ended at the foot of a rocky cliff. However, when she looked closer, she realized the cliff was more so a giant wall made of interlocking rectangular stones, their edges too clean and sharp to have formed naturally. Each slab must’ve been a dozen times her size.

 

Lord Aglovale came to a stop at the vantage point. “Stay where you are.”

 

She stopped, reflexively if anything as she frowned at him, but he was only looking forward as he lifted a finger and made a motion as if he were pressing an invisible button. The trees behind them rustled and she jumped in her shoes, expecting to find a large beast moments away from pouncing on them when she whirled around, but there was nothing.

 

Aglovale made the same motion, and that was when she saw it—a thread as thin as a spider’s web that was only made visible by the sunlight that bounced off it. Djeeta swallowed.

 

“Where are we?” she asked, figuring that it was safe for her to talk.

 

“A dam that was built a very long time ago,” Aglovale answered as his attendant left her side to climb onto another invisible thread. Clearly the thread was strong enough to support its weight and bend trees with just the pull of a finger—who knew what would’ve happened if she ran into one none the wiser. “This land was prone to flooding until the predecessors of that village built this wall. It is a long journey from here, but the path of the old river leads to the reservoirs you may have heard of.”

 

Djeeta carefully looked over the side at the riverbed. She could see the bottom, but falling over probably wouldn’t end well for her. “When they said they wanted access to the river, did they mean… this?”

 

“Yes,” he said. “They never prayed for water, Djeeta. They wanted the river itself, as well as the means to lift the dam. Could you guess why?”

 

That again. She frowned, but the stubborn half of her glued her lips together as she looked about their surroundings to see if there was a detail she missed earlier. Her eyes followed the round stones before they reached the wall and climbed the length of the giant rock panels. She could see water seeping through the cracks, but not enough to fill the channel before it soaked back into the ground. Then she looked past the wall, past where the river of today now flowed, and made out the crest of the nearby mountain.

 

Then something fell into place.

 

“They… want the mountain too, don’t they?” she finally answered, and she swore she saw a satisfied smile cross his face. “What for?”

 

“Ore, perhaps,” he told her. “Destroying the dam will flood this section of the forest and draining the mountain of its blood will poison both the earth and its water, but they’ll have a means of transporting their precious ore downstream, I suppose.”

 

That sardonic edge returned to his voice as he spoke before he curled his fingers, hooking each of them around another thread. “Surviving was not enough, so they built a reservoir. The reservoir was not enough, so they wished for the river. Then after the river, it’ll be the mountain, and then after the mountain, it’ll be their own people, and the wheel continues to turn.” If there was any softness before, it was gone now as his eyes grew cold. “It will never be enough, Djeeta. After this is done, I do not want to hear you concern yourself with their survival ever again.” 

 

She didn’t know what to say as she was still taking it all in, but Aglovale spared her no chance to respond anyways as his expression hardened with concentration. He closed his hand into a near fist, fingers arched into claws as he pulled his hand closer to his chest.

 

The ground beneath their feet shook, and Djeeta covered her ears as a deafening groan filled the air. Sunlight hit the threads as Aglovale pulled and bent them to his will, the gleam of gossamer forming a lattice that connected his fingers with the rocks, trees, and finally the wall itself. Djeeta realized through gritted teeth that what she was hearing was the sound of stone grinding against stone, and then the wall moved.

 

The stone panels that were large enough to crush a house slowly parted, the trickle of water turning into jets that sprayed from the widening cracks as Lord Aglovale tightened his fist. Djeeta watched speechlessly as the torrent he unleashed filled the channel, crashing against the rocks that had been bone-dry just seconds earlier. It rushed along the course of the old riverbed before it vanished into the thicket of the woods, crushing the saplings in its path and sending flocks of crying birds into the air.

 

Djeeta whipped her head back around at him to confirm for herself that this really was Lord Aglovale’s doing. After a few more moments of diverting the river with a single hand, his fingers finally began to tremble from the tremendous weight of the stone before he released the tension, and Djeeta braced herself for the impact.

 

The ground shook once more as the wall was sealed shut again with a deafening bang. Silence fell over the forest, mountain, and river, and his hand dropped bonelessly to his side. She blinked, a mix of confusion, gratitude, and admiration filling the space within her chest, but she stopped before she could say anything when a pit opened within her stomach. She watched as red crisscrossing lines slowly formed around Lord Aglovale’s hand where the threads had sliced into his flesh, blood collecting into beads along the cuts before trickling down his fingers.

 

“It is done. Whether they squander this is none of my—” Djeeta cut him short when she threw propriety against the wall, crushed it beneath her heel, and took his wrist into her grasp without thinking.

 

“You’re hurt—“ she choked out through the tightness forming in her throat as whatever gratitude she mustered moments earlier turned into sheer remorse—he was hurt, it never occurred to her that answering their prayers would come at his own expense, and she felt like an idiot pushing him as hard as she did. 

 

Aglovale was silent now, his expression unreadable as he watched her do her best to stem the bleeding with the excess fabric of her sleeve. But he must’ve lost his patience while she fumbled around looking for a better alternative, pulling his hand away and hiding the sight of his injuries from her within his own sleeve.

 

“Something as trivial as this does not call for your pity,” he muttered, the depth of his intonation wrapping around her lungs nearly as tightly as the threads around his fingers. “I’ve already asked you to save your concern for yourself. Do not make me repeat myself.”

 

He turned away from her, but in his eyes was the faintest hint of uncertainty that she’d seen before.

 

“You have become too comfortable, Djeeta.” He spoke again, colder this time. “Let us return.”

 

She opened her mouth, but she didn’t know what to say as the threads slipped from her grasp. Without looking back at her, he began to walk, and she could only follow.

Chapter 6

Notes:

Content Warning: Brief entomophagy

The last of the daylight slowly faded as the sun dipped beneath the horizon, and Aglovale put away the indigo leaves to ferment. He stood there in silence after his work was done, lifting his hand to study before he slowly turned it over as if a part of him expected some kind of change.

 

His injuries were shallow and the pain was less than nothing, yet he couldn’t wipe from his mind how distraught the girl looked when she took his hand as if he’d been mortally wounded. No human in his memory would even dare to meet his eyes, yet Djeeta had no problem going further than even that. Had it been anyone else, he would’ve relieved them of their limbs on the spot, but had it been anyone else, they never would’ve gotten this far to begin with.

 

He dropped his hand and turned his head toward the heart of the manor. Returning back inside, Aglovale walked through the halls that were as much a part of him as his arms and legs. Years of solitude ensured that there was no longer a distinction between his inner and outer worlds, but here he was, noticing the slightest marks left by these most recent days. Doors left open halfway, fingerprints in the dust, items on shelves that were a hair out of place after spending years untouched, the pungent smell of food cooking over a fire, the scent of something that did not belong in the forest—the small reminders of a life that was existing alongside his own within these walls, tiny disruptions in the rhythm of his unending routine.

 

The halls were too quiet, and only when he slid open the door to the weaving room was he able to confirm his suspicions as to why. Djeeta was curled up on the hearth wearing her new change of clothes, the children gathered all around her to share the warmth of the furnace together instead of tending to the rest of the manor. One spider was wrapped up in her arms, a ball of triumphant comfort as she loosely clutched it to her chest. Aglovale noted the familiar pink ribbon from before, wondering if the girl had somehow picked out a favorite.

 

He stepped inside without bothering to silence the floorboards creaking beneath his weight, and Djeeta shot up, to which the spider glanced at her almost reproachfully for.

 

“Oh, good evening, Lord Aglovale,” she said after shaking off her stupor. He closed his eyes in silent acknowledgement before he crossed the length of the room and took his usual seat at the bench before the loom.

 

Djeeta watched him as he wound the thread around the shuttles. He felt her eyes linger on his hand until she gathered enough courage to speak up again.

 

“I’m sorry,” she said, resolute yet somehow uncertain at the same time. “For not knowing.”

 

Aglovale pulled one of the shuttles through the warp, starting a new line of the tapestry. “How could you have?” he replied. “It was kept from you.”

 

He felt the frown in her voice. “…Then I guess I should thank you for telling me, and for… for lifting the dam.”

 

Aglovale continued with his work. “I did not do it for you. It was a whim of my own convenience,” he replied before pausing to frown at the shuttle in his hands. He had meant to swap out the color, yet somehow forgot. “…But if you wish to repay me for your peace of mind, then you can be silent on the matter as I’ve asked.”

 

“...If that’s what you want then,” Djeeta said, doing just that as she let the matter rest. He expected some pushback from her given how vehemently she pursued the matter and how quick she was to anger when he first denied her. In the end, the fact of the matter was that dying for such a small-minded cause would’ve been an incredible waste, but this was also the girl who nearly fell to her death for a single flower when countless others like it filled a meadow just around the bend of forest.

 

Aglovale had his work cut out for him. He had to feed and dress the creature, keep her occupied so that she wouldn’t wander off and squander her worth, which begged the question as to what exactly she was worth—certainly more than a single flower, a portion of river, or the prayers that he had long grown tired of. 

 

He paused. If she were to die, then her life would better end with her blood on his tongue and her flesh in his belly. His desires were no more noble than that of the lowest filth, but she did belong to him, and ceding her to the maw of any other “cause” was nigh unbearable for him to even consider.

 

“Lord Aglovale,” she said, bringing him out of his ruminations as he loosened the grip that had tightened around the shuttle. “Would you mind? If I stayed here and watched?”

 

He turned slightly to look at her and glean her intentions when he wondered why she would bother asking now when this wouldn’t have been the first instance of her voyeurism. He tilted his head, quietly regarding the clarity of her eyes as the flames continued to crackle, unbothered and untroubled despite the lord of the manor’s abiding distrust.

 

“Have you eaten?”

 

She blinked, clearly bemused. “Yeah…?”

 

He closed his eyes as he acquiesced. “Do what you wish then. It’s no concern of mine.” The sound of her stifled chuckling had him reopening them as he scowled before he could manage himself. “Why are you laughing?”

 

“Sorry,” she replied, taking a second to press her lips together and presumably swallow the rest of her chuckling before she continued. “I was just thinking that you really must’ve been an older brother.”

 

He narrowed his eyes. “I fail to see the connection.”

 

She flopped on her stomach, exceedingly carefree like she usually was when he wasn’t reprimanding her as she gazed up at him from her spot on the hearth. “Well, what would you have said if I hadn’t eaten? That I wouldn’t be able to go out and play unless I finished my dinner?”

 

Aglovale turned away from her, the fabric of his sleeve swishing with exasperated flourish. “You ridiculous girl. Do you want to stay or not?”

 

“Sorry, sorry,” she apologized again, but he still heard the hint of laughter in her voice. He had half a mind to banish her to her room for the rest of the night, but some part of him felt that he'd only be mocked for it. Either way, Djeeta still found her spot to settle down, making herself even more comfortable than before.

 

“...What were your brothers like?” she quietly asked after a while.

 

That nearly gave him pause as he wondered what stake someone like her would have in knowing, and then he found that he was doing the same song and dance once again. Djeeta hid very few of her questions from him when she stood to be more careful as a prisoner. To wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve had never been more apparent, and she bore her intentions so brazenly that it was only natural that he scrutinized her to see if there was something so obvious that even he was missing. Yet like the shuttle in his hands, he’d find himself unraveling all the same—the answers to her questions came easily to his tongue, yet not for his own.

 

“Why the sudden curiosity, Djeeta?” he murmured. “Do you have siblings of your own? A mother or father who might be wondering where you are, perhaps?”

 

“Nope,” she answered without hesitation. “I’m an only child, and I never knew my mom. My dad stuck around for a few years but he ended up wandering off somewhere. I don’t think he liked staying in one place, but neither did I.”

 

She sounded strangely unbothered as she spoke, nearly flippant or even cheerful like she was happy that he was asking questions in return, but Aglovale nonetheless felt the faintest strain in her words like flecks of dust weighing on a spider’s web. He pictured an empty house and a child much too small for it, a sense not of loss, but of absence. It wasn’t wise of her to volunteer such information, but perhaps Djeeta was already aware. Or perhaps she was just simply too trusting.

 

“That’s why…” her voice grew soft, her gaze wandering without a destination. “I just wanted to listen to you talk about your own family, Lord Aglovale.”

 

He was quiet as he slowly rubbed a thumb over the odd-colored threads. He had no appetite to scold her for impudence, but ignoring her was a lost cause too.

 

“...The youngest resembled my mother the most out of the three of us, having inherited her optimism to a fault,” he began. “I taught Percival to read and write, and he took up the same fancies and interests as I, yet for all that I was able to teach him, I was never really able to break him out of his naive propensities.” He felt his lips twitch as he recollected the old memories left untouched upon the shelves of his heart. “This was a source of friction for us, but he never wished to provoke me. We brothers were only obstinate in our own ways.”

 

“Then will you get mad if I ever call you stubborn?” Djeeta asked.

 

Aglovale scoffed dryly. “I will tolerate it, but only for tonight.”

 

He then let his own gaze wander as Djeeta pouted from the corner of his eye. Dark verdant filled the space of the atrium, barely illuminated by the light of the flames, and he thought of Lamorak. “The other, I could never get to behave,” he said. “I used to think Lamorak sustained himself with petulance, arguing with me for the sake of it. It wasn’t until we were both older was I able to see how deeply he could devote and apply himself to the interests he had the freedom to choose for himself.”

 

“And what were those?”

 

Aglovale idly traced the frame of the loom, running his thumb over the threads tied around the frame. “Medicine. Sorcery,” he answered. “He started with naming the plants he found around the manor, and his curiosity drew him further and further away from this place. He spent many years traveling—”

 

The words came freely now as he thought of his younger brother crouching in the grass, counting the leaves and petals of a plant he’d never seen before. He spoke of how he learned to write with the charcoal, how to make ink out of it. He told her about the same things that Lamorak told him about, that there was a kind of orchid that grew by feeding off the air and nothing else, that there were flowers that bloomed different colors depending on the soil they grew in, the sparkle of excitement in his eyes as he shared all the things he learned with his two brothers. He recalled the gleam in Percival’s own, always so invested in whatever it was the two of them were up to until he sobered up with age, to which Aglovale had found rather unfortunate.

 

Djeeta listened. She continued to listen, and he continued his recollection as the night went on and the spiders gradually crept off to complete their evening duties. Eventually, the flames themselves began to die down into smoldering embers, and he felt her breath slow as he gradually trailed off into tranquil silence.

 

Aglovale turned around to look at her. Somewhere midway through his reminiscences, she had sat herself back up, only to fall asleep in that same exact position, quietly snoozing while sitting upright with her head slumped forward. He rose from his seat and silently made his way over before kneeling beside her, confirming for himself that she had truly dozed off.

 

He gazed at the embers within the furnace, quiet amusement creeping across his lips alongside his exasperation. A perplexing child she was to fall asleep unbothered in his presence. He wondered how long it took the three of them to settle before they were ever comfortable enough to sleep as peacefully as Djeeta was at this very moment. Fingers reaching past the bamboo, he slowly traced the wooden panels where a spot of varnish had worn down over the years, recalling the first night he and his brothers spent within the manor. Raised with silver spoons in their mouths, they had little chance of gathering anything more than armfuls of dried leaves and twigs to throw into the furnace. The night chill had been unforgiving to their tiny bodies as they huddled around their sad excuse for a fire, but it didn’t matter to him at the time—the three of them still had each other, clinging to the first glimpse of safety they had found since…

 

The dull, resounding ache returned to his chest as his gaze found Djeeta’s sleeping face once more. Tilting his head to watch her for just a moment longer, Aglovale eventually allowed his outer robe to slip off his shoulders before he took and draped it around the girl like a blanket. When she began to slowly keel from the weight of the silk, he took her into his arms to keep her from falling over altogether. Fascinatingly enough, she didn’t even stir.

 

How helpless was she that she could not even see herself to her own bed? Had he not been here, she would’ve fallen asleep out in the open cold long after the flames died, and was she not a traveler? Did she make a habit out of falling asleep without any regard for her surroundings? 

 

He sighed softly to himself, carefully brushing away some of the hair that was stuck to her face. His fingers lingered close to her skin longer than they were meant to before they slowly traveled down and traced the rim of her open collar.

 

A foreboding tightness pulled against what he could only describe as a strange and hungry curiosity as he contemplated the quiet urge to peel back the silk and expose the softness underneath. Instead, he swallowed the saliva that collected in his mouth and urged his heart to grow steady, closing his hand into a fist before taking it away altogether. His eyes wandered back to the glow of the embers then, seeking out the old memories between the ash and charcoal to pull himself away from the incessant itch that lingered in the corner of his thoughts.

 

Djeeta knew it’d only be a matter of time before Lord Aglovale stayed true to his promise to keep her busy when she was introduced to the kitchen by one of his attendants. However, while she was still in the process of waking up and being briefed on where the cleaning supplies were, her head was somewhere else.

 

The last thing she remembered before falling asleep last night was the sight of Aglovale’s back while he was telling her stories of the past he shared with his brothers. She found out that she liked it when the other spoke of family—while he might’ve recalled certain memories with a tinge of exasperation, he looked so serene and content, so within reach as he reminisced aloud. She’d been worried about him ever since they returned from their trip, anxious that she’d done something wrong, and while Aglovale put in his own effort to hold her at a distance, there was no trace of anger on his face when she nervously looked for it that evening.

 

The red lines of his wounds had somehow vanished too, but maybe that was just a perk of godhood. She wouldn’t have been surprised if that were the case, but she wouldn’t have let it go either until she saw for herself that he was okay again.

 

And apparently with her worries assuaged, her body had found it appropriate to knock out on the spot. Yet that wasn’t the real problem here—she couldn’t remember the exact details of her dream, but she recalled being wrapped in something soft and comforting with a warmth that carried the most subtle notes of pine when she awoke. It was the best sleep she had in a while, but the thing was, she woke up in her own room.

 

Djeeta’s face puckered with embarrassment. Did the spiders form a raft to carry her back, or more mortifyingly, was it Aglovale himself who brought her to her room? Either way, he must’ve realized she fell asleep midway through one of his stories after she was the one who asked him to tell her about his brothers in the first place.

 

However, before she could lose herself in the rabbithole of possible consequences awaiting her—including, but not limited to, Lord Aglovale never humoring her requests ever again—a broom firmly bonked her on the forehead before clattering to the ground. Djeeta rubbed the bruise forming on her skull before she reopened her eyes and found one of the spiders staring at her from the counter, somehow managing to instill her with a sense of its own disappointment.

 

“Sorry, I spaced out,” she mumbled, replacing the broom back inside the closet before she turned around to take in the work cut out for her. Aglovale only asked for her to clean, and she didn’t really need to be told anything else. She’d been itching to help too, because while he was untouchable to even dust, the rest of the manor wasn’t.

 

Today’s helper supervised her from a bare section of countertop, watching her every move with a soft purple ribbon tied around its leg. She woke up that morning with the pink and yellow ones outside her door, perched expectantly beside her breakfast until the purple one shooed them away so she could eat in peace. Nonetheless, her way of telling them all apart turned out to be an unintentional hit amongst the servants, to which Aglovale accused her of planting the seeds of avarice within them when he found a handful of them idling naked outside her door, waiting for their turn at receiving a ribbon of their own.

 

“Do you think he might just be jealous?” she asked the spider. “Maybe I could make him a ribbon too.”

 

“I do not recall assigning you to any such frivolities,” came a voice behind her as Djeeta made a sound she wasn’t proud of, reflexively snatching the washcloth off one of the nearby racks.

 

She felt Aglovale’s chest rub against her back as he reached for a cabinet overhead. “I—Lord Aglovale?”

 

“You’ll have to forgive me. I wished to take stock of our inventory before the winter,” he told her before he frowned when their eyes met. Djeeta hurriedly looked away, but Aglovale had none of that as he turned her back around himself. “Are you ill?”

 

“Ill…?” she asked as he placed a hand over her forehead, to which she only blinked in bewilderment before she realized how warm her own cheeks were. A slight chill ran down her spine at the coolness of his palm. “Nope. Never felt better!”

 

“Doubtful,” he muttered, scrutinizing her for a good moment before he finally released her. “Take more care when and where you sleep lest you catch a cold, Djeeta. The mountain air is different from anywhere else’s.”

 

She eked out a quick nod, the weight of his attention only making her grow redder as she furiously scrubbed down the countertops while his attendant watched silently. She swore she saw a hint of smugness in its eight eyes.

 

Thankfully for her, Aglovale didn’t pursue the matter any further than that as he continued his business behind her, presumably counting the jars of tea and dried herbs before measuring their contents. Why would he care about her health of all things when it came to her sleeping out in the open anyways? Was he actually annoyed by something else, and this was just his way of hinting at it? Djeeta scowled as she abandoned the towel for a new one to wipe down the spice and apothecary jars lining the kitchen wall. Fat chance—Aglovale already made it clear to her that he had no qualms letting her know when he was displeased with something she did.

 

She paused. Or did he? She’d seen him anger already, but she remembered that there was often something else lurking underneath, something more disquieting yet easy to miss because unlike her, he kept his inner thoughts under lock and key.

 

But she was just overthinking everything again, wasn’t she? Lord Aglovale wasn’t so petty as to hold a grudge against her for falling asleep to one of his stories. She still felt bad about it, though.

 

Djeeta made quick progress with the jars, leaving the ones she’d already wiped down further from the wall for Lord Aglovale to count if he wanted to, until she reached one that was stubbornly stuck to the counter. Frowning, she reached around and pressed her fingers against the rounded edge of its bottom to try and pry it loose until a sudden and violent pain stabbed through her hand.

 

Djeeta cried out, snatching her hand back as the jar toppled to the ground. Her first instinct was to grab it before it bounced and shattered until she felt another stabbing pain and realized that a giant centipede was clinging to the back of her hand and gnawing into her skin.

 

Lord Aglovale was by her side in an instant as she frantically shook her arm until the writhing insect finally let go and hit the counter. The spider immediately pounced, latching onto it with its fangs and angrily throttling it against the counter until it no longer moved.

 

Aglovale’s arms were halfway around her, softening her fall as she crumpled to the ground, blinking back tears. Terrible pain coursed through her arm as she choked down whatever noises her throat was trying to regurgitate as it felt like a door was being repeatedly slammed on her fingers over and over again.

 

“Djeeta, let me see,” he said. It wasn’t a command, but a gentle ask, and Djeeta wanted to answer him, but her arms only locked up against her will as her hands shook uncontrollably.

 

“I-I’m sorry—” she choked out, the rest of her body refusing to listen to her amidst the throes of one of the worst things she’d ever felt.

 

But Lord Aglovale only pried her hands apart himself, firmly but not ungently until he was able to separate her injured hand from the other. Before she could whimper, his mouth was on her bite, his lips and tongue warm, and for a fleeting, incomprehensible moment, Djeeta forgot that she was supposed to be in pain. But Aglovale brought her back down to earth as he began to suck, her eyes clenching shut and her toes curling at the jolt of electricity shooting up her arm until against all odds, the debilitating pain started to become just a bit less debilitating.

 

He was drawing the venom out of her, she realized through her daze, reopening her eyes to stare at the ceiling while her chest heaved and thoughts swam. Was this what they were supposed to do? She had no idea apparently—she’d never been bitten by a centipede before, and she had no idea it felt like getting stabbed by a hot poker over and over again.

 

But the softness of Aglovale’s mouth was worlds’ away from the centipede’s scythe-shaped fangs, and the sudden disparity had her senses reeling unless that was the poison reaching her brain. He was being far too gentle, careful not to touch his teeth to her inflamed skin. Any part of her should be embarrassed at the sight of him sucking on the back of her hand, but she was still in too much agony and adrenaline-fueled delirium to think of anything else but how soothing his mouth felt, much less question it. Before long, the edge of her pain dulled against his tongue, and she swallowed a shudder at the harshness of the air against her moistened skin when he finally pulled away. She looked up to try and thank him, catching a glimpse of his tongue wiping the last of her blood from his inner lips instead.

 

“It appears this hand of yours is cursed,” Aglovale murmured softly before he turned to address the spider who obediently stood by the corpse it had smashed to pieces with a vengeance. “Have the others flush out every room and every cabinet—leave no rock unturned, not even the floorboards. Kill every centipede you see, except for one.”

 

If she weren’t in the middle of climbing out of her centipede venom-fueled stupor, she’d frown at the ruthlessness of the order, but she only watched the spider bend its legs in a bow before it vanished behind the door.

 

“Do you… really think my hand is cursed, Lord Aglovale?” she asked him after it was gone, her skin flushed and sweaty as she tried not to think about how biting the chill of the air felt in the absence of Aglovale’s warmth. She felt her cheeks growing hot once more, but then again, it must’ve been the last of the poison in her system.

 

His lips quirked. “I jest, but it is an unfortunate coincidence,” he said as she lifted her hand to take stock of the damage. For those moments of mind-rending and flesh-melting torture, she only had a single v-shaped bite to show for it. 

 

At least her blisters were gone.

 

It had taken time for his servants to carry out his order to absolute completion. Djeeta was back in her own room, spared from witnessing the carnage, and the sun hovered just above the line of the horizon, casting him in a deep red light as he leaned in his chair.

 

Aglovale watched as his attendant spat out a writhing centipede at his feet. He uncrossed his legs, and with no urgency in his movements, bent forward to pinch the creature behind its neck and lift it into the air while it continued to coil and twist, pure malice rolling off of its body.

 

The centipede was nearly as long as his forearm, venomous fangs large enough to tear into his flesh, but Aglovale paid no attention to any of that as he tilted his head and stared deep into the several tiny black orbs that made up the creature’s eyes.

 

“I know you are listening,” he drawled slowly. “I know that you have been… watching.”

 

He traced a finger along the centipede’s underside, smiling coldly when the vermin tried and failed to bite into him. “I have been merciful, but I cannot have you coveting my precious offering. When we meet again, I will claim your other eye as recompense, Lord Oomukade.” He uttered the title not out of reverence, but mockery as cruelty etched itself into his lips.

 

He then dropped the centipede onto a nearby table, but pinned it down by its tail before it could escape. Its many legs scratched loudly against the surface as it twisted around to try once more to bite him, but Aglovale only trapped it between his fingers before he began to take his time toying with it as if it were a piece of yarn.

 

“I have tasted the child’s blood, against my better intentions,” he lamented quietly, rolling the centipede’s head between his fingers. “My appetite has been irrevocably aroused and I have no flesh before me to sate it. How do you plan to take responsibility for this…?”

 

The centipede beat its tail against his wrist, legs scrambling as it writhed for any opportunity to escape, but he already had it quite literally wrapped around his finger. He pinched the end of it and lifted the creature well above his head, drinking in its fear as he silently admired the awareness of its own demise he felt coursing through its body.

 

“Perhaps… this servant of yours will do for now.”

 

The skin of his jaw split as he opened his mouth far wider than any human could be capable of, the chelicerae of his fangs sliding out from beneath his gums in anticipation. The centipede lashed out for one last desperate attempt, but its own fangs never met its mark as he let go and devoured it whole.

Chapter 7

Once more, Aglovale found the explanation for the uncharacteristic stillness that had befallen his hallways in the small army of spiders idling outside of Djeeta’s room, each of them carrying a small dish of sliced fruit atop their heads to form a sea of moving plates.

 

Aglovale glared at them, robes swishing about him as he stopped before the spectacle. “How do you expect the girl to finish all of this?” he demanded, the lowness of his voice speaking volumes, roaring, even. “Do you not have somewhere better to be? Out with the lot of you, out—!”

 

The spirits scattered, thankfully taking their superfluous offerings with them as he willed the door to slide open.

 

Djeeta was sitting on the ground, halfway through a plate of fruit with another on standby, and a third, empty one set to the side which told him all that he needed to know. She blinked up at him before making quick work of the slice in her mouth, putting the squirrels of the forest to shame.

 

“Do you want an apple slice, Lord Aglovale?” she asked him, so painfully unassuming that he felt his exasperation vanish to the air as he took a seat across from her and accepted the fruit.

 

He glanced at it. It was an ordinary piece of apple, a paltry offering—something he could prepare himself or call upon one of his attendants for whenever he wished, and yet the apple was sweet all the same as he bit into it, the juices filling his mouth and sliding down his throat before he swallowed it altogether.

 

“You do not have to humor them,” Aglovale told her while she watched him eat with rapt attention. He allowed it. “Terrible influence that you’ve been, I will need to have them reexamine their priorities.”

 

The spiders flinched at that before they not-so-subtly crept out of the room to rejoin their brethren as Djeeta watched them go with a mildly crestfallen expression.

 

“I thought that maybe they were only worried about me, Lord Aglovale,” she said, eating another slice before offering him the last. “I couldn’t say no to that.”

 

At least she had manners in regards to this, Aglovale noted to himself as he accepted it. “Worried? Perhaps I should not have intervened then.” He clicked his tongue. “Although you seem to be unduly interested in my eating habits yourself, Djeeta.”

 

She blinked again, guiltily almost for being caught in the act of staring so intensely while he chewed. “Sorry, it’s just… this is actually the first time I’ve seen you eat anything,” she replied. “Do you like sweets, Lord Aglovale?”

 

“...It is not a matter of preference,” he answered, closing his eyes as he wondered why she’d take notice of something so meaningless. “There are few things that agree with my stomach, that’s all.”

 

“Oh,” she said, staring off to the side at the last plate of fruit left. She was thinking about something as he reopened his eyes to look at her, something he couldn’t place a finger on, but something harmless nonetheless before she hurriedly stashed away whatever idea that had popped into her head. “...Was there something you wanted from me?” she asked before stammering, “N-not that you can’t move around in your own house, but I just thought you’d be busy—”

 

He could tell she had wanted to ask him something else, but he only tasted amusement as she tripped over her own feet trying to regain her bearings. He’d be kind, just this once.

 

“A small matter at the end of the day,” he said. “Very little of the poison must be left in your system given how lively you are.”

 

Djeeta turned a faint shade of pink as she looked away. “I wasn’t worried about that,” she muttered.

 

Aglovale tilted his head. “Of course. Centipede venom, while excruciatingly painful to humans, falls just a bit short of being anything deadly.” He paused slightly, thinking of the Oomukade, which was an entirely different story, but it was only a matter of time before he rid himself of the thorn in his side. As was the penalty for coveting what belonged to him, but all things in due time.

 

Djeeta appeared preoccupied with something else as he watched her nibble on an apple with uncharacteristic meekness. There was something most certainly on her mind, but her courage had wandered somewhere else, leaving her to fidget in his presence instead of blurting out whatever questions she held inside like she usually did.

 

“Djeeta, are you unwell?” he asked once more. There was no need for him to speak so softly, but the words left his mouth in such a manner anyway.

 

She stiffened at that, shaking her head before pausing to reconsider altogether. “I’m… Maybe just a little, but only because a lot just happened,” she admitted before she suddenly straightened herself. “Not that I’m trying to get out of helping! If I’m not getting in your way, then let me finish my cleaning—” She looked away again, her hands closing into fists atop her lap. “...After everything, it’s the least that I can…” She trailed off, brows furrowing together as if she no longer knew what she was going to say.

 

But Aglovale knew. With or without courage, her eagerness gleamed just as brightly as before even though the reasons behind her motivation were beyond him. Djeeta was a girl who was plain with her intentions and emotions, her scent too pure to be tainted by treachery, yet even still, a faint uneasiness stirred within the depths of his heart as she fixed her eyes on him. Her sincerity was not commonplace, nor was she a mortal who would foolishly try to worm herself into his good graces to save herself. Nearly the opposite actually—she was a bundle of anomalies in human form, something far too taintless to let roam through the forest, and even here in the shade of the manor, he had to temper her for her own good.

 

…But when was it that he decided that anything would be for her own good? At the end of the day, she was his to do upon whatever he saw fit, but perhaps seeing that his offering survived another day in one piece fell within the umbrella of his own selfishness. Regardless, Djeeta was still human, and humans were fragile and so quick to crumble—if she was feeling unwell, then perhaps he had erred in his judgment somewhere, somehow.

 

“I will not praise you for pushing yourself,” he told her as she deflated at that, pursing her lips together. His eyes softened as another idea occurred to him. “...But I did promise not to relegate you to idleness.”

 

Djeeta seemed to perk back up at that, and he did not know why that alone appeared to calm his inner disquiet. “Within this manor, there is a study,” he continued. “A library, perhaps, if you are of humble expectations. Surely you will find something to appease your curiosity there until you are well again.”

 

A slight smirk that escaped his own notice then crept onto his face as he took the last plate of fruit from her. “And if I cannot convince your conscience to rest with that alone, then consider this proper recompense for a job left incomplete.”

 

Djeeta wrapped her arms around herself, pressing her back against the door as she slowly slid down to the floor.

 

Lord Aglovale… was kind, and she didn’t know why. At first she thought it was the poison playing tricks on her mind, that once it was completely out of her system, she’d find her bearings again, that her cheeks would stop burning, that she’d no longer stumble over her words whenever he asked something of her with that low drawl of his.

 

There was a loftiness about the god that was there since day one—this, Djeeta was already well-acquainted with. There was a coldness, a distance erected between them, yet at the same time, there was a quiet warmth, and if she dared to say—a sense of understanding that she didn’t realize was there until the events of the past few days came rushing back to her in her post-venom clarity.

 

She was his prisoner, wasn’t she? Of course her determination to piece together the god was her own, but that said nothing as to what his own intentions were, and she was at a loss for ideas. The easiest and simplest answer was that he was biding his time, lulling her into a false sense of security before carrying out whatever nefarious plans he had for her, or perhaps this was how he’d decided to toy with her, that maybe her spiraling thoughts were just a part of some game.

 

Djeeta frowned, biting her lip. Lord Aglovale could be cold, but there was still a sincerity with how he went about things. For all his confidence and austerity, and for all that he kept from her, she had witnessed enough glimpses of his uncertainty to truly believe that he was not a cruel person.

 

Lord Aglovale… was someone who held his family dear. There were others that he had loved once upon a time, others that he must miss even now. His stories must’ve been another piece of history beyond her, but he himself felt closer than ever when he had deigned to entertain her with his fond recollections. He didn’t have to. He could have sent her back. He could have done whatever he wanted, really, but he chose to indulge her all the same.

 

“Why, though?” Djeeta quietly asked to herself, looking down at what remained of her bite, as well as the woven silk that dressed her sleeves—tokens of what she’d come to realize was Lord Aglovale’s kindness.

 

Today’s chaperone chirped softly, the notes of its voice downturned with worry before Djeeta gently pat it on its rump. She never imagined that a spider could have a voice, forest spirit or not, but maybe even if she did, the idea of a spider that could bark or hiss or growl probably would’ve kept her up at night before she relearned that appearances weren’t everything. Her companion chirped again and she smiled softly, holding out her hand so that it could get a closer look at her bite.

 

“I’m fine, see?” she said as the spider carefully patted the skin around her wound, glancing at it before looking back up at her. She smiled again as she took a moment to readjust the pink ribbon tied around its leg before she went back to gently petting it. “It’s been a while since it was just the two of us, huh? I’m sorry for always making you worry.”

 

This was the same spider who followed her to the garden, who must’ve alerted Lord Aglovale before she fell into the river and saved her life. It was the one who went out of its way to check on her even after that, bringing her hot tea in hopes that she could warm herself up. While she didn’t think the spirit could hold a grudge, the memory of her outburst still made her stomach squirm, but her guilt was almost nothing compared to the fond warmth budding within her chest as she continued stroking the spider that had grown used to the attention.

 

Yet alongside that gentle gratitude was a dull ache—a different kind of guilt, a sense of something lacking. She looked into the spider’s eyes that were so pure and devoid of anything that resembled anger or hatred, and then her own eyes traveled back to her sleeve and the subtle shimmer of the silk she wore. Every stitch and every divot of the weave represented a needle or a shuttle that Lord Aglovale pulled through the threads himself, and every thread was made up of fibers that passed under his thumb when he spun raw silk into string. On her shoulders rested months if not years of painstaking labor, and not once had Lord Aglovale asked her for anything in return except for maybe his odd demands that she tried to pass off as one of his eccentricities before she’d find herself in this very same position, trying to piece him together in a way that made sense.

 

“He was… worried about me, wasn’t he?” she asked the spider as her eyes softened but brows furrowed. “He was the one who said I wouldn’t die from a centipede bite, and he never did tell me why, but he still came by my room anyways. He’s so ridiculous.”

 

The spider raised its paws, and Djeeta decided to take that as a sign of agreement as she carefully took her companion into her arms and stood up, allowing the creature to crawl onto a nearby table. She knew where the ache came from—it wasn’t like she never experienced it before. 

 

Guilt. Guilt that she didn’t have anything to offer in return, and then confusion—confusion over what Lord Aglovale had taken, and what he had given.

 

But sulking about it wouldn’t do her any good, she decided as she set aside her heavier thoughts and turned her attention to the rest of the room.

 

Like Lord Aglovale suggested, the library was smaller in size than the ones she’d seen during her travels. Regardless, whoever frequented this place must not’ve visited for a very long time when Djeeta noted the thick layer of dust covering every surface. As if it read her mind, Aglovale’s attendant helpfully procured a feather duster from apparently nothing, starting on the rather enormous task of wiping down the place so that she could maybe not suffocate from the mere act of taking a book off its shelf.

 

“Thanks,” she said while the spider worked diligently. She floated over to the nearest bookshelf, hands folded behind her back while she scanned the titles written on the spines of the books. She found almanacs, journals written by vaguely familiar names, guides that ranged from several topics including, but not limited to, textiles, cooking, homesteading, and even something as out-of-pocket as figure drawing, and all of that was only one single shelf.

 

Djeeta leaned in, lifting a hand and running her fingers across the spines like they were the keys of a piano. She pulled out a random hardcover whose title was written in a silver foil—a guide on horticulture complete with cross sections of plants that she’d never seen before.

 

“He started with naming the plants he found around the manor.”

 

Djeeta blinked as she flipped through the pages. “Was all of this… Lord Lamorak’s?” she asked, but her company only stared wordlessly at her without offering an answer, not that she expected anything otherwise out of it.

 

The book’s contents were too dense for her to really take in, so she placed it back onto the shelf before continuing her foray of the study. The adjacent shelf wasn’t arranged as nicely as the first, but the mismatched covers alongside the lack of titles on some of them piqued her curiosity nonetheless. Most, she found, were even older texts where the ink on the cover had rubbed off, but she found one book that wasn’t a published text, but a journal whose first few pages were handwritten in charcoal ink.

 

The script was familiar as she sank back down onto her knees and read the first page silently to herself, eyes too transfixed on the words to even blink.

 

“Happy birthday to me!”

 

“Aggy made me this journal. It’s been so long that I forgot my own special day, can you believe that? But he remembered, I guess. Aggy found a book that taught him how to keep track of the days using the stars or something just so he could wish me a happy birthday. He’s my brother, but I still don’t get him sometimes.

 

“Now I have to learn how to keep track of the date too so Percy and me can wish him a happy birthday when it comes by. What a pain, and Mama and Papa weren’t here to celebrate with us either, but I guess that’s why we can’t count on them to remember important things anymore. It was still fun. We had a cake.”

 

Djeeta shut the journal, her heart pounding in her chest as realization hit her like a wet rag to the face. Percy, Percival. Aggy, Aglovale—

 

How did she not realize it sooner? The drawings in her room, the scraps of paper that served as little windows into a young stranger’s life—she didn’t realize until now that that stranger was Lord Aglovale’s brother… or was he?

 

Her brows furrowed together as her only other company continued its work unawares. Something was off. The names lined up almost perfectly, but something was wrong and she couldn’t put a finger on it even though it somehow felt obvious, like she was missing the trees for the forest, or however the saying went.

 

Djeeta glanced back at the door. Did Lord Aglovale intend for her to find this? That couldn’t have been possible—she might not know everything he was capable of, but there was no way he could’ve guaranteed that she would’ve picked this journal out of a sea of countless other books to flip through, and even if there was, why would he want her to? And even if he did, why go about it in such a roundabout way? A hundred more questions raced through her mind at that—was this private then? Should she put it back? Would Aglovale accuse her of snooping around even though he was the one who invited her here in the first place?

 

In the end, her curiosity got the best of her, quashing all her inhibitions as she reopened it. The handwriting on the next page was leagues neater than the writing on the first, but she could tell that it was still by the same person’s hand.

 

“It’s been over six years since my first entry, oops. I dropped this thing behind my bed and never found it till yesterday. Aggy would have my head over that if he knew. He’s always so strict about scrubbing every corner to keep the dust away, but between you and me, I’m glad he is. We don’t have maids anymore, and Mama and Papa are gone. When I finally figured that out because I was such a dense little brat, it was like I understood what Aggy was going through this entire time.

 

“I wanted to say sorry. Mama would’ve wanted me to, but I only got mad and said a whole bunch of mean things to him instead. I even made Percy cry even more, and I didn’t apologize for that either so Aggy yelled at me.

 

“That was a long time ago, but I still think about it when he goes into that forest by himself, so I guess that’s why I’m writing it down here.

 

“When Aggy gave me this journal, he told me to use it to write down all my thoughts and feelings. He said he’d make me a sketchbook where I could put all my drawings and field notes instead so that I wouldn’t clutter this thing up, but it’s been so long that I don’t think it matters anymore.”

 

The next few pages were notes about the weather, a lesson in picking and cultivating wild mushrooms, “Percy’s” progress with the bow—snapshots of a humble life that wasn’t without struggle and toil, not the journaling of a god filled with grandeur or purpose. Djeeta gripped the diary. The entries themselves were so mundane in nature, which was why she found them so unsettling to read as she tried to piece two and two together. No matter how stubbornly she tried to jam the pieces together in the mold formed by what she thought she already knew, nothing stuck.

 

She must’ve been too tired to question it at the time, but there wasn’t really a reason for someone to take field notes of plants that lived in the forest his brother presided over, was there? The drawings and makeshift journal pages she left in her room were those of a child who had struggled for food and fire, who was confused and angry and scared because of things that were happening outside of his control, not a god or anything even remotely otherworldly.

 

Desperate for any kind of hint that would set her thoughts straight, Djeeta flipped through the pages, pouring through detailed notes on the best way to clean a deer carcass, how to store grain and meat for overwintering, diagrams of medicinal plants and natural antivenoms, “Aggy’s” latest hobbies and fixations, the progress of the vegetable garden, until she finally found it.

 

Only a small number of pages were left in the journal as Djeeta read the words on the page before her, swallowing thickly before she read them again, and again, and again, just to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating it.

 

“The god of this forest is an eight-legged monster. Mama used to tell us about his kindness and how the forest always provided for those who depended on it, but the god of this forest is a monster and nothing like the one of the storybooks we used to love. Maybe there was a time when she would’ve been right, but I don’t care anymore.

 

“He knows only to take. His generosity is a false promise and a curse. They say that gods don’t lie, but that’s only because their spoken word is law.”

 

The sudden change in tone was even more unsettling as Djeeta slowly turned the page, wondering if she’d been dreaming, if maybe this journal was just some kind of bizarre novel that had nothing to do with reality or Lord Aglovale himself. But Djeeta wasn’t left to mull over the possibility for long when the author’s voice shifted again.

 

“Aggy is sick.”

 

“He threw up the rice from this morning, and he threw up again just a couple of hours ago. He refuses to eat anything now. Can you believe that? The guy who’d slap us on the wrist if we so much as left a crumb on our plates doesn’t want to eat anymore.

 

“I know some herbs that might be able to help with the puking at least, but Aggy is so pale and he’s been losing weight already. Two days ago, I forgot to bring our clothes in when it started to rain and he didn’t even have it in him to yell at me. He hasn’t raised his voice or said much in weeks, actually. If only he told us he was sick earlier, maybe things wouldn’t have gotten this bad.”

 

Djeeta bit her lip as she turned the page again, afraid of what she was going to find.

 

“It’s not working. Nothing is working. Aggy won’t even talk to us anymore. Is he angry? Is it because he knows I can’t do anything right? Is this because I cursed the god of this stupid forest?

 

“There has to be something that will help. Percy is crushed, but I’ll have to leave him behind for this. Someone needs to watch over Aggy and the house, after all. Aggy might not be talking to us, but our older brother still gets lonely if you leave him alone for too long. You know how he is.

 

“Percy, if you’re reading this because I fell off a cliff or got mauled by a bear, I’m sorry for not writing nicer things in here. If you’re reading this because you got nosy, then I guess I can forgive my little brother. Haha.

 

“Anyways, there’s a flower that I named Echinacea scolodendris. It has scarlet petals and its center looks like the rind of a water chestnut, but it’s a flower that can be found along boundaries and even between them—the shore of a freshwater river, the mouth of a cave, the deepest and most narrow length of a gorge, you get the idea. I was never able to convert it into a stable form that could be kept at home, but it can be used to cleanse any impurity, including things like poison and curses. Wild, right? 

 

“Don’t ask me how I know this, and if you have an idea, don’t share it with Aggy, even if I’m already dead. Knowing him, he’d find a way to bring me back to life just to tell me how foolish and idiotic I am, and how Mother would cry if she saw how I was conducting experiments on myself.

 

“I digress. Just know that I needed to do what I needed to do to save our brother. If you look at it that way, then it all makes sense and you can’t get mad at me, right?

 

“I just wish I could’ve done the same for Aggy way back when. Be better than me, Percy.”

 

The journal entry ended there and rather abruptly. The remaining pages were completely blank, but Djeeta didn’t think she could handle anything more than what she just read as she closed the journal and slowly lowered it onto her lap, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling overhead.

 

Just like that last written line, a part of her was filled with regret, another, with anxiety. She just peered into someone’s most vulnerable moments with nothing after the journal’s very last entry to tell her what became of “Aggy” or the author. The pages were so old that the charcoal ink was flaking off of the paper, yet a piece of her was still so invested in the fate of the young boys, no matter who they were, or how long ago their struggles to simply live took place. But the hanging thread was only one half of her worries as everything she took for granted was turned on its head by a few written words.

 

She closed her eyes tightly, trying desperately to shut out her surroundings as if that could make it easier for her to think.

 

Lord Aglovale wasn’t a monster—she refused to believe otherwise, but aside from that, only two things were possible.

 

Lamorak was not the author of this journal, or Lord Aglovale was not a god.

 

And if Lord Aglovale wasn’t a god, then what was he? Was he just an eccentric hermit who lived by himself in the woods? And if he was, why did the villagers fear him as much as they did?

 

Djeeta frowned, reopening her eyes. The author described the god in the same way that the villagers described Aglovale—a monster that lived up to its wicked reputation. She didn’t forget about the sense of awe that filled her chest when she watched him singlehandedly lift the dam. Obviously no ordinary person would be able to pull off something like that, but who was she to assume that he didn’t know anything about sorcery when forest spirits were literally running the manor?

 

As she parsed through her thoughts, another one crept into the forefront of her mind, sprouting from the seed of doubt that had already been planted in her heart the moment she went through those drawings.

 

If she’d been wrong about everything, then how could she be so sure the people of the village truly betrayed her, that it wasn’t Lord Aglovale who—?

 

“No!” she snapped so sharply that her companion startled from the sudden outburst, nearly dropping its duster before it scrambled over to the edge of the table to check on her, only to startle again when Djeeta suddenly shot up and shoved the journal back onto the shelf.

 

“Lord Aglovale is a lot of things, isn’t he?” she asked the spider who had no idea why she suddenly looked so distressed. “But he’s not a liar, he’s not—”

 

You’ve always known that man could kill you, but this is where you draw the line? Lying?

 

Djeeta faltered. She had been so happy just to pass the days by that she completely forgot about the rolling fog, her newfound doubt casting an even darker shadow upon her thoughts as she found herself back at square one—

 

The spider’s chirping cut through the old stormcloud that was moments away from overtaking her as she felt its paws resting against her arm. Lips pursed together and eyes prickling, Djeeta took the forest spirit into her arms and buried her face into its fur, rocking her own body from side to side as she mustered all her strength to banish the tightness in her chest.

 

The creature purred in a way that only giant spiders could purr, she supposed. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m tired, I don’t know what’s coming over me.”

 

She pulled away and looked into the round black eyes that used to make her skin crawl. “Look at me,” she laughed dryly despite herself. “I’ve said so many horrible things to you and your friends, but here I am, leaning on you to comfort me. Maybe I’m the ridiculous one.”

 

The spirit only tilted its head while it sat comfortably in her arms, expression free of any judgment and blame. Djeeta understood even more why Lord Aglovale kept them around as it lifted a single foot to gently pat her on the shoulder, lifting it back up to do it again as if it were mimicking the way she’d pet its fellow attendants, the pink ribbon tied around its leg bouncing with the motions.

Chapter 8

Djeeta felt a familiar comfort wrap around her—feather-light touches and a gentle, blooming warmth. In the space of her dreams, there was the scent of pine needles she’d crushed underfoot, running around outside the hut she had called home and waving a stick that was chalk for drawing one moment, and then a sword for cutting down monsters the next.

 

But the notes of spice and pine that reminded her of way back when turned into something sickly sweet like the smell of rotting leaves, a cold dampness that bit into the tips of her fingers as she felt something else wrap tightly around her, holding her in place.

 

She struggled, the edges of her awareness growing dark, but the stench only grew stronger as she felt several sharp points crawl across her belly, up her arm,  and then over her shoulder while she squirmed, her cries nonexistent.

 

“I’ve been watching over you,” came words without a voice, each letter sinking into the plane of her thoughts like shapes drawn from mud.

 

“Always.”

 

The itch crawled up her neck, antennae probing the shell of her ear before she felt something smile against her skin. 

 

“Take away the veil. A mirror will never lie to you.”

 

Djeeta rolled out of her bed as a thrashing mess, taking a fistful of her robes and shaking them frantically until the crawling sensation vanished from her skin. Rattled, she collapsed back onto her futon to gather herself after making sure there was nothing that fell out of her clothes, living or not.

 

The voice without a voice lingered where her panic faded, and she couldn’t help but wonder what it meant or what she even dreamed of until the throbbing in her right hand had her grimacing at what remained of her bite. The twittering of birds from outside peppered the silence, and she turned her head away from the aching to take note of the foggy crack of dawn that dressed her room in a pale and lonely light.

 

The manor was quiet this early in the morning, she noticed, realizing belatedly that she was probably usually the last one to wake. Crawling over to the door, Djeeta carefully slid it open and poked her head out to find her companion from yesterday huddled to the ground and breathing slowly. The spider didn’t stir, even as she silently waved her hand, but she left it to its rest—she didn’t really know what the pest control Lord Aglovale had decreed entailed, but it must’ve been hard work nonetheless.

 

Shuddering from the vestiges of her strange dream, she silently thanked it for its efforts before she retreated back inside her room and flopped onto the comfort of the futon, deciding to remain vigilant in case of the stray centipede.

Silence was home to him, but there was an unsettling quality to the quietness that had befallen the manor and the surrounding forest. Aglovale swished the liquid in his cup, watching the black leaves swirl before they quickly settled into a small mass at the bottom—there was a bitterness in his tea and a foreboding prickle in the air as if something unseen had shifted overnight. He set the cup down, reaching for the pot to refill it himself, but the handle he had looped his fingers through cracked sharply and broke when he moved to lift it.

 

Aglovale stared at the detached teapot handle he now held—a bad omen and an inconvenience. He had apparently not been thorough about his interlopers if they managed to curse him like this, but he would not make that same mistake twice.

 

Falling within the realm of his expectations was the distant vibrations of panicked footsteps and agitated murmuring that traveled along the invisible threads he had laid throughout the manor. His servants who lurked in the shadows of the room stirred to investigate, but Aglovale willed them to settle back down as he stood up and left to meet the source of the commotion on his own terms.

 

The tremors brought him to the girl’s side of the manor. He found her crouching with her back to the door leading to her room, in her arms his attendant with the pink ribbon, and her breakfast—or what was supposed to be her breakfast—a mess of food and upturned bowls rolling back and forth on their sides. The spirit must’ve fumbled the tray somehow, and Djeeta must’ve scooped it into her arms to keep it from scalding itself on the puddle of soup.

 

Floundering about in distress, Djeeta straightened herself before relief spread across her face when she noticed him approach.

 

“Lord Aglovale!” she called out to him, rushing up with the spider in her arms. “I… I think this one’s sick.”

 

He forgave her impertinence, tilting his head and lowering his gaze as he examined the spirit that was indeed weakly groping at Djeeta’s arms like it were trying to find its grip. Its eyes had dulled in color, the rhythm of its heart a slow and quiet beat that stood in sharp contrast to Djeeta’s own frantic pulse. 

 

Aglovale gently rested a hand atop its head and the spider shuddered faintly beneath the weight of his palm. He had known this day was approaching, but he could not blame the girl for glancing between them in her ignorance, restlessly waiting for him to answer her.

 

“It’s time, is it not?” he said softly to the faithful servant that had spent many years by his side, feeling the last traces of tension leave its body as if it were in silent agreement.

 

“Time?” Djeeta asked him, growing increasingly restless. “Time for what?”

 

Aglovale looked into her eyes. It was like staring into the sun, the raw edge of her emotions which she bore so candidly and earnestly burning into his senses. He could bear it even then, but the cold embrace of realization he watched wrap around her only peeled back the covers to something of his that went for years untouched.

 

“W-wait, it’s just sick, it’s just a little tired,” she tried to reason as if this were up to him, the look of her desperation a familiar sight. “Lord Aglovale—you’re a god, aren’t you? You can do something, can’t you?”

 

Aglovale watched the tears fill her eyes as the girl finally uttered a wish of her own, and then he was young again as Percival stood before him, his scarlet eyes looking pleadingly up at him while he held a dying sparrow in his hands. He lowered his gaze.

 

“This is where my dominion ends,” he said as she flinched. He did not apologize—he had nothing to apologize for. There were many requests he left to the wayside for reasons less than this, and such was the final page of every life. To regret any of this was a luxury he did not possess.

 

And so he allowed the realization to sink into her unabated. 

 

“No… no that can’t be. It’s way too sudden.” Her voice was cracking now as her head bowed forward, tears rolling down the bridge of her nose and onto his attendant’s head. It stirred at that, chirping weakly up at her. “It was fine just yesterday, what happened, what did I do?” she babbled. “Why… why now…?”

 

She knelt down without waiting for his answer, hands placed on either side of the forest spirit as it lay in her lap. Aglovale knelt with her, watching as she then started to stroke the creature, doing her best to be gentle despite how clumsily her hands were shaking beneath the growing weight of her grief.

 

“They are not immortal, Djeeta,” he said to her. “And this one has lived for many years, far longer than the rest. As is only nature.”

 

Her hands gradually came to a stop, shoulders trembling while she took several more moments to collect herself as if her heart wasnt as plain as the day itself.

 

“Why not just a little longer?” he knew she wanted to ask.

 

“...What can I do then?” she finally managed in a tiny voice instead.

 

Aglovale slowly raised his own hands to place them atop of hers, steadying their trembling forms against his attendant, her companion.

 

“Hold it,” he answered her. “Hold it just as you are right now.”

 

His eyes softened as the creature gazed up at him from her lap. “That is its very last wish.”

The girl’s tears were warm as they splashed upon its head, soaking into its fur like drops of summer rain. Her lap was soft, as was the skin of her hands as she clumsily stroked it, sniffling noisily like a little child while its master looked on.

 

It was not the first of its kind to pass within these walls. The Jorougumo bade farewell to many of its kin over the decades and centuries of his solitude. He was not a cruel master, not to them, but their lives were insignificant, their passing equally so like the wilting of spring blossoms before the eve of summer. As such, their deaths were nothing to grieve.

 

Yet the girl wept, her sorrow bitter like pine sap and so unlike the sweet perfume she had brought to this manor when her carefree demeanor and unfettered smiles reminded it of warmer days when life had filled these halls. Her defiance had been baffling, frustrating at times when she’d stubbornly march herself into danger, but she was still a simple child who heralded a breath of fresh air to this unchanging and unyielding place. Tiny seedlings would sprout in her wake, the smallest specks of color blooming within the stagnating spirit of its brethren, and with the passage of time, within the cracks of its master’s battered heart as well.

 

“Pink is my favorite color, but don’t tell the others,” she had told it while she tied the scrap of fabric around its leg, smiling. “There! It suits you, right?”

 

It had no way of answering her in a way she understood, or so it had thought. It had only tilted its body from side to side, legs awkwardly overstepping from the foreign sensation rubbing against its fur. But as it continued to walk around, the girl’s words sank in until it felt a strange sense of what it could only call “belonging”, that perhaps it was suitable, that perhaps it had meant something even if only to her, even if she was a thing fated to be devoured.

 

The child had only beamed, the light she exuded a far cry from yesterday’s fear and anger as she pulled her knees up to her chest, watching it walk in circles with increasing confidence. “This is thanks for saving me,” she had explained. “And sorry, for everything.”

 

It purred weakly at the memory, shifting in her lap and leaning further into her trembling embrace.

 

These halls were not a stranger to grief, and neither was it. The last time the woven bamboo tasted the warmth of fresh tears was many, many years ago when it was still a young sapling of a spirit.

 

Lord Aglovale was kneeling at the bedside of the sorcerer and its first master, his posture as dignified as ever despite the resounding ache he carried inside his chest from day to day and month to month. It had not known that such a thing was called “sorrow”, only that it weighed like a mantle made of stone upon the god’s shoulders.

 

The young master’s body was a withering husk of his former self, his long silver hair kept in a disheveled braid while the rest of him was covered by layers upon layers of quilts and furs to shield him from the chill of the mountain air. In the eyes of anyone else, the two of them appeared to be several decades apart in age, yet they each called one another “brother”.

 

“They’re good kids, Aggy,” the young master told Lord Aglovale. “Keep them around. They’ll remember all the things you’ve forgotten like the recipes we made together even if you can’t eat most of that stuff anymore.”

 

“What need do I have for them then,” he replied, as staunchly pragmatic as ever. “I have more pressing matters on my mind, Lamorak.”

 

The young master only laughed, his withered voice still jovial despite everything. “It’s only an example, and you never know. You’ll be here for a long time so I…” He faltered, slipping a hand out from beneath the covers to reach for him and Lord Aglovale took it, his face unchanging as he pressed the underside of his palm to his cheek. “So I want you to remember. I’m sorry, Aggy, I…”

 

“That is enough,” he said quietly, gently folding Lord Lamorak’s hand back shut and returning it to his side. “It will be more trouble to return them to the forest after you’ve called them here. I’ll find a use for them, so settle down for now.”

 

“Easier said than done,” Lord Lamorak replied, sighing as he nonetheless sunk back into his pillow. “...I want noodles and seaweed soup.”

 

“Very well.”

 

“Noodles, seaweed soup, and carrots, but I want you to cut the carrots like…” he trailed off, frowning and gesturing with his hand. “Like, um… what do you call them, the way you’ve always done it…”

 

“Plum flowers, Lamorak.”

 

“Yeah, that! They taste better that way.”

 

“They taste the same,” he said, closing his eyes as if they’ve had this same exchange many times before. “But I suppose I can spoil my younger brother just this once.”

 

Lord Aglovale and Lord Lamorak spent many days like that together in lighthearted banter, with the former listening to the latter speak no matter what he talked about because it was only in his brother’s company could he find any reprieve.

 

During another such day, Lord Aglovale carefully spooned a warm stew into his brother’s awaiting mouth after storytime went on long enough for the food to cool to a more manageable temperature.

 

“Mm, you’ve gotten better at this, Aggy,” Lord Lamorak said to him after swallowing, smiling serenely. “...Percy’s not gonna join us?”

 

It watched from the shadows as its master stiffened, slowly lowering the spoon as he straightened his back. The youngest master, Lord Percival passed away four winters prior, shortly after Lord Lamorak returned to the manor to spend the last years of his own life, the two of them having scattered his ashes across the river together.

 

Whatever expression Lord Aglovale was wearing, Lord Lamorak didn’t seem to notice as he innocently looked around like their missing brother was simply hiding behind the door. “Where’d he run off to? He’s the one who always wanted us to eat together…”

 

“Percival is…” His voice came out as a croak before he swallowed and tried again. “Percival is out picking strawberries for dessert tonight.”

 

“Aw.” Lord Lamorak hung his head not unlike a sulking child. “And he’s doing it without us? He’s growing up so fast…”

 

“You are certainly making it easier, letting your strawberry bushes take over the rest of the garden again. He’s merely cleaning up after you, like usual.”

 

“What?” he drawled with a hint of playfulness at the accusation. “I did that?”

 

“Yes,” Lord Aglovale replied, his voice completely steady now as he leaned into the lie. “You were overzealous with the wild ones you found and now we have a different kind of problem on our hands, Lamorak. From now on, it’ll be strawberries for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

 

His younger brother laughed, the stew forgotten. “That’s not a problem, Aggy! We can make strawberry juice, strawberry cake, strawberry soup…”

 

“Strawberry soup?” he asked him.

 

“Instead of tomatoes, we use strawberries,” he explained as if that was what Lord Aglovale meant by asking. “The point is, we’ll never run out of things to make together, but you have to let me pick out what we cook for dinner next time, okay? Maybe Percy just didn’t want to eat your cooking.”

 

“There is nothing wrong with my cooking,” Lord Aglovale said, but without the strength or will to even feign annoyance. That, Lord Lamorak noticed as the smile slipped from his face.

 

“Aw… I was just joking, Aggy…” he said as he raised his hands to cup his face, gently bringing their foreheads together. “Don’t look so sad. The two of us will always eat your food, even if no one else will.”

 

Many more days were spent just like that one except for the evenings when Lord Lamorak would remember the pieces that were missing, but even then, his memory would come and go like the tide of a dwindling ocean until the shores of his mind eventually dried up altogether.

 

Forty-two days after he first asked for Lord Percival, he no longer recognized Lord Aglovale as he was.

 

“Where’s… where’s Percival? Where’s Aglovale?” he croaked, the hands that were now little more than skin and bones clawing weakly through the air while Lord Aglovale knelt before him in silent composure. “No… no, you’re not him. Why do you look like him? What have you done to my brother?”

 

Fingers caught the silk of his robes, but he did not falter, even as what was left of his remaining brother began to wail, the face that was so accustomed to laughter and smiles now unrecognizable with bereaved madness.

 

“Monster,” he rasped. “You were never a god, you monster! You… you finally ate them, didn’t you? Give them back to me—give them back and take me instead!”

 

Lord Aglovale said nothing to defend himself, raising neither a hand nor his voice as he sat in utter silence while Lord Lamorak cried and screamed and swung his fists against his chest, hurling at him a cocktail of bitter vitriol and incomprehensible nonsense while it helplessly looked on.

 

Even as his hands began to rip the clothes from its master’s body, overgrown nails digging gashes into his flesh, Lord Aglovale said nothing like he were a stone that could do little more than withstand the rage of a battering storm.

 

After several more moments of this, his madness eventually gave into exhaustion, and Lord Aglovale gently lowered his brother back into bed and pulled the covers up and over his chest. He leaned in, placing a kiss between his bangs before he straightened and refastened his robes as if nothing had happened at all.

 

Many more outbursts would follow during the days Lord Aglovale spent by his side after that, but fortunately none were as violent. He would sit quietly through all of them all the same unless he was repeating the same story when the young master would ask for Lord Percival, otherwise never averting his eyes from Lord Lamorak’s fits as he’d undo and redo his braid, wipe away whatever tears he shed, feed him whatever he wished for, and end the night in the same way every single time—with a kiss on his forehead.

 

Then sometimes, Lord Lamorak would stir in the middle of the night, crying softly, perhaps with regret. Lord Aglovale would appear at his bedside each time, holding vigil until dawn. “Don’t cry,” he’d whisper, stroking his hair. “Big brother is here.”

 

Twelve days after the first immutable sign of Lord Lamorak’s deterioration, the young master finally succumbed and passed away. Only after could they witness the enormity of their master’s grief as he knelt by himself in an empty room. His tears first fell in silence, perhaps for hours, and then the dam broke, his tattered voice bellowing throughout the forest as trees that were thousands of years old bowed beneath the weight of his agony and the rivers carried the sorrow of their god to faraway lands. All his composure and dignity were gone to the wind as his form writhed and twisted, his own hands ripping the silk from his body and the hair from his scalp while he wailed and wailed until there was nothing left to wail with.

 

Lord Aglovale never cried again after that day when he swallowed his despair and sealed it behind lock and key, the newfound emptiness of the manor devoid of any more tears until he brought the girl and caged her within this web. The tea she knocked over and the tears she shed seeped into the space of both the earth and their hearts, reawakening dormant seeds and the memories they were buried with. Even the immovable god of this forest found himself responding with the fond memories left untouched for so long.

 

And so the two hundred year winter of silence came to an end.

 

As its strength continued to ebb away, it was not afraid. It remembered everything that Lord Lamorak asked it to remember, and now it was simply time to go.

 

Tears trickled down its head and between its eyes as it gazed up at the girl with the last of its strength. Thoughts growing quieter, it leaned into her touch for the last time.

 

And then it was still.

 

Djeeta clutched the strange creature she had come to know as a friend to her chest, the water flowing freely from her eyes now. Burying her face in its fur just like before, she wondered if it had known all along that yesterday would’ve been the last time.

 

“Sorry… I’m sorry…” she whispered. Lord Aglovale, the god of this manor and the master to whom the spirits answered said nothing when he knew that she wasn’t talking to him. She hugged it tighter. “I didn’t know.”

 

If the other thought that she was being childish for all of her crying, he said nothing of it. The passing of his own servant didn’t seem to move him, and she wondered if she was the strange one between the two of them. Nonetheless, he remained where he knelt as she eked out her last goodbyes.

 

When he felt that she was ready, Lord Aglovale wordlessly untied the pink ribbon from the spider’s leg. She wiped her face dry, watching as he rolled it into a loose ball before holding it out to her.

 

“A trade.”

 

Djeeta took the ribbon back, staring at the fraying ends where she had clumsily snipped it from the spool with the pair of rusted scissors. She remembered as the forest spirit stared up at her with its large eyes, unsure at first of what to make of the gift before it had quickly grown into it, puffing its chest out at the adornment meant to set it apart from the others. She remembered laughing because at the time, the idea that a giant spider could swell with pride like a little person was so ridiculous she didn’t know how else to react in that moment. Her eyes started to burn again.

 

“Why… Why did I waste so much time being afraid?” she muttered.

 

Tilting his head for a moment, he replied, “...How unkind. What purpose does asking such a question serve but to berate yourself?”

 

Aglovale reached over, casting her in the shadow of his sleeve before he paused, eventually choosing to pat her on her head. The weight of his hand stroking her hair shocked her fresh tears loose and she furiously wiped at her eyes again before she could coax herself into finally letting go, allowing him to take back the body of his departed servant.

 

“What… are you going to do with it?” she asked him, her voice still thick from crying.

 

Aglovale slowly stood up, using the curtain of his sleeve to cover the body like a shroud. “They come from the forest, and so…” He trailed off, turning his head toward where the atrium of the manor lay. He didn’t have to say anything else to her as she got up to follow him down the walkway and through the weaving room, the rest of the servants trailing after them in a solemn procession until they found themselves in the open air of the garden facing the threshold formed by the trees.

 

“...to the forest they return,” he finished.

 

Djeeta watched as a faint glow kindled between Aglovale’s hands and engulfed the body in a pure white light. Its shining form then broke apart and dissolved before her very eyes, glowing wisps taking to the air like a scattering of dandelion seeds.

 

For a moment, she forgot her sadness as one such wisp floated over to her, kissing the tip of her finger when she reached towards it before the breeze carried it away. She looked over at Lord Aglovale, and that was when she realized that she’d been wrong—his expression was mostly unchanging as he watched the particles of light drift from the palm of his outstretched hand towards the forest, but in his eyes was an unmistakable longing and sorrow for the departure of something that had lived countless memories alongside him.

 

Having bade farewell, the last of the light drifted off between the trees like distant fireflies, fading as the sun broke through the veil of the morning fog. She saw one last glimmer of a goodbye, and then it was gone.

Chapter 9

Aglovale awoke to the sound of his brothers’ muffled voices, but it wasn’t until light broke through and forcefully entered his vision did he realize that they were in the middle of the forest, the barren trunks of mid-autumn birch reaching for the great expanse of blue.

 

However, he wasn’t left to take in his surroundings for long as Lamorak hurriedly tore sheets of what looked like cobwebbing from his body. Percival was beside him doing the same until he glanced up and saw that he was awake, albeit bleary as he stared at them both.

 

“Brother!” he cried out, throwing his arms around his neck and nearly knocking the air out of him. “You’re okay, I’m so glad you’re okay.”

 

Lamorak had to pry him off as he could only blink, still uncomprehending. He did not know why they were here, or why they looked like they were about to cry. He’d only been sleeping. He’d been so tired after all. And then he remembered the vestigial remains of what plagued his rest. 

 

“I… I had a dream that you two weren’t here anymore.”

 

Lamorak pursed his lips together as if he were holding back tears before he burst out, “Like you’re the one to say something like that after running away! Do you know how much trouble I went through trying to bring these flowers back home to you only to find my little brother having a crisis because he thought you crawled off to die alone? You know you’re sick! What were you even thinking you jerk, you fool, you absolute mudcake—”

 

His younger brother was livid, but he was still too disorientated to comprehend why when he didn’t remember wandering off. “I don’t… feel sick, not anymore,” he managed before he looked down and noticed the stickiness between his fingers. “What is…?”

 

They both followed his gaze, Percival jumping on the opportunity to detract from Lamorak’s fit. “We found you covered in it… like a cocoon. Doesn’t it look like spider web?” His brows furrowed together while Lamorak himself momentarily forgot his anger, the pair of them examining the thick but translucent sheets that formed the makeshift nest that surrounded him.

 

“It’s that monster’s, isn’t it?” Lamorak said with clear distaste before a mixture of fear and horror dawned on him. “W-wait, was he gonna eat you? Is that why he wrapped you all up like a fly?”

 

“No,” Aglovale replied, putting an end to their back-and-forth as his sleepiness faded for a serene calm. The pain in his body was gone, his illness little more than a distant memory save for the roiling tightness in his stomach. He had not kept food down in so long that any semblance of an appetite seemed promising enough as he licked his lips and tasted earth. “It’s… mine.”

 

Percival and Lamorak both frowned in unison, but Aglovale didn’t care. He wasn’t hurting anymore, and his brothers were here with him alive and well. Perhaps they both felt the same, or maybe they figured he hadn’t quite woken up all the way yet—either way, he didn’t give them much chance to dwell on pointless things as he drew them both into a tight embrace.

 

“I’m glad you two are here,” he murmured while he felt their hands grasp the back of his clothing. He drank in their warmth and the rhythm of their heartbeats thrumming in tandem, treasuring the moment the three of them could share as they finally settled within his arms. “Everything’s alright now, I feel better.”

 

“...I wanted to be the one to save you this time though,” Lamorak muttered into his shoulder. “Just once.”

 

Aglovale smiled, endeared for once by his obstinacy. “You’ve done enough. You two are here with me now,” he said again, sighing softly as he took in the familiar scent that reminded him of home—Lamorak of the fragrant bouquets that used to fill the halls of their old home, and Percival of the cinnamon oil candles their mother used to light on special days. The sense of longing within him grew stronger, nearly making his mouth water as he counted every second of his breath.

 

“So good…” he muttered as his focus began to drift. “You both just smell… so good.”

 

He felt Percival’s mouth open in a half-formed question, but it was too late as Aglovale turned his head and sank his teeth into his shoulder.

 

Life at the manor went on as the days passed by.

 

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner would appear outside her door as they always would, Lord Aglovale’s remaining attendants gingerly checking up on her by peering through the crack in her door before she overheard their master telling them to let her be.

 

Djeeta wasn’t sure if she preferred their company or not. She’d spend the quieter hours leaning against the side of the window frame, gazing distantly into the woods and half-hoping, half-wondering if she’d ever see that glimmer of light again. The traces of magic in the air from their farewell did a lot to dry the tears from her eyes, but in her heart, she still carried a small, spider-shaped hole as she fiddled with the pink ribbon she kept at her bedside when it wasn’t in her hands.

 

Grief came to people in different forms. Aglovale must’ve known when he watched her cry and hold the body of his departed servant until she was ready to let go, even when the creature was his servant longer than it had ever been her friend—something that was obvious but never really sunk in until she had the time to recollect herself and reflect. During the aftermath, she wondered if she stole those last precious moments from him, but the other never showed her any indication that he had thought so.

 

She rested her chin on the windowsill. Beyond everything else, there were some days when a strange guilt would linger in the back of her mind, her inner voice telling her that she should be doing more to escape, that trying to understand the god of the forest and his ways was a lost cause. But Lord Aglovale was always one step ahead, and she had realized one night that their walks through the forest and their trip to the meadow were his way of showing her that there wasn’t much hope in simply running away. If she were a prisoner, then the bars to her cage weren’t the manor walls or the dainty fence that enclosed the garden, but the infinite stretch of trees that surrounded the manor. 

 

“So leave me alone,” she muttered to herself, closing her eyes. She wouldn’t be who she was if she never took the winding path anyways, and this was yet another journey she was determined to complete.

 

Nonetheless, sitting in one place for hours only made her wish she had that familiar weight nestled in her lap, so she stretched her legs and jumped to her feet. Aglovale had excused himself earlier, deigning to tell her that there was unfinished business he needed to take care of away from the manor, unfinished business that apparently required the full force of his attendants as he left her to her solitude.

 

She’d taken his presence for granted, but not without reason when he thought of her as an unruly kid who needed an eight-eyed chaperone to keep her from sticking her nose into things she shouldn’t. She couldn’t help but wonder what kind of “unfinished business”—or pest control, he told her when he dodged the heart of the question—was so important that he’d make an exception.

 

And then she wondered when he’d be back, deciding not to think about what that truly meant.

 

Djeeta left her room and closed the door behind her, the thump of her footsteps and the creaking of the floorboards louder than they’d ever been since she first arrived.

 

Taking the familiar path away from her room, she wondered how much time passed since then, and when she had stopped keeping track of the days.

 

Aglovale alighted upon a branch, the tree obediently shouldering his weight as unforgivingly scarlet eyes scanned the forest floor.

 

“So you’ve chosen to run,” he muttered. “No matter. I will find you eventually, although I would have preferred to settle this quickly.”

 

For many decades, the Oomukade ceded to him begrudging obedience, and he had tolerated its presence snaking around the threshold of his territory to keep the mortals he detested from settling any deeper into the forest. He found it curious that the monster would defy him now of all times. Did it think him to be weakened? Distracted? Or was it simply acting on beastly instinct in order to snatch Djeeta from his grasp?

 

Aglovale narrowed his eyes. It had not dared to cross him ever since he blinded it in one eye, much less lay a finger upon any one of his offerings until now. The rage he felt within his breast that evening when it had stolen from him the first taste of the child’s blood returned twofold, and he asked himself once more if simply taking the monster’s remaining eye would serve to be sufficient punishment for its misplaced ambition.

 

A slight breeze picked up to draw him out of his smoldering ire, and he turned his head toward the direction of the manor where he left the girl, steely gaze softening around the edges as he thought of her. She was paying the price for the name she had bestowed upon that small creature through that colored ribbon, but he knew Djeeta was too sincere of a person to regret any of it no matter how much sorrow her own actions would bring her. He then wondered if she had dried the last of her tears by now, and if she’d eaten properly given what his servants reported to him about her half-eaten meals.

 

There was no use trying to rush her grief, but it would be troublesome for him if she wore herself out, or worse, refused to eat at all. He didn’t believe Djeeta would go to such lengths, but the possibility lingered in his mind like an unpleasant tingling. She was somebody who cried as freely as she could laugh, so he decided to think of the latter instead of worrying about what he could not control, remembering the time they spent in the meadow and how brightly she could smile amongst the flowers. But the meadow was not a place they could make the trip to every day, especially when they were on their last days of summer. 

 

So he thought of the old hand loom he had stashed somewhere instead. He could’ve given it to her to occupy herself in his absence, but a hand loom was little more than a block of wood without anyone around to show her how to use it. He would have to teach her after he returned. Maybe then it’d prove to be a suitable enough distraction for her until the bitterness of grief was gone from her flesh.

 

Aglovale swept his gaze across the surrounding forest one last time before moving on. He would much rather spend his time in front of his own loom while the furnace crackled, but there was still a stray centipede he needed to flush out of its hole.

 

While the house of a god was just as big as anyone would expect, Djeeta didn’t think the manor was a place she could get lost in while trying to find the library again, especially when she wasn’t exactly a stranger to its halls. It wasn’t until her second wraparound did she realize that without the reassuring presence of the spirits she had grown to appreciate, or Lord Aglovale whose own presence was like an enduring beacon from the weaving room, the walkways looked the same from one hall to the next, and that there was no way for her to tell one door from another if she didn’t know what was behind them in the first place.

 

Either she had somehow lost all sense of direction, or there was an enchantment working behind the scenes to sabotage her. She could ask Aglovale about it once he was back, but he might just laugh at her instead.

 

Retreating from another empty and unfamiliar room, she sighed and traced her footsteps back to her starting point. As far as markers went… there was her room, the weaving room, and the large mirror she had taken notice of during her first foray of the manor.

 

Nearly beside herself without any new ideas, Djeeta craned her head to study the ornate frame before she felt something crawl across her hand and send her into a frenzy until she realized that nothing was there. Frowning, she looked back at the mirror and the thick cloth that covered it while her skin continued to prickle apprehensively.

 

“A mirror will never lie to you.”

 

She didn’t know why she was thinking of the strange voice from that dream now of all times when she was looking at an ordinary mirror, but its words continued to badger her like an annoying fly buzzing in her ear. As if to prove it to herself and whoever was watching, she scratched the itch and pulled the cloth away, the velveteen collapsing into a crumpled pile at her feet.

 

Her reflection was only a little different since she last saw it. Her hair had grown longer—not by much, but long enough for her to notice. The scrapes and bruises that she considered souvenirs of her countless journeys across the land were gone, having faded during the time she spent sleeping in a real bed, eating hot food, and wearing silky robes that were sleek enough for her to slide around on the floor in.

 

But she was still herself. She didn’t know if she was disappointed or relieved otherwise, but she bent down to pick the curtain back up when the hair on her arms suddenly stood on end.

 

“Djeeta,” came a whisper from the other end of the hall, its touch crawling up the nape of her neck.

 

She slowly straightened as she stared into the darkness.

 

“...Lord Aglovale?” she asked, only to be answered by silence.

 

Djeeta threw the cover back over the mirror, never taking her eyes off the shadows as she stepped away from it. She moved slowly, carefully while her heartbeat began to fill her ears.

 

Something scuttled along the floor out of view, the hallway steeped in such utter stillness that she felt the vibrations with the bottom of her feet. A small voice within her urged her to call it a day, while a louder one reminded her that nothing ventured, nothing gained. She’d faced worse before, fought for her own life on more than one occasion against monsters and bandits—there was nothing to be scared of in a place like this, but maybe that was only what she told herself as she answered the darkness that beckoned her further down the hall.

 

Two halves of her intuition battled each other as Djeeta turned the corner, her eyes following the weave of the flooring till they stopped at the foot of a single door placed at the very end. She frowned, unsure if she’d been this way before, and if she hadn’t, how she could’ve missed this section of the manor.

 

The scratching noise continued, scraping against her nerves as she brought herself before the door, hand hovering inches from the notch in the frame that served as its handle. A heaviness weighed down on her shoulders as if somebody was looming over her from behind, and Djeeta whirled around just to make sure that she truly was alone.

 

She was greeted by emptiness and silence just like before, and she turned back around while the heaviness lingered and seeped into the space of her chest, surrounding her heart like a melancholy that didn’t feel like her own.

 

Mustering just a sliver of courage, she finally threw the door open and found another unfamiliar, but far from empty room.

 

There was a bed in the corner that was laden with quilts and furs with two pillows that were stacked atop one another, sunken in the middle from years of use. Wooden shelves nailed to the wall shouldered worn-out books and glass jars filled with dried specimens. Placards made of wood, twine, and loosely-woven yarn were hung in decoration, and directly in front of her was a desk made of the same kind of wood, its varnished surface worn down to the grain, rubbed away by the sleeve of someone who spent his days either reading the accompanying stacks of books or authoring them, sometimes penning letters with the dusty quill resting beside an old inkwell whose flaking contents had fused with the container over the years.

 

Djeeta traced the rim of the tiny jar, turning her fingers over to study the charcoal dust before she rubbed it all away. This was a room that someone had clearly lived in once upon a time, but no longer.

 

She lowered her gaze, tracing the edge of the desk as if she could glean from the wood the old memories that took place where she stood. Old parchment, strange tools that she didn’t know the purpose of, and random bits of things that were taken from the outdoors like pebbles, seeds, and more pebbles littered the space of the desk as she followed the scattered flow of trinkets to the dust-coated picture frames leaning against the windowsill.

 

She took one of them, blowing on it before using her sleeve to wipe away the more stubborn bits of dust to reveal a portrait of an elderly man. Twinkling eyes filled with youthful warmth gazed back at her through their crow’s feet, lips curved upwards in a smile as if he had been laughing shortly before his features were transferred to the paper. His hair was long as it ran far past his waist and nearly touched the ground, its silkiness through the paper reminding her of Aglovale’s own.

 

Her intuition told her to flip the frame around, and so she did to find that there was no backing, the name “Lamorak” scrawled in the corner with charcoal ink and a date whose convention was unfamiliar to her.

 

Djeeta frowned. Lamorak must’ve been the artist, but she didn’t know who the man was, and the same cocktail of fascination and uneasiness from before returned to brew in the pit of her stomach. She set the portrait back down and picked up another frame, cleaning it off just like the first.

 

The picture was of the same man from before, except he was joined by someone else who shared with him the same eyes and features, save for his hair which was nowhere near as long. There was a certain sternness in his expression, but the softness in his eyes lent to her a juxtaposition that also reminded her of Aglovale. When she turned the frame over, she found not one, but two names—”Lamorak” and “Percival”, and then realization hit her.

 

Djeeta grabbed one of the books and threw it open. Drawings and notes bearing the same handwriting of the journal she had found tumbled out as she sifted through them like her life depended on it.

 

Through the sketches of herbs and flowers and notes and recipes of things that had nothing to do with her, Djeeta went through several more books and drawers as she searched for some kind of answer. She had to be wrong. She must’ve made a mistake somewhere along the way, but before she could turn another page, the journals scattered about her suddenly slammed shut and she whirled around, her heart nearly jumping out of her throat at the sight of Aglovale standing in the doorway, his face utterly unreadable.

 

“How did you find this place?” he asked her, his voice a deadly quiet as the paper leaflets slid back inside the pages and drawers from which they fell out of. Djeeta wished she could do the same as his gaze threatened to pierce right through her like cold steel.

 

The Aglovale standing before her was the same one from the riverbank, and it was like she was on all fours again, gasping for air as his icy gaze bore down on her with all the weight of a glacier.

 

And just like that time, he turned to leave without waiting for her answer.

 

“Lord Aglovale, wait—” she stumbled after him, the portraits lying where she had dropped them, relinquished back to the dust.

 

He stopped midway down the hall as she caught up, but there was an invisible wall between them and a heaviness in her knees that kept her from getting any closer. 

 

“Out with it then.”

 

Djeeta bit her lip. There was so much that she wanted to know and so much that she was missing that she didn’t know where to start. The broad of Aglovale’s back was as imposing as the wall before her as she stared up at him, trying to sort through the thoughts that had been thrown into yet another disarray. The golden luster of his hair, the subtle glow within his eyes and upon his skin all spoke to the timeless youth possessed by something otherworldly—she never thought to question any of it, at least not for very long, but those portraits were of his brothers, and it was something that she couldn’t deny anymore like the journal she ended up pretending she never found.

 

“How did your brothers… die?”

 

His ire reared its head and threatened to sink its teeth into her, but Djeeta stood her ground and refused to buckle beneath the growing pressure saturating the air.

 

“...It appears I’ve been too lenient with you,” he drawled coldly. “I’ve turned a blind eye to your prying, but your insolence has reached its peak, Djeeta. I cannot hide from you what you are not entitled to know in the first place.”

 

She flinched, closing her hands into fists as her instinct told her that she was only wading deeper into dangerous territory. “I… I only wanted to understand.”

 

Aglovale showed no indication that he believed her as he remained where he stood. She knew she overstepped. She knew she shouldn’t have gone through the memories that didn’t belong to her, selfishly searching for a justification for the idea of him that she held within her heart, but even still, she wanted to understand—she wanted to know that even if nothing else, Lord Aglovale wouldn’t lie to her like the ones who had thrown her onto his doorstep in the first place.

 

But he deprived her of any answer as he moved to leave, and without thinking, Djeeta threw her arm out and grabbed him by the sleeve.

 

Time moved slowly during the moments after her fingers caught the silk. The curtain she had thrown haphazardly over the mirror came loose and slipped to the floor, Aglovale’s own hand frozen halfway through the air as if he had meant to catch it. Djeeta looked up at him, and in his eyes was a strange look that felt so out of place amongst his usually unflappable demeanor, but it vanished all the same as a chilling calm washed over him instead. She looked instinctively towards the mirror, the blood instantly draining from her face.

 

What stared back at her was not their reflection, but the visage of a great and monstrous spider, its massive head inlaid with nine blood-filled blisters that served as its eyes. Black fangs longer than her forearm and sharp enough to impale her curved downwards like sickles carved from obsidian, glistening with venom while the legs that supported its body ended in equally sharp claws that raked against the floor as Lord Aglovale finally turned to face her.

 

Djeeta slowly took her hand away, and as she brought herself to meet those blood-colored eyes gazing down at her, the words from that single journal entry returned to sear themselves into the forefront of her mind.

 

“The god of the forest is an eight-legged monster.”

 

“Djeeta,” he intoned as he moved to take hold of her arm, but she recoiled backwards and stepped away from him, every memory and every detail she had taken for granted flashing before her eyes.

 

She had been so fixated on who wrote the journal that she never realized the third possibility.

 

“You’re not… you’re not actually Lord Aglovale, are you?”

 

Something cracked like glass behind his scarlet eyes as if she’d stung him, but it was too late to turn back as he slowly lowered his hand.

 

“There were three brothers, but one got sick, didn’t he?” The doubt she had pent up until now burst free as the words spilled uncontrollably from her mouth. “If Lamorak and Percival were human, if they grew old and passed away too, then you… you can’t be…”

 

Djeeta trailed off. She wondered if that was even true, if they had passed naturally, and then she wondered the unspeakable. She wondered if the one masquerading as their brother, the one who had already devoured many humans before, had devoured them too.

 

She clamped her mouth shut, but the look in his eyes told her that he had already read her mind.

 

“...I see,” he murmured as his hair slipped from his shoulders. “That would make the most sense, would it not?”

 

Djeeta could only watch in horror as his body began to contort, the robes he wore slipping just enough to reveal the serrated red lines traveling up the length of his arms, his chest, and his neck before his skin peeled back like pale ribbons and revealed the writhing muscle and sinew beneath. His body tore itself apart and stripped his flesh like it were a mere vessel to be discarded, the pieces of him reconstructing into something her eyes could barely comprehend as the crunching of bones heralded newly birthed joints forming in places where they didn’t exist before. Great, arching limbs then pulled free from the shadows, lifting the hem of his robes before his clothing slipped off of his body altogether, forming a pile of silk from which the monstrous spider rose to take the place of the one she had known as “Lord Aglovale”.

 

Djeeta fell back onto her hands as he loomed over her, his grotesque form nearly large enough to brush against the ceiling. She could feel the heat of his breath while he exhaled deeply, releasing the pent up stress and tension from the last throes of violence that had ripped his mortal guise into pieces. 

 

“So this is what it took.” The baritone of Aglovale’s voice penetrated her to her very bones as if the monster were speaking directly into her head. “For you to fear me.”

 

Even now, some part of her still wished that he would deny the accusation, that they could somehow go back to the way things were before, but the only thing that answered her was the bile rising in her throat as she clasped her hands over her mouth. He laughed dryly.

 

“I should’ve eaten you the moment I had the chance,” he said, and she caught a glimpse of black, needle-sharp teeth that lined the mouth large enough to rip her head from her shoulders in a single bite. “And spared us both any pretense and deception.”

 

“Why… why didn’t you?” she managed as those crimson pools threatened to swallow her whole. “Why go through all this trouble and all… and all of everything…?” she asked, voice wavering. There must’ve been a point to it all, he must’ve had a reason. He’d done so much for her, too much to put into words, and she realized that the crushing pain within her chest that nearly drowned out her fear was the agony of her own heart breaking in two.

 

“I wonder,” he murmured. “I’ve asked myself this many times, but in the end, it was a fool’s errand to think that this could be anything different, wasn’t it?”

 

He drew closer and she scrambled even further away, drawing another mirthless laugh from him. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen such fear in eyes like yours,” he said before his voice suddenly grew softer. “I wonder… if this was what Lamorak saw before he…”

 

Her brows furrowed together as she tried to discern the distant look that entered those nine eyes before he seemingly snapped out of whatever short-lived stupor had befallen him, fixing upon her again the full weight of his attention like a predator and its prey.

 

“I could devour you now and erase my mistake,” he said as she felt the sweat trickle down the side of her neck, his massive jaws closing together as they loomed over her like the blade of a guillotine. “I’ve waited long enough for this, so very long, Djeeta…”

 

She bit back a yelp as he planted two limbs on either side of her, the floor shaking beneath his weight with every step he took. His breath was hot and wet as it fell over her in waves before he finally bared the full length of his fangs and bore down on her so suddenly she barely had the time to throw her arms up and shut her eyes.

 

But the pain never came. Moments passed before Djeeta mustered enough courage to reopen her eyes and see that he had drawn himself back.

 

“...Leave.”

 

She could only stare at him, uncomprehending as her arms slowly unfurled. She must’ve misheard—

 

“The children have taken a liking to you,” he said. “So this will be my one and only mercy. Leave and never return to this place.”

 

She didn’t know how she could still see it at a time like this, but there it was again—that air of uncertainty about him that weighed upon her conscience like a slab of rock. She raised a trembling hand against her better judgment, reaching for him before he lashed out and tore a hole in the wall inches from her head.

 

“I said leave!” he roared, the resonance of his voice shaking the doors in their tracks and shattering the mirror into pieces. “Leave, lest I change my mind—!”

 

Moments of silence passed between them as the dust settled before Djeeta wordlessly forced herself back to her feet, the fragments of her heart hammering within her chest. This was what she wanted deep inside all along, wasn’t it? Sooner or later, everything she’d done was meant to lead to this, to freedom. Maybe that was all she was supposed to understand from her time here, but what he called mercy was dry and bitter like ashes in her mouth.

 

She lifted one foot, and then the other, stumbling past him and the broken pieces of glass. There was no farewell for her to utter this time as she broke away from the walls that might’ve felt like home and ran.

 

Aglovale stumbled over gnarled roots and fallen branches alike, picking himself back up each time to continue running as tears poured down his face, his mouth coated in fresh blood.

 

“Mother—” he gasped, “I hurt him. I hurt Percival, my own brother—”

 

His ankle caught on a root, sending him tumbling across the forest floor and into a gorge. As if by divine punishment for his unspeakable sin, the agony of his prior sickness returned to him a hundredfold, piercing through his flesh and squeezing his bones until he felt everything within him shatter. Howling and groaning in pain, he continued dragging himself along the ground even as his broken legs twisted in impossible directions catching against the rocks and branches. He had to put as much distance as possible between him and his brothers even if that meant fighting against the body that was falling apart at the seams.

 

He bit Percival, tore through his skin like it was nothing, like he was a starving beast as his cries rang in his ears.

 

“But it tasted good, didn’t it? It felt good, didn’t it?”

 

Aglovale turned his eyes toward the canopy of trees, autumn leaves red like blood against the backdrop of empty blue. As he turned his claws onto his own skin, licking his lips while his stomach yearned for more to fill it, he recalled what the god of the forest whispered into his ear one night, that divinity was woven from the despair of mortals.

 

But he was human. He was human, he was human, he was—

 

The god inside of him laughed, its countless limbs pushing through his skin to wrap around him like bars of twisted iron. 

 

“At long last, you may indulge in the same pleasure I had indulged in you.”

 

And then all turned to darkness.

Chapter 10

Notes:

This chapter marks the tenth chapter of this story, and I just want to take the moment to thank all of my readers. I wouldn't have made it this far without your views, kudos, and comments (y'all know who you are!). Thank you, and I hope you continue enjoying the rest of the story!

Aglovale knelt amongst the broken glass, eyes slowly drifting in and out of focus as they lingered upon the empty space the girl had occupied just minutes earlier. He ignored the apparition who sat cross legged nearby, barely more than a shadow and equally nonchalant about the destruction he had wrought on the mirror, walls, and floors, but it was not to be deterred as it spoke to him.

 

“Oh, Aggy,” it chided softly, tilting its head as its hair slid from its shoulders and fell like a curtain over the floor. He imagined a patronizing kind of sadness in the shape of its upturned lips as it went on to ask, “Why did you do that?”

 

Scraping and the sound of clinking glass peppered the following silence as he stood up, the small cuts on his knuckles and fingertips fading away while his reformed flesh pushed out the shards of wood and glass buried in his skin. He knew better than to acknowledge the apparition—no question he could ask would ever tell him why his brother would appear before him during times like this. He had already tried. Many times.

 

“Dispose of the mirror. I want nothing to remain,” he told his servants. His hallucinations were one matter, but the disapproval and reproach in the round black eyes fixated on him were another. Nobody else had thought to enthrall the spirits like she had, much less succeed, but in the end, his will and his word were law, and so they begrudgingly obeyed him as they divided amongst themselves to clean up the debris and arrange repairs, a small handful of them gazing in the direction Djeeta had fled as if they had half a mind to run after her.

 

Aglovale turned and left them to their work while the apparition followed, hovering along the edge of his vision no matter where he turned his eyes.

 

“Did you want to send her away so badly that you let her deceive herself?” it asked him. “You don’t like lies, but you know… that’s its own kind of dishonesty.”

 

He stopped himself short of reaching out with his threads to gauge how far the child was able to run. She was no longer of any concern to him—not as a sacrifice, not as a distraction, and most of all, not as a thing he needed to protect. Every mortal was cut from the same cloth no matter where they might’ve hailed from, and Djeeta had outlived her novelty. That was all she was to him, and all that she could ever be—a thing to briefly ease his boredom.

 

“...You’re so stubborn,” the voice accused. “Are you really okay with being alone again? Forever?”

 

Aglovale slowly lowered his hand, the disconnected threads never reaching their mark as he pulled the shutters over his heart. Had it been any other day, he’d allow the apparition and its taunts to come and go like the hours of the day, but he was tired, and he wanted nothing more than to be left to his own peace and quiet.

 

“If you had not wanted me to be alone forever,” he finally answered, “then you never would have left me.”

 

The visage of his brother stuttered like a ripple in the water, and then it was gone. Aglovale turned to regard the emptiness the apparition left behind—his real brother was also one to flee from responsibility, but he was long dead. As was Percival. As was his humanity.

 

His feet brought him from one end of the manor to the other and then back around, having strayed so far from routine that his body apparently didn’t know what else to do. He turned his eyes to the open air through the door that had nearly been thrown off its track, his gaze tracing the trodden footsteps imprinted upon the grass and fallen leaves. They reeked of fear and the bitterness of an open wound, but if the girl had thought him to be anything but a monster, then she had only herself to blame. 

 

The wind was a low and plaintive whisper, not unlike the voices of the spirits who mourned Djeeta’s resounding absence. A dull prickle throbbed from within like the grievances of an old injury, but it was not numbness. To be numb implied that there was more to be felt. Djeeta was gone like the others, but solitude was only another truth to him, and so there was nothing for him to lament.

 

Both her heart and the forest seemed to be working against her as Djeeta staggered through the thicket. In every unturned stone and layer of undisturbed mulm was the reality that this was no place for humans to roam as the god’s resentment clung to her like a miasma, but with every moment she took to catch her breath or regain her bearings came the flood of memories she tried so badly to forget.

 

The god told her himself that the old river would lead her back to civilization. Why didn't she run then?

 

Why did she decide to stay?

 

Why did she think that she was special?

 

She touched her hair where he had pat her head with a gentle hand, the silence of the trees reminding her of the silence they shared together when he had quietly observed her tears. Was that all it took to win her over? Just a little bit of compassion? Her throat tightened as she leaned against the nearest tree trunk, blinking away the burning humiliation that gathered in her eyes.

 

Djeeta gazed onwards toward the yawning shadows cast by the thickest parts of the forest and forced herself to move on. The only thing more humiliating than letting herself be fooled twice was wasting what little time she had crying over what was already done, and so she followed her intuition through her thoughts in disarray, trusting that the pull she felt within her gut would take her to where she needed to go. She couldn’t afford to be scared of what lurked beyond the manor when she had brought this upon herself after all.

 

However, the forest seemed determined to punish her petulance when her foot stepped through the brush and missed the ground. Djeeta was met with a terrible sense of deja vu as she was sent tumbling down the side of a gorge until she hit the bottom.

 

Wheezing for breath as she rolled onto her back, she was greeted by the great expanse of pale blue overhead—a sight to behold if only she wasn’t running for her life. She used to think that there was nothing more breathtaking than the open sky and all of its freedom, but it only seemed to mock her now as she pressed her lips tightly together.

 

However, she wasn’t left to languish for long when her skin prickled with a familiar but disquieting chill. Heart pounding, she tried her best to sit up as quietly as she could, but the crunching of the forest’s debris betrayed her as her nose picked up the stench of rotting leaves.

 

“Oh… you poor child.”

 

Djeeta scrambled to her feet, but it was too late as the earth around her began to swell like the lungs of a giant beast taking. The ground shook and the terrain began to shift, mounds of what she thought were fallen leaves and twigs sliding along the forest floor until the debris came loose and revealed the damning gleam of polished chitin.

 

With nowhere to run, Djeeta could only watch as the massive head of a giant centipede materialized from the shadows of the forest before her. Its entire length encircled her many times over, the jointed legs welded to each segment of its armored body ending in sharp, serrated points like the edge of a saw. The girth of its body was twice her own, and if she thought that the god of the forest was big, then the monstrous centipede was massive.

 

Giant antennae probed the air, plates of chitin rubbing against each other as the monster continued to slither slowly like a serpent encircling its prey. It only had one eye, inky black orbs the size of her fist clustered together to make up a whole, with nothing remaining of its other one save for a gaping pit and a terrible scar carved so deeply into the shell that no number of molts could fully erase it.

 

However, most egregious of all were its fangs, gleaming pincers the color of rotten blood that were swollen at the base with sacks engorged with venom. Djeeta clutched her throbbing hand to her chest as she stepped backwards, eyes never leaving the centipede’s own as the thing seemed to leer at her.

 

“You poor, poor child. The Jorougumo finally cast you out, didn’t he?”

 

It was just her luck to escape one set of jaws only to stumble headfirst into another as she swallowed thickly, nearly overwhelmed by the sight of the monster to realize that it was talking about the forest god. Through every alarm going off in her head, she could clearly make out its voice as it slid through her senses like a snake in the leaves, the shape of its words and its sickly sweet musk bringing her back to that dream with the voiceless voice.

 

“Who… what are you?” she mustered, never breaking eye contact with the monster as she turned her body to follow its movements.

 

Amusement gleamed within its depths, but Djeeta felt no sense of ease from it. “I am Lord Oomukade,” it answered her. “I’ve been waiting to meet you for a very long time, Djeeta. Try to think of me as a friend, won’t you?”

 

That made her mad. “A friend? Do you think I’m gonna fall for that a third time?” she snapped.

 

The Oomukade laughed, throwing its head back as its pincers clacked together. “But it was I who exposed the Jorougumo's deception. Won’t you spare me even the smallest benefit of the doubt?”

 

Her brows furrowed together as she tilted her head, trying to pry apart the monster’s intentions, but she wasn’t like Aglo—like the Jorougumo. If she could read minds, then she wouldn’t have to be fighting for her life at every corner in the first place.

 

“I heard you in my dream… so are you the one who told me about the mirror and the room?”

 

“Hmm, perhaps,” the Oomukade hummed, making a show of mulling over her question. “Perhaps I fiddled with the enchantment of the manor and loosened the bars to your cage a little too, but all that matters is that fate has finally brought you… to me.”

 

It suddenly dipped its head and Djeeta startled backwards, its pitch black gaze staring deep into her eyes. 

 

“I have always… been watching over you,” it murmured, echoing the same words from that strange dream. “And oh my dear… If only I had been by your side from the start. If only I had shoulders for you to cry on. The Jorougumo’s temper was quite an awful thing for you to behold, wasn’t it? But you did so well. You were so brave, crossing into this forest to defy him.”

 

Djeeta stepped further backwards, only to flinch when she felt one of its legs brush against her arm like the pointed tip of a tree branch. It leered again at her, but to her surprise, the coils of its body only loosened as it slowly drew away.

 

"I didn't mean to," she protested. "I... I only wanted to understand him better."

 

The centipede made a noncommital noise as its upper body glided through the air, weaving between the tree trunks before it circled back around to face her. "You are a kind thing, aren’t you?" it said. "But all if it was wasted on the ungrateful beast."

 

It wasn't like she hadn't heard something like that before, but she was in no position to argue with it this time. “Do you… know the god of the forest then?” she asked instead, deciding to take her chances elsewhere.

 

It tapped its legs against its body like how one might tap their chin while thinking. “Oh, how could I not? He is a volatile creature filled with a terrible resentment—such a sorrowful excuse for a god.” Its expression twisted despite the inflexibility of its armored head. “He took my eye because I had the audacity to hunt for my food on his territory, but what choice do you think I had when he claimed the entire forest? I was here first, that greedy harlot of an interloper.”

 

It spat in a direction away from her, and Djeeta watched as it crawled along the ground, its scathing choice of words to describe a god and the sight of its rippling legs making her own skin crawl.

 

“Ah…" it moaned. "The more I think about it, the more my blood boils. How could something as impure as him be the one to inherit the forest, and not me and mine own glory?”  

 

She frowned, craning her head as she continued to track its movements. “What do you mean by inherit? The Jorougumo wasn’t always the god of the forest?”

 

The centipede turned its eye on her, rearing its head to regard her with its full attention once more. “The Jorougumo has always been the god of the forest,” it answered. “But he has not always been the Jorou—ah, of course you wouldn’t know. All of this started before your great ancestors were even conceived, yet I remember everything like it was yesterday.”

 

The Oomukade sighed as it continued to pace, its breath traveling along the length of the body that slithered around her in an endless circle.

 

“Three young boys running through the forest, driven from their home by their own people… their flesh smelled so sweet, their fear even sweeter. Just the memory alone is enough to fire me up, but the first Lord Jorougumo found them before I could,” it lamented as Djeeta felt her own blood drain. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, my dear. I’m only reminiscing, and I’m sure that one day you’ll realize that nothing quite compares to the meat of mortal children.”

 

She found that the opposite of reassuring, but the monster mistook her abiding disgust for pity as the upper half of its body began to slowly sway back and forth while the rest of it slowed to a stop.

 

“Don’t be so quick to sympathize again,” it chided, opening and closing its jaws like it were wagging a finger at her. “It was only karma—the lesser mortals threw off their yokes and slew the tyrant and his mate before they drove out their offspring with the full intention of killing them too, but in the end, they had to accept that the children were lost to the forest... not before I managed to pick off a few stragglers to fill my belly with.”

Djeeta hid her fists behind her back as she maintained eye contact with the monster. It spoke sweetly to her, but it sorely lacked the bare minimum of tact that even the Jorougumo had with how nonchalantly it talked about eating people. Even then, she only had to make the most of the opportunity while she tried to piece together a plan to ease the creature into letting her go free, but something told her that it wasn’t a mere coincidence that she stumbled upon its abode in the first place.

 

“What happened after that? Are you saying the god actually saved them?” she asked next, determined to keep it talking.

 

The centipede yawned, exposing the segmented bits of its mouth that formed razor-sharp mandibles built for shredding flesh apart. 

 

“Save?” it drawled. “I suppose you could say that. Gods are vehicles of their own karma, but Lord Jorougumo made a deal with the oldest in exchange for their lives. I suppose the boy offered something that was far more tantalizing than the combined taste of their flesh.”

 

Its face split into another leer that made her stomach churn, but her curiosity turned out to be the bane of her common sense. Some of the things it said lined up with what she gleaned from the records left behind by Lamorak, but she felt that something was still missing even without mentioning what stake the god even had and why he despised the humans who worshipped him so deeply.

 

“There are two ways to consume life, and Lord Jorougumo was a monster of… particular tastes,” it continued. “But he nonetheless upheld his end of the bargain until he finally succumbed to the passage of time and withered—”

 

“Wait—withered? Like he died?” Djeeta blurted out before it could finish. “The god of the forest died?”

 

“Of course he died,” the centipede answered like that was the most reasonable conclusion, otherwise visibly peeved by the interruption. “Why do you think there was another who stood before you? The oldest child inherited the Jorougumo's divinity and shed his mortal skin in the most brazen act of blasphemy my own eyes were forced to witness.”

 

The Oomukade spat again, but Djeeta was no longer paying attention as her skin grew clammy.

 

“You’re… so you’re saying he… became the god of the forest when the first one died?”

 

The other tilted its head, antennae curling with distaste. “Disgusting, isn’t it? I’d been so patient, and yet it was a mere human who usurped me. That’s why I wanted to meet you, Djee—where do you think you’re going?”

 

The monster swung its tail and knocked her from the ledge after she had scrambled over the barrier formed by its body to try and scale her way back up the gorge. Djeeta hit the ground with a small oof before she rolled right back over, but the Oomukade immediately closed around her before she could try again.

 

“I have to apologize!” she gasped, her careless accusation ringing shrill within her head—of course he’d be upset. With everything that happened, how could she have gotten it wrong so many times?

 

The other tilted its head the other direction, unaffected by her mounting sense of urgency. “Apologize? To the Jorougumo? Sweet child…” It clicked its tongue, a rattling sound reverberating from deep within its shell. “Oh my dearest, sweetest child… Do you truly think that he will ever forgive you? You mean nothing to him.”

 

She glared at it, and it broke into another fit of laughter, chitin clacking against chitin.

 

“I only meant to save you from being devoured, that’s all. What difference does it make that he was human for a small fraction of his life?” it asked without expecting an answer, coiling in midair while its gaze never left her. “What has he done to earn your sympathy?”

 

Djeeta glanced at her sleeves, and the monster laughed again as if it read her mind.

 

“Nice clothes? Good food? A warm bed? In whose best interest do farmers tend to their livestock, Djeeta? He only meant to use you—”

 

“Lord Aglovale never asked anything of me,” Djeeta snarled, and the centipede startled as it drew back from her.

 

“Lord… Aglovale?” it echoed softly, its body growing still. “Oh… Oh! So that is the Jorougumo’s true name, isn’t it?”

 

Djeeta frowned, but before she could ask what it meant by that, the Oomukade’s head was suddenly inches from her face, its eye gleaming with delight.

 

“Join me, Djeeta. I will treat you far better than that monster ever would,” it drawled as she craned her head as far away as possible from its gaping jaws. “I will be a kind god, a wonderful god with you by my side, and in return, I will free you from that spider’s web for good.”

 

It took her a few more moments for her to regain her breath as the stench of rotting leaves and bitter venom threatened to overwhelm her.

 

“I-I don’t understand…” She swallowed, grimacing as sweat trickled down her neck. “What… What do you want from me?”

 

The Oomukade smiled as much as its anatomy would allow. “I spent many years wondering what it was that kept me from challenging the Jorougumo’s authority for the forest’s divinity. He was smaller, younger, and most egregious of all, he was impure—a creature drenched in filth. Then one day, I realized that the only thing he possessed that I did not was humanity, or at least a memory of it.

 

“Gods cannot exist without the mortals who worship them, and so I thought that there must be something special about the intersection of humanity and divinity, that if I had my own human to commune with, then perhaps I’d be granted access to far greater power than the Jorougumo himself.”

 

Djeeta balked. “...I have no idea what you’re talking about, but it sounds like you’re the one who wants to use me,” she said, shoving away one of the legs that hovered too close for her liking. “Didn’t you ask me to consider you a friend?”

 

The air shimmered as the monster hummed. “You’re as innocent as you are beautiful, Djeeta. It’s no wonder your aroma captivated me from the start, but yes… what I’m asking of you extends beyond mere friendship.”

 

It drew even closer until she could feel the heat of its breath stick to her skin alongside its idea of praise. She tried not to throw up on the spot.

 

“Be my mate,” it said. “I promise I won’t eat you even after you’ve given me plenty of offspring. I’ll even take on a more suitable form for you. See? Aren’t I far more kind and thoughtful than that monster?”

 

Djeeta stared at it in disbelief, bile rising within her throat when she realized that it was serious. She shoved the massive length of its body away from her as she whirled around. “I have to go—” However, she didn’t make it far when the Oomukade knocked her back down again with its tail, swatting her with the ease of a cat and its mouse.

 

“I suppose it is a rather tremendous decision to make on the spot,” it conceded. “But you’re special, Djeeta. The Jorougumo will be no match for the fruit of our union, and we’ll have our revenge… together.”

 

The creature was insane, she realized. Djeeta righted herself, stepping backwards as her eyes darted frantically looking for even the smallest of openings, but the Oomukade had her surrounded and the circle it formed around her only grew tighter with each passing second.

 

“Thanks, but no thanks,” she said sharply, refusing to waver even as there were no words to describe her sheer repulsion. The last thing on her mind at this point was revenge. She never felt so cornered during the time she spent beneath Lord Aglovale’s roof, and the more the monster spoke to her with its deceptively sweet voice, the more she realized the immeasurable distance between the god of the forest and what it claimed to be its own kindness. “I don’t know what you’re trying to sell me, but I don’t want it.”

 

“...Hm. Well, I can’t say that I’m not disappointed,” the Oomukade sighed as it unraveled its body just the slightest bit. Djeeta turned to grasp the sliver of an opportunity until it suddenly tied itself around her in a knot, the teeth of its legs threatening to tear into her skin from the force of its grip as she cried out.

 

“But asking was only a small courtesy on my part,” it continued while she gasped for breath, fingernails digging into the thick plates of chitin. “I only need your body, not your consent.”

 

She kicked her feet, thrashing even as the air was slowly being squeezed out of her lungs, to which the monster only laughed, its voice overflowing with mirth.

 

“Oh, don’t struggle so much, my dear,” it purred, coiling even tighter around her. “My instincts may have me mistake you for prey, and that won’t end well for you.”

 

It threw her against the ground. Djeeta rolled to the side amidst the leaf litter, gasping for air, but the giant centipede was upon her again, its countless legs wrapping around her torso this time as it pressed the flat of its serpentine body against her so tightly that she could feel its pulse hammering from what she realized was excitement.

 

“Get… get off of me, you creep—!” she snarled, lashing out with a fist that nearly cracked the layer of its armor, but the monster wasn’t to be deterred as it continued laughing.

 

“Such vigor! I changed my mind—struggle more, Djeeta! I haven’t felt this alive in centuries,” it sneered, arching its head back as its legs pinned her hands to her shoulders. “You might hate it now, but while my venom is not as intoxicating as the Jorougumo’s, I promise you’ll come to enjoy it by the end.”

 

She didn’t know what that was supposed to mean as it circled back around to purr into her ear, sending waves of revulsion crawling throughout her skin while she hissed and spit at whatever part of it she could reach. 

 

“Why are you doing this?” she spat out, glowering at the shredded remains of its eye and the scars she now knew were Aglovale’s handiwork. Was he watching from somewhere out there? Did he think that this was her just desserts? “Why me?”

 

The Oomukade’s mouthparts rattled again, the tips of its antennae stroking the length of her body while she thrashed against it. “Why? Not only are you his most prized offering, but I truly meant it when I said that you were special, Djeeta. If not for my own ambitions, I would have loved to dine on your innards as well.”

 

The monster bore down on her, and Djeeta braced herself, determined to at least bite off a leg or two. That is, until she felt its entire body grow rigid, its fangs freezing inches from her throat.

 

“No…” Its voice left its mouth in a low tremble as it raised its head, staring at something beyond her field of view. “No, no, no—! Why is he here? Did you call him here?”

 

Before she could figure out who or what it was babbling about, the Oomukade flung her against the wall of the gorge, narrowly dodging a shimmering flurry of dark blue that landed centimeters from where its head was before.

 

Djeeta watched in a daze as Aglovale touched the ground with the same grace that adorned him when she watched him weave at the loom for the very first time. He was enthralling then, and he was enthralling now as the dead leaves and forest debris took to the air in a whirlwind to leave the ground upon which he touched clean and bare. His oversized sleeves billowed all around him like the waves of the ocean, the flawless silk of his robes belying none of the violence that tore his form apart when she saw him last.

 

The Oomukade had no human face, but she could tell that the monster was beside itself with terror as it reared back its head, fangs wringing together. “You! You planned this! You let her go on purpose, didn’t you? You conniving, lying, deceitful, little—”

 

“Silence,” he intoned, and the monster made a sound as if it’d been forcefully gagged. Aglovale then slowly lowered the finger he had lifted to his lips.

 

“Tell me, Lord Oomukade. What did I say I would do next time our paths crossed?”

Chapter 11

“Tell me, Lord Oomukade. What did I say I would do next time our paths crossed?”

 

Aglovale stood between them with his back to her, the great centipede rearing its body in what she thought was an act of defiance until she caught a glimpse of the shining threads wrapped around it, stretched taut and reminiscent of puppet strings.

 

“Taking your last eye was only meant to be a warning,” Aglovale continued. His voice was even and measured, but it was clear to even her that he was furious for a reason she didn't understand.  “The worms that trawl the earth are blind, and so I thought an oversized specimen such as yourself would fare well enough without either of its eyes in due time.”

 

The Oomukade trembled with sheer indignance as it struggled against its bindings.

 

Aglovale’s voice rose, and she imagined his gaze flashing with an unforgiving glare. “But the consequences must’ve been so trite that you’d dare to cross me like this,” he said. “Your presence has been a convenience up till now, but to threaten defiling my offering far outweighs any kind of service or convenience you may ever provide me.”

 

Djeeta steadied herself against the ground as she blinked wearily at the rather one-sided standoff taking place before her, wondering why he talked like she still had anything to do with him after driving her away, which begged the question as to why he was here in the first place.

 

“I don’t serve you,” it spat.

 

“Not presently, no,” he replied. “So you understand that there is very little keeping me from simply killing you right here.”

 

“Don’t… don’t raise your head so high, Lord Jorougumo,” the Oomukade choked out. “Not much time has passed since you too crawled along the earth… weeping, crying… like the piece of vermin that you are.”

 

Aglovale regarded it with coldness. “Yet even less time has passed since you begged that very same piece of vermin for your life, Lord Oomukade.”

 

“Arrogance!” it snarled, body twisting and coiling in place. “Such… utter… arrogance! I’m sick of that look in your eyes, your stench, the divinity that’s wasted on loose filth such as yourself—”

 

It stopped, the silence falling over them broken only by the sound of a distant droplet falling into a puddle.

 

“Ah… Ah…!” it suddenly gasped, its demeanor completely shifting as she felt Aglovale’s bemusement from where the Oomukade had flung her. “That’s right. I’ve been blessed. You may deny me her body, but I’ve already been blessed by this child’s stupidity—” It broke into sharp, acrid laughter while it gnashed its fangs together, pulling against the threads even as they began to slice into its armor.

 

“Be silent—” Aglovale hissed, tightening his hold, but the Oomukade only laughed harder.

 

“You’ve no power over me,” it leered. “I’ve let you blather on long enough, Lord Jorougumo… or should I say, Lord Aglovale—?”

 

And just like that, the balance immediately shifted the instant it uttered his name. Aglovale’s threads broke, and the giant centipede writhed free in a whirlwind of severed fibers that floated down to earth. It spared no moment as it coiled through the air like a great serpent and violently lashed out, the club of its tail connecting with his head to send him flying into the thicket.

 

“Lord Aglovale—!”

 

Clouds of dust exploded on impact and filled the air, and she felt the groan of the forest as an entire line of trees swayed before keeling over entirely, their trunks snapped in two as if they’d been nothing more than twigs crushed underfoot.

 

But the Oomukade wasn’t done as she made out its shadow towering over the destruction it wrought with a single stroke, watching in horror as it lifted its tail and continued to thrash the earth over and over, uprooting trees and sending chunks of dirt into the air.

 

“How’s that taste, you damn spider!” it screeched with glee. “What did you say that you were going to do when our paths crossed again? Jog my memory, won’t you!”

Djeeta grit her teeth as she scrambled back onto her feet, grabbing the sharpest and straightest branch closest to her before she charged at the monster, holding her makeshift weapon like a javelin, but the tip of the wood simply splintered against the thick chitin, and she buckled before rolling out of the way to dodge the monster’s retaliating fangs.

 

“Behave,” it hissed, neck coiling around before returning to its prior position. “I will deal with you later, you annoying little slut.”

 

She bit back venom as the Oomukade returned to its onslaught like she was nothing, bashing the ground with wanton abandon. The forest trembled as Djeeta ground her own teeth and cursed her empty hands. If only she had her sword, she could at least buy enough time until Lord Aglovale could find his bearings again, if he were even still alive at this point as the monster eviscerated the earth with its claws and fangs—

 

Her blood ran cold and she banished the possibility from her head. Aglovale was a god, and even for all of his frustrating quirks, she didn’t want to believe that someone like him could lose to this scumbag of a giant centipede of all things.

 

Djeeta craned her head towards the canopy of the forest, searching for another option, another possibility. If she could climb high enough, then maybe she’d be able to throw herself onto the Oomukade’s head and distract it long enough to at least keep it from turning the forest into a pile of compost, but her budding recklessness was cut short when a flurry of blue broke free from the cloud of dust, a slender arm sprouting from the embroidered ocean waves before plunging into the Oomukade’s skull with a sickening crunch.

 

“Did you think that the only difference in our power was a little bit of sorcery?” the god asked almost softly above the clamor. “You foolish creature.”

 

Djeeta fell to the ground, covering her ears as the monster let out a blood-curdling scream that sent even more trees crashing in waves. She watched as Aglovale, still in one piece, pulled free a glistening mass of flesh the color and consistency of tar before he tossed it aside.

 

“My eye!” the Oomukade shrieked, the entirety of its body writhing with pain as it crashed blindly into the gorge before Aglovale could land another blow, skidding along the face of it and colliding into a line of trees like a runaway train as the splintered top of a fallen trunk sliced open the underside of its body. “My eye, my eye, my eye—! You took my eye, you bottom feeding piece of shit, you filth, you fucking—!”

 

Djeeta ducked and rolled for cover before the Oomukade’s wild thrashing could turn her into collateral damage. Aglovale too leapt away, but the tail of his silk betrayed his movements and the monster lashed out with its fangs, burying them into his side while he was still in midair. Her heart dropped as she saw his face twist from the force of the blow, but the monster had only caught a mouthful of his sleeve before he was able to twist himself free and land close enough to her while the centipede continued thrashing and howling its obscenities in lieu of ripping him to pieces.

 

She didn’t know how to describe his expression when their eyes finally met, Lord Aglovale’s scarlet startlingly soft as if the sheer anger that had driven her away and the ruthlessness he wielded against the Oomukade were somehow artifacts of the past. The monster’s screaming almost seemed so far away as he extended his clean hand to her, the panes of his sleeve swaying gently.

 

Djeeta swallowed before she could finally find her voice again.

 

“Are you really… Lord Aglovale?”

 

He lowered his eyes—a glimpse of soft uncertainty, of gentleness that closed around her heart and squeezed her chest.

 

“I am,” he answered quietly.

 

Djeeta threw her arms around his neck, but they didn’t have time for much else when Aglovale scooped her whole body into his arms and leapt from the gorge, narrowly dodging the trajectory of the Oomukade’s rampage as it continued throwing itself in every direction like it were a mace to be swung around.

 

“You fucking spider!” it howled, black blood gushing from the hole Aglovale had carved out of its skull. “I’ll find you! I’ll find you and I’ll rip out your rancid mortal guts! You’ll eat shit, and you’ll turn into shit, and then I’ll water your brothers’ graves with your worthless shit for blood!”  

 

“Mouthy creature,” he muttered, which somehow seemed like an understatement.

 

Djeeta watched the raging centipede grow smaller from over his shoulder until something else caught her eye—the soil she sat upon moments earlier began to churn and liquify like tar, not unlike the thick blood that was fountaining out of the Oomukade’s head before everything congealed into the shape of another colossally serpentine creature that lunged for them and nearly clipped Aglovale’s heel.

 

The flattened tendril-monster-hybrid caught the tail of his robes before he shook off its grip, and she realized with stomach-churning horror that the dark mass wasn’t soil that had somehow come to life, but masses upon masses of insects and worms and centipedes writhing together in a tangle of legs and antennae and pincers.

 

“I will not drop you,” Aglovale murmured even though she saw the strain in his face as she clung to his neck tighter than ever. They alighted upon a branch before taking to the air once more, but the horde only chased after them like some kind of vengeful phantom formed from the nightmares of countless children. Her hair whipped about her face for how fast Aglovale was flying while she watched entire trees collapse under the weight of the insects that were still in hot pursuit.

 

“A-Aglovale—”

 

“Even if you were to let go, I will not drop you,” he repeated, the tip of his toe touching the very top of a pine tree before they were airborne again. Sure enough, the horde finally collapsed within itself as the magic that gave it shape dissipated, showering the forest with countless insects squirming aimlessly.

 

Djeeta swore she just lost another handful of years off her life as she watched the black cloud of vermin vanish into the canopy of the forest, only for her stomach to drop to further depths when she turned her head and found that they were nearly at the threshold of the manor.

 

But just when she thought they were going to overshoot it and land beyond the garden, Djeeta felt the momentum leave Aglovale’s gait. She looked up to find the other barely clinging to consciousness as his grip on her loosened and the pair of them began to fall, full-fledged panic setting in alongside the force of gravity as her stomach flew into her ribcage.

 

“Aglovale—!”

 

His eyes snapped back open as the light returned to his depths. He didn’t waste another moment as he tightened his hold on her and swung his body around, the train of his robes whipping behind them like the tail of a comet before they crashed through the roof of the manor in an explosion of wood and tile.

 

Colliding with the ground nearly knocked the air out of her lungs, but she still had enough in her to hope that the crunching all around her was from the manor itself, and not Lord Aglovale’s bones. 

 

Reeling, she tried to steady herself the moment she could tell up from down so that there would be at least one less weight crushing him, but before she could gather her breath and call his name, a small mass threw itself onto her back as tiny paws frantically dusted the pieces of roof and rafter from her hair and shoulders. She buckled and lost her newly-regained balance, collapsing onto the rubble and peering at her surroundings for an explanation until she could make out the familiar faces emerging from the dust.

 

“You… you guys—” she managed hoarsely before the whole lot of them immediately surged forth, the spirits throwing themselves at her en masse as they pawed at whatever part of her that they could reach, cooing and chirping and being far more mouthy than what any kind of spider could be.

 

“H-hey wait, ouch, that hurts—” She squirmed, doing her best to be gentle as she pried the forest spirits off of herself and off of each other. “We have to check on Lord Aglovale, he might be even worse off—”

 

And just on cue, the figure of the god rose from the rubble, dust and pieces of the manor sliding off of his form as he straightened his back, not a single hair out of place even now in divine fashion.

 

“I am not,” he said as he moved languidly to brush away the remaining pieces of roof dusting his robes. Djeeta caught a glimpse of a dark splotch staining the fabric of his sleeve, but he turned away before she could get a better look. Cleanliness wasn't exactly a priority right now after they escaped death by a billion insects, but she wouldn't say no to a hot bath either.

 

She watched alongside the servants as Aglovale continued to stand there with his back to them all, the evening light pouring in through the hole they made in the roof like a spotlight before he finally spoke again.

 

“If you are done, follow me,” he said before pausing, the length of his hair swaying with each movement, including those of his hesitation. “...I’ve given you no reason to further indulge me, but I ask it of you nonetheless.”

 

He moved to leave and the spiders slid off of her in defeat as she stood up so abruptly that he stopped again.

 

“I—you just fell from the sky, Lord Aglovale! Should you really be walking around right now?”

 

“Please,” he responded with that familiar air of exasperation. “I’ve no need for the concern you’re always so determined to impose upon me.”

 

He paused again, the edge of his voice softening just like before. “…You have grievances, I know. I will listen to them if you’ll give me this, Djeeta.”

 

Djeeta followed Aglovale as he led the way through the manor, swallowing her surprise and wonder when he conjured an entirely new and unfamiliar corridor from the face of an empty wall with a single wave of his hand.

 

The silence between them was almost too heavy for her to bear as they continued down the newly forged path. Adrenaline gone, she was left to her thoughts, and she had plenty of them. How long ago was it that she was running for her life? How long ago was it that she met the monstrous centipede called the Oomukade for the first time? That she watched a fight between two monstrous forces so powerful they could fell entire trees with a single blow? And now she was back where she started with the two of them taking what seemed to be just another stroll through the manor as if nothing had happened at all. She stumbled slightly, wondering if this was all another dream.

 

“We are almost there,” Aglovale said as if he sensed the weakness in her steps. Soon enough, the pair of them found themselves before a single door, which slid open with another wave of his hand. Aglovale stepped past the threshold, and Djeeta followed him into what seemed to be a bedroom that greeted her with the familiar scent of pine.

 

A large bed whose frame was carved from the trunk of a single tree rested against the furthest wall at the center of the room. It was covered by a canopy made out of a heavy fabric, its layered curtains airy like loosely-woven silk that reminded her of the spun burrows of ground-dwelling spiders. Her eyes were busy studying the intricate carvings in the wood before she realized that Lord Aglovale had veered off to stand before the opposite wall.

 

The bottom half of the wall was covered by a table laden with years of memories—dried flowers that were nearly crumbling, trinkets and figurines of what looked like different animals molded from clay by tiny hands, small stacks of letters tied with twine, and most prominently of all, framed pictures that were so great in number that they not only filled up the space provided by the table, but the face of the wall as well.

 

Djeeta craned her head to take them in their entirety as Lord Aglovale slowly raised a hand and gently stroked the frame of the nearest one.

 

Three boys hand-in-hand. One with a head of blond, another with a head of tawny brown, and then the last with a head of striking red—all three of them with the same scarlet eyes. As her own eyes moved from one drawing to the next, the memories themselves took shape as the original artist honed his craft to the point that he could capture their forms and expressions with more than just smudges of color.

 

And then her eyes found an Aglovale she recognized, or at least some version of him from a different time. He must’ve still been a teenager in this particular portrait, but the artist had captured his likeness so well that she had no trouble recognizing him through the paper and charcoal. He grew older alongside his brothers, his hair growing longer as the last of his baby fat melted away to reveal pointed but graceful features, and then it was as if his time stopped altogether as his brothers continued onwards without him until she was staring at his mirror image with their withered hands resting upon his shoulders, their hair silver while his was untarnished gold.

 

“What am I… looking at?”

 

Aglovale blinked slowly as if he too followed the journey her eyes took. “The answer you originally sought.”

 

She turned to him, searching his expression in hopes that she could glean something more than that, but Aglovale rarely ever made it easy. 

 

“Then the Oomukade was telling the truth?”

 

He tilted his head slightly to the side as he lowered his gaze. “I suppose for once.”

 

Djeeta took a deep breath, straightening her back as she stepped closer. He was right—this was the answer she wanted all along, yet where one empty hole found its missing piece, another one opened up.

 

A knot formed within her when she looked back at the drawings. Even as adolescents, they each looked as carefree as any child should be, their smiles bright and unfettered despite the timeworn paper upon which their visage was recorded. She ached, and for so many different reasons that she couldn’t place her finger on a single one. “Your brothers really were human, and so were… you.”

 

The other’s lips twitched in spite of himself as he gazed back at the wall of memories. “Would you still find it worth mentioning if I were in my other form?” he asked before glancing back at her, bringing his fingers from the frame to his chest. “The time I’ve spent as a human next to the total years I’ve lived are as brief as the time you’ve spent as an infant, Djeeta. This appearance is… a memory, and memories can so easily be forgotten.”

 

She frowned, unsure of what he meant by that as he turned to trace the edge of the table. His fingers stopped before another portrait of himself that was far more realistic than the others as if the artist had taken special care to capture every detail of his visage.

 

“But Lamorak did not want me to forget,” he continued. “He was… frightened. After all, I had not seen my own face in the flesh in so long, for every reflection shows and has shown me the god of the forest instead.”

 

He looked at her again as he stepped closer, and Djeeta could only tilt her head back as their eyes met—Aglovale’s own staring deep into hers. “Every reflection except for…”

 

His eyelashes fluttered, and Djeeta suddenly realized how pale his complexion was before she caught a whiff of something sickly sweet and metallic. Looking down, she saw that the dark splotch staining his sleeve had grown bigger, blood traveling down the length of his robes before it pooled onto the floor and seeped into the cracks.

 

“Lord Aglovale!” she cried out, rushing forward as he faltered, then crumbled to the ground halfway into her arms.

 

Her own blood running cold, she hurriedly pushed back the excess of his silken robes to reveal a terrible injury where the Oomukade’s fang had punched a gaping hole in his side. Crimson trickled from the wound while the surrounding skin was dyed terrible shades of black and purple, the veins forming a lattice around the injury stained the same colors as if they were filled with poison.

 

“You’re… you’re hurt—”

 

Aglovale’s head tilted to the side as he watched her fret. “Where have I heard this before?”

 

“I mean it!” she almost snapped while her eyes darted around for something to stuff the hole with until the other grasped her own sleeve and brought her back to attention.

 

“And I will not die from this, Djeeta,” he said even as his skin grew paler, his breath more haggard. “I am… a god.”

 

She was far from convinced when she shook off his grip to grab him back. “Why did you even come back?” she demanded. “You were so… so angry with me, and you should’ve been! And I should’ve been angry too, but now I can’t be because you’re hurt and it’s my fault.” She shook her head. “Why… why even bother bringing me back and showing me this if this was the cost?”

 

“...‘If I did something wrong, then I’ll apologize”— that was what you said to me that day,” he murmured as his answer. “Tell me, Djeeta… What did you say afterward?”

 

She stared at him, asking herself if he had already lost too much blood. “This is really not the time for that, Lord Aglovale—”

 

His lips twitched again. “Indulge me in this too.”

 

She grit her teeth together before she gave in. “I said that I wasn’t lying to you, that I wasn’t trying to run away when I fell into the river.”

 

“But you must’ve known even then that it would not have mattered,” he replied. “So why did you try so hard to muster your courage? What did you have to prove?”

 

Djeeta faltered, brows furrowing together as she tried to figure out what new game he was trying to play.

 

“I…” She shook her head again, blinking away the burning that suddenly gathered in her eyes. “I didn’t want you to think I was a liar.”

 

Aglovale sighed as he finally pressed a hand to the wound. “You see? It’s the principle of it. I behaved rashly, as I’ve found myself often doing when it came to you, you maddening conundrum of a child,” he said. “But that is no consolation for you, who I had driven off. Even then, I found that I still could not even offer you half of a lie.”

 

He tilted his head back as Djeeta grounded herself to steady him, but Aglovale had none of it as he pulled his weight away from her and leaned back onto his haunches instead.

 

“The difference between gods and demons is that we have no need for lies—we simply take, for that is what mortals call divinity. My dominion over the forest is not so weak that I’d rely on you as bait to draw the Oomukade away from its nest either.” The smile faded from his lips. “But we are creatures equal in our depravity, as was the Jorougumo who came before me.”

 

“No!” It took no thought at all to determine that he was decidedly very wrong. “You’re different. I don’t care what excuse you have this time, but you’ve saved me more than once now—”

 

“I did not save you,” Aglovale replied. “I did not save you just as the Jorougumo did not save me and my brothers. I acted on my own whim, and for my own pleasure. I am incapable… of anything else.”

 

“No,” she said again, knowing full well that her determination might as well be pure stubbornness at this point. “You’re kidding yourself if you think you can convince me otherwise.”

 

“Such brazenness to talk back to me like this.” He clicked his tongue softly. “If I were to assume my other, more repulsive form, will you remember what I truly am? It hasn’t been so long that even you would forget, Djeeta.”

 

Djeeta tightened her fingers around the hem of his robes. “I’m not,” she muttered, nearly wincing when she recalled the visceral scene of his body ripping itself apart while the weight of his shadow loomed over the forefront of her mind, but she held fast. “I haven’t forgotten at all.”

 

“But you have forgotten that I’ve killed and eaten many people, just as the Oomukade had. I’ve put an end to so many lives, quashed countless dreams, and dashed mountains upon mountains of hopes. You could have so easily been one of many, and where would we be then?”

 

She couldn’t pretend that that had nothing to do with her, but Djeeta refused to waver, and Aglovale only seemed all the more amused by it. “Maybe a part of you wanted to believe that they deserved it, that my wrath is karma. Given the nature my existence, it may as well be, but I know at least this much of you, Djeeta.” Her name on his lips was hardly more than a whisper. “You are far too kind for these matters. Someone such as yourself will never be able to reconcile with the slaughter of others, and so a part of you will always remember that I am a monster.”

 

Her stomach dropped as blood squeezed through the cracks of his fingers, but he pulled away before she could gather the mess of their robes to stem the bleeding.

 

“...Yet knowing this, your eyes still hold so much clarity when you look at me,” he went on to say, pausing to take in the slightest, shuddering breath. “So much that you might even be on the verge of tears if I didn't know better.”

 

She bit her lip, swallowing the tightness in her throat before she spoke. “That centipede was right,” she choked out. “You really do talk too much.”

 

He laughed dryly in spite of the blood that trickled freely down his waist. “The gods are insatiable monsters, and I am no exception. The humans who worship them are equally vile, but you…” His fingers twitched as the venom spread slowly throughout his body, the veins in his arm turning black.

 

“...You are the only one allowed to be different.”

Chapter 12

Notes:

Hello everyone! I just wanted to poke in and apologize for the sudden hiatus I took. I'm still getting settled into my new place, but I'm at a good spot to start updating again. Once again, thanks so much for reading!

Even in the space of dreams, Aglovale felt the centipede’s deep-seated grudge eat him from the inside out, many-legged segments forcing themselves through his veins and arteries while they chewed new paths through the very core of his soul like termites through wood.

 

But he would not die from this. He’d been through worse pain before, eager for death even, but death had not and could not take him, for the god of the forest was a god of life, or a god of cycles, and his penance had not yet run its course.

 

His brothers’ freedom, his mother’s dreams, and his father’s sins—the Oomukade wasn’t the first creature to call him a tyrant. He could imagine the things Djeeta wanted to ask him had he not succumbed to rest first. She would’ve wanted to know why—she would’ve wanted to know every step of misfortune and treachery that led him to where he was now.

 

Aglovale turned his gaze elsewhere in the void. He thought of his father. Taciturn, strict, but not cruel. If Djeeta asked him if the Oomukade’s words were true, if his father were a tyrant, then that child of times long gone would say no, naive and unknowing of any contrary.

 

Suppose he had been, and the people they ruled over were right to drag him from the castle they had called home. Perhaps one could even lend their sympathy as they slit his mother’s throat in the very bed they used to share when he couldn’t sleep at night, for she must’ve been complicit in their suffering.

 

Aglovale met the gaze of his crimson reflection, shadows creeping all around him, the roar of fire and frenzy digging their teeth into his back as he pulled his brothers through the thicket, never having tasted fear so visceral until that night.

 

Suppose his father had been a tyrant and the demise of his parents was merely due for the course, but what harm had Lamorak done? What harm had Percival—Percival, who was so tiny, so soft-hearted that he wept at the dinner table when he learned where the meat on his plate came from?

 

The centipedes tilled the earth, bringing to the surface ash and long-buried memories as he fell into another dream within a dream—they were running through the forest now, the night sky dyed red by ash and firelight as the clamor of metal grew louder while men screamed for something he knew he couldn’t give them. Percival was sobbing, his legs too short to clear the gnarled tree roots as Aglovale pulled him along without stopping, but he had to learn that the pain of thorns would be far less than the bite of iron brandished by a mob whom their voices will never reach again. 

 

Aglovale threw both of his brothers into the hollow of a rotting, beetle-infested tree, clamping a hand over his youngest brother’s mouth to stifle his sobs while Lamorak’s gaze had detached altogether in the darkness. The back of his hands prickled either from the stream of tears or the paths drawn by crawling insects, his tiny lungs stuttering and threatening to give as the roar of trampling feet descended upon them like a battering storm. One villager stopped to shout orders to the rest, a mockery of the generals he used to admire while the words in his mouth were like daggers. Aglovale wanted to close his eyes and cover his ears to bring the world back to silence, but he had to keep Lamorak and Percival close lest they too be swept away by the flames.

 

Still though, he couldn’t stop himself from praying to anyone, anything, to any god that had not yet abandoned his family. 

 

What had they done to deserve this?

 

Djeeta sat at Lord Aglovale’s bedside, a small basket of leaves resting upon her lap as she gingerly took her hand away from his brow. She had spent the early morning dumping out murky red water to bring in fresh pails, having taken the chore upon herself when she saw one of the spiders teeter dangerously with a tub on its head while its brethren tended to Aglovale’s wound, but now there wasn’t much else for her to do save for this.

 

Djeeta took one of the leaves and twirled it once between her fingers. It was small, but pungent, and its prickly scent reminded her of the medicine shops she would pass by during her wayfaring travels. That alone was promising enough to her as she held her breath, leaned in, and gently tucked the leaf between Aglovale’s lips while one of the spirits perched nearby rowed its front legs in encouragement, its yellow ribbon a splash of color amidst the dreary pile of rags.

 

Djeeta jumped when the forest god stirred as if he’d been summoned back to the waking world by the offering as he obediently took the leaf in its entirety, chewed, then swallowed it, a look of mild distaste forming on his face.

 

“...I despise the texture of leaves in my mouth,” he muttered in a low rasp. His voice left him like a sigh, almost like he was relieved despite himself as Djeeta watched his eyelids flutter halfway open. She had spent every moment between changing his bandages watching over him while he slept, fiddling with his bedding and the small knots in his hair when her hands couldn’t sit still, but she could still only wonder what kind of dream he might’ve been dreaming for him to look so feverish.

 

“What do you mean a god of the forest doesn’t like eating leaves?” she asked instead, blinking innocently when Aglovale managed to open his eyes all the way to give her a look. He could glare at her all that he wanted—anything he could throw at her now would be a step above him collapsing into her arms, refusing to wake no matter how much she shook him or shouted his name.

 

But Lord Aglovale only settled back into his pillow. “...For three days, that was all we could eat in the forest until we found this place.”

 

Djeeta lowered her gaze as she had an inkling feeling as to what he was talking about. “When you had to leave your home behind?”

 

“Yes,” he answered before he turned his eyes back on her, looking about as tired as she’d expect. “I see that the oversized vermin had imparted upon you plenty before I interrupted.”

 

She looked away, pressing her lips together as she rubbed her arms to dispel the crawling sensation that manifested beneath her skin. It wasn’t so long ago that she thought she’d do almost anything to learn more about him, but even when she found herself closer to the truth she was so desperate to grasp, she felt no gratitude for the centipede. “...I’m sorry.”

 

She glanced back at him just in time to see his expression soften through his exhaustion unless she was only imagining things. He sighed, and a breeze blew gently through the open shutters, glass ornaments clinking together from where they hung before the windows. “How odd… to apologize now of all times for the thoughtlessness that landed you in the river, but I will accept it.”

 

Djeeta blinked again. “What?”

 

Aglovale stared at the ceiling. “I cannot imagine that there’d be anything else you must apologize for, you perpetually vexing child.”

 

She stared at him, wondering what kind of thought puzzle he was subjecting her to this time, or if he was being serious in a way equally unfathomable to her. 

 

“I went through your things!” she exclaimed, wondering if she bumped his head a little too hard when she dragged him off of the floor. “I went through your things, I practically called you a fake, and even after all that, you still came back for me… and now you’re hurt. How is this supposed to be anything but my fault?” She swallowed, before answering her own question. “Obviously it’s my fault.”

 

Aglovale shifted in his bed and she immediately forgot her guilt as she startled from her seat, hands halfway in the air in case he stumbled, but the god only pushed himself through his discomfort as he more or less sat up. “The forest… would be in a sorry state if I’ve fallen so low that mortal hands could bring harm to me.” He looked at her and she swallowed again, wholly unconvinced. “...I merely retrieved an offering I treated carelessly, and everything that followed after was by my own doing, or because of it,” he said. 

 

She pressed her lips together, wanting to believe him if that would lift the weight from her heart, but she could only shake her head as the Oomukade’s shadow slinked along the edges of her conscience, endlessly insisting that the Jorougumo wouldn’t ever forgive her. “But I…” Her fists closed atop her lap as she sat back down, staring holes into the remaining leaves within the basket. “...I gave the Oomukade your name. You must’ve guarded it for centuries, and just like that, I…”

 

She felt another sigh from him before his fingers found themselves beneath her chin to tilt her head back up against all sensibilities. “What then, would convince me to give you my name if I’ve been guarding it as closely as you imply?” he asked without expecting an answer from her. “It’s an inconvenience, yes, but I’ve little reason for caution—you cannot hurt me, Djeeta.”

 

He lowered his hand and her stuttering heart only twisted when she caught a glimpse of the blackened veins in his arms partially hidden by his sleeves. “...Is there really nothing that I can do?” she asked him, biting down on her growing frustration. “Am I really supposed to just sit here like none of this has anything to do with me?”

 

Aglovale tilted his head in lieu of answering, and she felt his eyes travel slowly up the length of her arm before resting upon her collar. His tongue swiped across his lips only briefly, but the flash of the thorns in his mouth didn’t escape her.

 

“Careful,” he murmured lowly. “Any further than this and one may think that there may be another reason for your obstinance. That you may truly… care for me.”

 

Djeeta held her breath as Aglovale drew himself closer. The fever that swept his skin only seemed to make the scarlet of his eyes glow hotter as she felt his gaze bite into her for that first taste, his suggestion ringing in her ears.

 

She had to admit that there were times when she forgot what brought her here and why, but Aglovale was so close that she’d be hard-pressed to forget anything except for how to move her lips and muster a quip. “You know I can go further than this,” Djeeta finally managed after a moment of fighting her own tongue. “If that’s what it’s gonna take."

 

Aglovale paused as she brought back to mind the sight of his blood squeezing between her fingers when she wrung clean the rags at the stream. The bleeding hadn’t stopped when she first rolled him out onto the sheets, and it didn’t stop then while the spiders labored tirelessly to draw the venom from their master’s body before they could stitch the gaping hole shut. By the end of it, her clothes had been soaked through by exertion, her hands pruning and rubbed raw.

 

“You are… my offering,” he said again, and she wondered if the reminder was meant more for himself when his voice seemed so distant. “My foolish… foolish… offering.”

 

His eyes darkened with a look Djeeta had seen plenty enough times in the wilds, but she only tempered her instincts as she took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She wasn’t afraid. She knew what it meant to be afraid, and she knew what it meant to be afraid of him. For all his blood and agony, anything that he had to take from her in order to ease his own pain would be droplets in comparison, and so she made up her mind.

 

Aglovale must’ve realized her resolve when his mouth hovered closer, his breath hot from fever—or something else that made her skin tingle as she closed her eyes and leaned in. A part of her hoped that it would be quick, while another reckoned that he could stand to be less of a tease as they spent another moment in baited silence, his lips too close, but his fangs not enough.

 

“I am… satiated,” he whispered before pulling away and cutting the invisible thread between them altogether. “There’s nothing more for me to take from you.”

 

Djeeta balked, wondering if she heard him right. “What… What are you talking about? I-I have plenty!” she stammered, realizing that she had no idea what she was talking about. “That… that’s what I’m here for right? I mean, this is what I wanted to—”

 

Aglovale’s lips only twitched, amused despite all of his exhaustion and agony.

 

“…There is a loose board within the vestibule,” he spoke over her, pivoting without hardly a warning or explanation. “Underneath are the remnants of Percival’s old companion… You mentioned being partial to the sword, and while it can hardly be called a sword anymore, perhaps it will lend to you more than just some peace of mind.”

 

Djeeta continued to stare at him, dumbfounded while her thoughts rerouted.

 

“Then follow the river towards the sea,” Aglovale continued as she sensed his body growing heavier and heavier. “Far from here but still within reach is a small fishing village that does not worship the forest and its bloodlust. It’ll be a distance, but the Oomukade fears water and you’re accustomed to making the long journey, aren’t you?”

 

“Why…” She slowly shook her head while her eyes never left him. “Why are you telling me this?”

 

She found that Lord Aglovale’s exhaustion was all the more apparent whenever he smiled. “Clearly I do not have the means to keep you here any longer,” he said. “I release you, Djeeta.”

 

“Wait!” She grabbed his sleeve as if there was anywhere he had the strength to go. “What’s gonna happen if—” she cleared her throat, “—what’s gonna happen after I leave then?”

 

He held her gaze, his face the paradigm of calm against her confusion and the pain that she knew was there when his wound was one wrong turn from opening up again. “Naturally all that I can do is wait for the venom to run its course. The Oomukade will likely seize its opportunity, and then we will fight until one of us devours the other.”

 

He tilted his head while she looked horrified. “But none of that has any bearing on what you should do, does it, Djeeta?”

 

Djeeta opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. He had to be absolutely delusional if he genuinely believed that she could just prance out of the manor, crash at a village she’d never heard of, and call it a day—all the while danger was coming for him on a hundred legs.

 

“I—” she choked out, at a loss. “You… You’re so… stupid.”

 

Aglovale only watched as she stood up, nearly scattering the leaves she had half a mind to shove into his mouth. 

 

“...Strange,” he said. “I imagined you’d find the promise of freedom more agreeable than this.”

 

Djeeta exploded. “You can’t get worse! You can’t possibly get any worse!” she cried, so frustrated that she couldn’t even bother with maintaining airs or whatever dignity she still had to her name as she stamped her foot. “You think I’m stubborn? You’re stubborn! If you get any worse than this because you can’t get it through your stupid head that you’re seriously hurt, that you have everything to do with me, then I’ll never forgive…—!”

 

She clamped her mouth shut, swallowing the lump forming in her throat as her eyes burned like the traitors they were.

 

“I just… I just want you to get better,” she finished in a tiny voice, the heat of her anger dissipating like smoke as her courage fell to pieces. Her vision blurred before she could see how angry or upset he was, not that she stuck around to be yelled at in return as she whirled about and dashed out of the room, cursing her own weakness over and over.

 

The forest spirit who had followed her out instead of staying behind to watch over its master trailed closely behind, staring up at her with its large round eyes whenever she glanced over her shoulder.

 

“I overdid it, didn’t I?” she asked while it tilted its head. “He’s tired, so maybe I shouldn’t have yelled…”

 

It wasn’t like the spirit could tell her yes or no, but she had a feeling it didn’t blame her in the slightest if it decided to follow her like this as she made her way to the front of the manor.

 

When Djeeta entered the vestibule like Lord Aglovale told her to, she found that she wasn’t alone. Another spirit sat beside one of the discolored floorboards as if to mark the spot, and when she knelt down to inspect the cracks in the wood, she felt the other crawl up her back to perch on her shoulder for a better look.

 

Pressing her lips together, Djeeta wiped the dust away with her sleeve before squeezing her fingers into the narrow space between the planks of wood. Wiggling the floorboard in question loose, she gave a good heave and flipped it open to reveal the space hidden beneath it.

 

When Aglovale alluded to Percival’s “companion” being a sword, she imagined just that—sharpened metal and a handle wrapped in maybe something like leather. What she got instead was… a sword in a sense, but one that had been broken at its ricasso, leaving behind only a hilt and a length of edge that spanned her hand. It was like someone had set the blade of a dagger into the handle of a claymore or flamberge, but one sharp edge was better than nothing as long as what remained could hold up in a real fight.

 

Djeeta reached for what remained of the weapon, only for the spirit on her shoulder to leap off and land on the hilt. It wiggled its body and tucked its legs in, hugging the ground while it stared off to the side. She frowned and approached from another angle, prompting the spider to shuffle around on its axis like it were guarding the weapon from her encroaching hand.

 

“Do you mind?” she asked, scowling while the other spirit seemed content to stay put without lifting a paw to help. 

 

Left. Right. Above. Below. The spider refused to give her an opening, and Djeeta stared at it until it finally clicked.

 

“I’m not gonna leave,” she said, almost chuckling when she realized. “I can’t let your master off the hook that easily. I promise.”

 

The spider stared at her and she held fast until it eventually yielded, crawling off of the hilt to join its fellow spirit. Djeeta gave it a gentle pat of gratitude before she focused on the sword once more, finding that the hilt was even heavier than it looked when she pulled it free from its resting place.

 

A polished red rock was inlaid within the pommel—ruby or garnet, she couldn’t be sure which, but either way, the workmanship of the weapon was beyond what anyone could cobble together themselves at home. She had a hard time believing that there was even anyone in the village who could’ve made something like this—she recalled that Percival was a wayfarer like her and deduced that the sword was probably from a faraway country. The wrapped leather and the design of the crossguard reminded her of the blades hailing from western lands, but it was so old that she knew she couldn’t be sure.

 

She gripped the hilt with both hands and closed her eyes, taking the moment to drink in its weight. The threads within her seemed to unravel and realign as she pictured herself standing in an open plain crowned by the equally open sky, faced by endless possibilities and that brisk promise of adventure. She’d only just met the sword, but it felt like she was reuniting with an old friend all the same.

 

“This is how it should be…” she whispered to herself, sighing deeply. “But I know you were precious to someone once upon a time, so I don’t know if I should take you.”

 

The spirits watched her slowly place the sword back beneath the floor, but her hands still clung to the leather, unwilling to let go of its mysterious warmth. She took another deep breath, reminded herself of the task at hand, and finally released it.

 

“I won’t let you stay down here forever either,” she promised, and the blade seemed to gleam as if to acknowledge it before she carefully lowered the floorboard back down. “I know I’ll need your help.”

Aglovale stirred, slowly opening his eyes as the last vestiges of his rest slipped away and he was pulled back into the world of the waking.

 

“A dream…” he murmured before he was greeted by a sweet smell and the shock of red that was his youngest brother’s hair. As their eyes met, Aglovale watched the shadows vanish from his face when his expression slowly lit up as if the sash wrapped around his neck wasn’t simply there to hide the terrible wound beneath.

 

“You’re awake,” Percival exclaimed needlessly while Aglovale noted that Lamorak was nowhere to be found, but he wasn’t left the chance to ponder his whereabouts for long when he found the source of that sweet scent sitting upon Percival’s lap—a bowl or freshly stewed meat. Although, he couldn’t recall the last time he thought flesh could smell like honey. The other noticed his interest and leaned even further from his seat. “Just in time too, Aglovale. Please, eat while it’s still warm—”

 

Percival seemed all the more animated when he gathered the utensils and napkin, but the stutter in his movements and the way his expression would stiffen whenever he turned his head or spoke were all signs clear as day to him. He was never ever one who could be fooled by his brothers’ charades after all.

 

“You need not force yourself to do this,” he replied with what was left of his voice. “Tend to yourself first, Percival.”

 

“There’s nothing to tend to,” Percival replied firmly, tapping into his stubbornness when the situation least called for it. “You’re still unwell, and unwell people would do best to be silent and eat… or so you’ve told us many times.”

 

Aglovale’s lips twitched despite himself, but he could hardly help it when even during times like this, he could find Percival’s hidden edge rather endearing, but those warm feelings melted away all the same as he licked his lips and wondered how his brother could even stand to be in the same room as him.

 

“...There is no tending to this sickness, is there?” he asked softly before he reached out and pulled the scarf away, dispelling the illusion until he was no longer addressing a boy standing on the cusp of adulthood, carrying upon his shoulders the burden that Aglovale let slip from his own grasp, but a man who had long grown into his shoes.

 

Percival had aged well before he left this world with grace. The one standing before him sat tall, both kindness and pride nestled together in his crimson depths with the air of someone who could command the attention of a room just by stepping into it. The piece of him that he had taken from his neck had healed into a half-moon scar, the passage of time soothing the angry red and gnarled edges that marred his skin for years. In spite of it, Percival had always shown with the radiance of the sun, and so Aglovale had always known within his heart that he did not belong beneath the shade of the forest.

 

“You need not do this,” he said again, covering the face of his longing with the palm of his hand. “Remaining here.”

 

Percival smiled softly, bittersweet and laced with sorrow. “I wanted you to think of me back then,” he said. “It was the first rabbit I’d ever caught on my own. I thought that I could have my brother back if he was proud of me, but maybe you’ll think of me again anyway the next time you smell stew simmering on the stove.”

 

“Perhaps. You were always so naive in your approach,” Aglovale replied. “But I shouldn't have tried so hard to squeeze it out of you.”

 

“You’ve realized just how stubborn you really are then,” Percival said with the fondness his memories lent to him for this moment. “I only ever wished for you to be well again, my brother.”

 

Those words summoned a deep longing to his chest from a place he couldn’t recall as he felt the centipede encroach ever closer while Percival’s flame started to drift as all flames do. With or without that last familiar warmth, he would not die from this regardless.

 

“I wonder,” he began softly, staring at the space before him. “If you often thought of me back then too.”

 

Djeeta set aside the bowl of rabbit stew, brow knitted with worry and disappointment when she found that Lord Aglovale had fallen back asleep. 

 

“You should be eating,” she mumbled. “Well, you should be sleeping, but you should also be eating, you know.”

 

She sighed, straightened the fabric of her lap, and returned to her usual post which was the stool at his bedside. Combing her fingers through the length of his golden hair, Djeeta took the moment to study his sleeping face as she mulled over how that even when his veins were stained black from poison, he still seemed to glow. He was a god, after all, but even knowing that did nothing to soothe the anxiety curdling within her gut.

 

Djeeta paused, debating the thought before she reached for his hand and gingerly took it within her own, wondering if he’d stir just to snatch it away like before. But he didn’t move much less wake, and Djeeta was left to hold his hand in silence while his sleep seemed far from restful.

 

“I’m sorry,” she said softly to him. “I’m not used to feeling this helpless.”

 

She gently massaged away the knot forming in his brow. When she found herself in trouble, all Aglovale had to do was swoop in and take her away, nearly making a habit out of it. She’d always thought that if she wanted to repay him, she could just snatch the opportunity the moment it appeared, but now that he was sick, feverish, and bedridden before her, she found that there wasn’t anything she could do except hold his hand and speak softly to him.

 

Djeeta squeezed his hand as one of the spirits holding vigil nearby cooed faintly in reassurance. She bowed her head, closed her eyes, and brought his knuckles to her brow.

 

The day she realized that her parents were never coming back for her, Djeeta decided that she was done believing in things that she couldn’t see, and that included so-called “gods”—she had crossed oceans many times over without praying to the gods of wind and water, fed herself with her own two hands and a bow and dagger without praying to the gods of hunt and harvest. Nothing had changed when she stepped foot upon the land ruled by the god of the forest, and so she wondered if the prayer from the mouth of a nonbeliever could even reach the ears of the one before her.

 

“I wish you’d get better,,” she whispered. “And if you want me gone, I’ll be gone… but you have to get better first, Lord Aglovale.”

 

Djeeta opened her eyes, face mere inches from the bed when she suddenly realized how long she’d been going without sleep.

 

“I’m not tired,” she protested toward nobody in particular. “I can keep going like this, I can…”

 

The forest spirit chirped again as if to chide her before it crawled onto the bed and nudged her elbow. She lifted her arm, and the creature promptly wedged itself into the space between her arm and the sheets before tucking its legs beneath its body to let her know that it wasn’t budging anytime soon.

 

“Fine,” she mumbled, placing her head on her newfound cushion and taking in that familiar scent of pine—her only piece of comfort during this uncertain moment. “Just for a little bit, and you have to wake me up if anything happens, you hear?”

 

The creature chirped again, happy to be a pillow, and her eyes immediately fell shut as she kept Aglovale’s hand close, the bridge of his knuckles resting against her lips.

Chapter 13

The following morning, Aglovale didn’t wake at all.

 

Djeeta knelt by the shallow stream in the garden, dipping one stretch of soiled bandaging into the cool and pristine water as one of late summer’s last respites. She lowered her shoulders, sat back on her haunches, and tilted her gaze towards the sky. In one direction was the great mountain whose runoff fed the river of the land, and in the other direction was the ocean and the promise of her freedom, yet knowing even this, her feet kept her in the same spot, walking the halls that were no longer strange to her.

 

Aglovale insisted that he wouldn’t die, but he wasn’t doing anything to help himself either. Her brows furrowed together as she grit her teeth, using her knuckles as a washboard for the fabric she had bunched in one fist. Was it pride? Arrogance? She paused, bringing a hand to the spot on her neck where she had felt his gaze rest before it tore itself away altogether. Maybe she was the arrogant one for thinking that anything she had to offer could cure him, and maybe Aglovale knew that too when he turned her away.

 

She scrubbed harder, bending back over the stream as she glared past her reflection and into the pruning folds forming on the pads of her fingers. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to keep sane, waiting for everything to pass like a common cold while the threat of the Oomukade hung like a cloud over her head. The V-shaped scar on the back of her hand tingled and gleamed beneath the water, a reminder she didn't need.

 

Moments passed, and Djeeta nearly lost herself to the flow of her own thoughts until she noticed that the bandage in her hands wasn’t getting any cleaner, the water running murkier the more she scrubbed. Uneasiness brewing from within, she moved to examine the fabric before she realized with a drop in her stomach that it wasn’t just the water she was squeezing out of it, but the stream itself as she startled backwards, a cloud of darkness blooming from the bottom of the streambed.

 

Her mouth fell agape before she got a hold of herself and frantically shook her hands dry of the foul-smelling liquid, but the strange phenomena didn’t stop there. The grass she sat on turned yellow, then brown, then black before disintegrating altogether into barely-there strands that crumbled at the slightest touch as she scrambled to her feet. All around her the forest seemed to shudder and groan, leaves trembling on their branches before they suffered the same fate, shriveling up in a matter of seconds into paper-thin wisps that broke apart in the breeze. Butterflies and other small insects struggled to part from the ground where they fell before they flapped their wings for the last time, flowers keeling over altogether as the color drained from the garden and left behind a wasteland of sudden death.

 

The stream was a black snake now, shimmering with the silver bellies of the small fish that had been pecking at her fingers just moments earlier. Her pounding heart filling the absence left by the birdsong she took for granted, Djeeta backed away from the edge while she felt the earth shudder beneath her feet, the trees themselves groaning in their agony before all fell silent.

 

Her stomach dropped again. Lord Aglovale, she realized, turning and running back to the manor without another moment to spare.

 

Aglovale was almost unrecognizable as she stumbled to his bedside, his sheets stained by the cursed tar-like ichor that was bleeding into the earth itself.

 

“No,” she gasped. “No, no, no, please—” Water sloshed over her arms as she seized the bowl and rags to wipe away the ink bleeding from the corners of his eyes, mouth, and nose, but there was no end to the tainted blood as if his body was already at its limit, his flesh unable to contain the Oomukade’s poison.

 

“Lord Aglovale—!” she shouted, his slow but shuddering breaths no comfort to her at all when she climbed onto his bed and did everything she could to wipe away the filth rapidly swallowing up his radiance, but using her hands and one measly rag was like trying to empty the ocean with a bucket. “You can’t, you can’t let that centipede win, not like this—”

 

Aglovale’s eyes cracked open, his irises like drowning embers. No words left his stained and peeling lips when his throat bubbled with a horrible sound that made her stomach churn, but Djeeta heard his voice all the same.

 

“You’re still here,” he murmured into her consciousness, nearly bringing her to a stop. “You woefully stubborn child.”

 

He turned his eyes on her and Djeeta nearly fell apart beneath his gaze before she pulled herself together. “Nevermind that!” she cried. “Tell me what I need to do, what I need to get. I can find anything you need me to find, but I need you to trust me, Lord Aglovale!”

 

His eyes softened despite the poison they bled. “There’s nothing,” he said as her heart dropped. “And there is nothing left for you to do here.”

 

Djeeta grabbed his robes, face twisted with frustration and agony as she struggled—no, refused to register whatever it was he was trying to tell her. “...That’s it? You’re giving up?” she demanded, voice cracking at its height. “After all that talk, you’re gonna roll over and let that oversized bug have its way with you?”

 

Aglovale seemed almost amused, and she wanted to throttle him as if the forest wasn’t already dying, as if his tainted blood congealing into tar wasn’t coming to a head and pushing itself out of his eyes and nose with nowhere else to go.

 

“There’s nothing that ties you to this cursed land except for your kindness, but it ends here,” he said to her. “When you sail away and cross the ocean back to your life, forget about this forest, its treacherous people, and forget about its most unsightly master.”

 

Djeeta felt the brush of silk as loose threads wrapped around her wrists. She instinctively shook her arm and broke them, but only more manifested from the air to wrap around her as she realized what he was trying to do. “Wait—”

 

“This is goodbye, Djeeta. And thank you… for listening, back then.”

 

She didn’t even get the chance to protest when she was seized by a sudden force and wrenched out of the room like a doll tied to a string, the door leading to Lord Aglovale’s quarters slamming shut before her as she hit the floor and slid several yards down the hallway, thrashing and kicking and cursing.

 

The threads fell slack when she was able to slow herself down, rolling onto her feet and sprinting back up the hallway to throw herself at the panels of the door, which refused to yield no matter how many times she banged herself against it.

 

“You can’t do this!” she shouted, ending her sentence with a series of blows with her fist. “You can’t throw me out again like this! Open up, Lord Aglovale! I’m not leaving, damn it!” She kicked the door to no avail. “Damn it, damn it, damn it—!”

 

She whipped her head about, searching for any signs of weakness in the doors or walls, but even the widest crack she could shove her fingers into did nothing at all when Aglovale had sewn the door shut to turn the room into his apparent coffin.

 

Chest heaving and blood rushing, Djeeta took a step back before she set her sights on the vestibule instead.

 

She ran as fast as she could, swinging around every corner before she threw open the last set of doors leading to the manor’s entrance and nearly sent the loose floorboard through the delicate panels when she ripped it open.

 

Djeeta retrieved Percival’s broken sword, clutching it to her chest while her thoughts continued racing without rhyme or reason. She had to think, she had to wrack her brain and remember why she scrambled here in the first place, and why she thought half a sword could somehow bring her closer to breaking down Aglovale’s door and all of his stubbornness.

 

“It’s not working. Nothing is working. Aggy won’t even talk to us anymore.”

 

Djeeta’s eyes went wide, her mind going blank except for the memories of the old diary that hit her more vividly than ever.

 

“There has to be something that will help.”

 

“Something like this… happened before,” she whispered to herself. “This same helplessness, this same…”

 

Wish.

 

A gentle rustling sounded from the shadows before Aglovale’s servants emerged from hiding, their eyes as bright and alive as ever despite the current state of the forest and their master.

 

“You guys—” Djeeta nearly crumbled as she scooped the nearest one into her arms, giving it a tight squeeze before she remembered the task at hand.

 

Lamorak’s records mentioned a plant, and one that was apparently so extraordinary that he carried out experiments on himself to harness its power unbeknownst to either of his brothers, but Lamorak was gone, and all she had to work off of was her own memory of a single journal page.

 

She set the squirming spider back down. The one spirit that stood any chance of remembering the affairs of Lord Aglovale’s long-departed brothers had already departed itself, and even if Lamorak left behind more findings, there were too many journals to sort through, and she only had two hands, two eyes, and no time —

 

The spirits circled around her, murmuring softly as they gently pawed at the hem of her clothing. Djeeta swallowed as she returned their gazes, closing her fists around Percival’s sword as she reminded herself that it was way too early for her to give up, and between her and Aglovale, at least one of them had to be stubborn enough to see this through to the end.

 

“There’s a flower,” she said just as softly, pausing to take a deep breath as she gathered herself and echoed Lamorak’s written word to the spirits who sat all around her, listening intently. “It was named Echinacea scolodendris … it’s red, and… and its center looks like the rind of a water chestnut, or so I’ve read.

 

“Lamorak tried to cure Lord Aglovale with it. It must’ve been before your time, but you can still help me find everything that he left behind about the flower, right?” she asked them. 

 

Aglovale’s attendants didn’t need to be told twice as they dispersed and vanished back into the hallway, leaving Djeeta to kneel by herself.

 

She never found out if Lamorak was ever successful. She didn’t think he could’ve been when she had a better idea as to what Aglovale’s “sickness” ended up being, but it was all the more reason why she couldn’t give up where he had failed the first time.

 

Aglovale closed his eyes, halfway resigning himself to the darkness bubbling and spilling from every seam of his body. Either he fashioned himself a new molt soon, or the forest would move on and make the closest soul its new master—whichever was easiest for it, but he had no intention of making the girl a candidate. Djeeta wouldn’t have been able to understand, nor would he have wanted her to bear witness to the gruesome state of his body, but regardless, there was no need to further entangle her over a squabble between two monsters as the corrosive venom began to eat through his silk. She would forget about him in time, and then maybe she would be kind enough to forget the slights committed against her, living her life to its natural end.

 

He listened to the distant thrumming through the lines of his silk as Djeeta ran about the manor while his worthless vessel clung to life. It should’ve been no question at all as to why he had to remember now that he was starving while the Oomukade’s curse burned through his reserves—a part of him wondered if he should’ve taken the girl up on her insistence, but he knew the centipede’s grudge was far too complex to be placated by just another meal. It would’ve been a waste, because Djeeta was… Djeeta was…

 

There was only one of her after all.

 

The tar pooling inside of his ears severed the last connection he had to the outside world as Djeeta’s footsteps faded to oblivion, but before the last of his senses left him, that familiar shadow from before returned to loom over his bed. Whether it was to gloat or just to simply watch him struggle, Aglovale didn’t care, just as he never cared before, but he had to wonder why his dying body would waste its precious time on hallucinations.

 

“You haven’t changed, and you never will. At least not like this.”

 

He managed the strength to close his fist and clench his jaw, but what the apparition uttered next nearly wrenched him from his throes altogether, hallucination or not.

 

“I’ll be borrowing her for a little while.”

 

His eyes snapped back open as his lips curled into a snarl, but it was like he was little more than a beast trapped in the tar of his own body as he struggled to even turn his head, the shadow long gone.

 

Djeeta placed the last page on the pile before her, committing its contents to memory as she felt the others continue gazing intently at her. Repeating the core facts within her head like a mantra, she set to fastening the oversized hilt of Percival’s sword to her back, tightening the leather straps she had crisscrossing over the very same clothing she wore when she was first brought to the manor, the woven cotton like sandpaper against her skin after months of wearing Aglovale’s silk.

 

A soft murmur rippled through the crowd of spirits that had gathered to send her off, the sea of them parting to make way for one of their own that crept slowly towards her.

 

Djeeta’s eyes softened while she pursed her lips together. “I’ve already told you,” she said to them. “You have to stay here, where it’s safe.”

 

The spider parked its rear on the ground, but rather begrudgingly before it dipped its head and dropped onto the floor the object that it’d been carrying in its mouth.

 

Djeeta felt her heart lurch as she knelt down to pick up the folded pink ribbon, allowing it to unravel in the palm of her hand as she stared at its neatly sewn ends, determination welling up from within to stifle the burning in her eyes. So much had happened since their parting that she’d forgotten all about it, and yet here it was when she needed it most.

 

“...Thank you,” she murmured before she tilted her head forward, gathering the hair that had grown past her collar into a ponytail before tying it into place with the ribbon. She turned her head back and forth to test its grip while her audience immediately straightened themselves in reverence.

 

Djeeta tucked the loose strands that made up her bangs behind her ears. “I’ll be back,” she promised them. “I’ve never ever failed a commission asked of me after all.”

“The first god of the land wasn’t the spider, but the centipede that devoured a dragon and became the primordial Oomukade. The people of the mountains pass down a different oral tradition than ours, and this is their mythos. They welcomed me as their guest, but I’ve always found their food and beliefs pretty odd. I’m grateful though. That awkward period of time between winter and the first snowmelt always makes for slim pickings—too late to eat whatever the wintering deer haven’t already gotten to, and too early to forage for spring shoots. Nature isn’t always kind to a vagrant sorcerer, you know.”

 

Djeeta looked over her shoulder, pursing her lips together as she took in the furthest extent of the wasteland to which the manor served as its epicenter. The forest still lived, and she took that as her sign that Aglovale was still alive, but as the threshold of death slowly radiated outwards from the gardens, she knew the clock wouldn’t stop for her dilly-dallying.

 

“That centipede must’ve had an appetite for dragons because I haven’t seen a single one and I’ve already crossed the continent twice. I’ll need to travel further from home if I’m ever going to find what I’m looking for. Anyways, you know how these legends go—humans anger the gods, pride becomes their downfall, and this is why in this day and age we still send kids to die in the mountains for a god that no longer walks amongst us.”

 

She scaled the side of the gorge, took a moment to use the vantage point to mark the extent of the Oomukade’s destruction, and moved on. She wondered what Lamorak would think if he saw how much things haven’t changed in over two hundred years.

 

“Those who worshipped the Oomukade built altars at the thresholds that marked what they believed was the separation of our worlds. At these altars, the spilt blood of the Oomukade’s offerings became the scolodendris flower when they hit the earth, a gift that served as proof of their god’s forgiveness. The altars are long gone, but the flowers still bloom at these supposed thresholds. Harvesting them is forbidden to all except for the mountain villages’ herb-gatherers, but they don’t have to know.”

 

Thresholds. Djeeta repeated the word to herself, recalling another page from Lamorak’s journal. She remembered the cliffside, the riverbank, and the edge of the meadow where Lord Aglovale brought her—all places that one might consider a “threshold”, but nowhere did she find a single scarlet flower that matched the one Lamorak described in vivid detail.

 

“A flower of gratitude and forgiveness. You’d think that this would be useless for my purpose, but only forgiveness can break a curse.”

 

Djeeta turned her back on the river, walking further and further away from the deep blue horizon as she retraced the path she had carved out of the forest in her fear.

 

“Life unto life—the shaman who kindly hosted me during my stay loved to repeat these words. Life unto life. Life unto life. The scolodendris flower draws its life from the earth more closely than any other plant I’ve studied, and that’s why I was never able to isolate its healing power. Once plucked, its efficacy fades fast. Not to mention that the flowers wither on their own before the last day of the summer. Can you believe that some seasons are better than others to get cursed?”

 

Aglovale must’ve known about it himself. There was no way he didn’t if he was privy to every piece of life the forest sustained, but that only made her wonder why he’d try and keep it from her.

 

Either the flower was useless, or there was a reason why he didn’t want her to look for it. One possibility was a dead end, and so she placed all her hopes on the second.

 

Then that begged the question as to why he wouldn’t want her to look. The river, the cliff, the meadow—those were all places Lord Aglovale allowed her to explore. Maybe it stood to reason that it was somewhere he didn’t want her to go, somewhere he thought was too dangerous knowing that he wouldn’t be able to swoop in and save her if things went south.

 

But she wasn’t an amateur, and maybe that was one thing Aglovale didn’t understand about her. She was only a girl who was so easily tricked into becoming one village’s sacrifice for all that he knew.

 

Djeeta allowed her intuition to guide her deeper into the darkest depths of the forest as she used the mountain as her compass. Whatever crevice or shadowed path in the brush that made her skin crawl, she embraced, and after following the path formed by the gouges in the forest floor, the distinctive sound of bones crunching beneath her feet brought her to attention.

 

She looked down to find the cracked remains of a tiny rib cage, the leaf-stained skulls of small animals littered about like the loose pebbles of a worn-out cobblestone path. Djeeta rolled her shoulders as the weight of Percival’s sword rubbed against her back before she moved on, the bones scattered amidst the fallen leaves growing larger and larger in scale until she was stepping over the dismembered but unmistakable skeleton of something eerily human.

 

The twisted path came to an end at the mouth of a cave, and Djeeta already knew where she was before she looked down and found a single splash of scarlet glowing amidst the graveyard of those unluckier than her.

 

The bones and bark crunched with each step she took towards the flower, but even as the ground began to shake, all of her effort and determination coalesced into the courage that brought her here in the first place.

 

“Who dares… who dares lay a foot upon my threshold?” demanded the familiar voice that made her skin prickle and crawl. Djeeta shook it off as she lifted her chin. “Touch your head to the ground and I might think of sparing you, filth.”

 

“It’s me, Djeeta,” she replied in a steady voice. “I was thinking about the offer you made me.”

 

“...Oh?” More bones crunched underfoot as the Oomukade’s massive head emerged from the mouth of the cave, its sickle-like fangs slowly opening and closing as it plucked her scent from the air. Both eyes were empty sockets, one scarred over while the other had only partially healed into an oozing, painful-looking scab. “Give me a reason why I shouldn’t think that damned spider sent you here, or I’ll rip you up for what you pulled.”

 

“He didn’t send me here, he didn’t want me to come here at all actually,” Djeeta said. At least that much was the truth as she swallowed and extended her bare arm, holding her hand out towards the Oomukade. “See?”

 

“No I can’t see, my eyes were taken from me, you stupid child,” it hissed before its curiosity got the better of it and it extended its neck to sniff her open palm. “...How very strange. You don’t smell like the Jorougumo’s whore anymore.”

 

The rest of its body slithered out from the cave and Djeeta staggered backwards before she steadied herself, trying not to pay mind to the very same legs that had pinned her down so effortlessly before.

 

She swallowed again, picking up where the monster left off as she tracked the flower with her eyes. “If you became a god, you’d get your eyes back, right?”

 

“Of course!” it answered, voice prickling around its edges. “Rebuilding my vessel with my reclaimed divinity would hardly be a feat, but I’d rather pluck my new eyes from the Jorougumo’s own skull myself.”

 

Djeeta’s own eyes darted between the Oomukade’s looming head and the flower that swayed in place so serenely, naive to the blood pounding in her veins. Once she plucked the flower, she would have to leave for the manor straight away and that meant escaping the Oomukade’s grasp a second time without tipping it off, lest it realize the state Aglovale was in.

 

“Lord Oomukade…” she began. “...What does it mean to become a god?”

 

The monster scrutinized her even though it was blind.

 

“Before I take you up on your offer, I think I should know,” she added before realizing how badly that came out when the centipede bared its fangs. “I-I’m nervous. I’m just a small human after all.”

 

That seemed to appease it, at least for the moment as it clicked its jaws. “You are a small human,” it conceded, demeanor shifting almost instantly. “Small, tiny… insignificant, but you’ll become something far greater by my side. There’s no reason for you to be nervous, child.”

 

How easily it could pivot between names and terms of endearment made her sick while it slithered along the perimeter of the grove, feeling its way around with its creeping antennae. 

 

“A god…” it drawled, the dead leaves that cloaked the ground trembling from its reverberations. “To become a god means to conquer the seasons, to conquer time… To be a god means that all is for me to give and take as I see fit, to rule over life with such absolute power that I would be no one’s prey.”

 

Djeeta followed the Oomukade as it crawled along the ground, using its footsteps to mask her own as she slowly crept closer to the flower and knelt down, reaching out slowly.

 

“But you want to make the god of the forest your prey, don’t you?”

 

The centipede leered with a horrible twist of its jaws. “It’s because I’m the exception that I am this land’s rightful master. A centipede’s natural prey is the spider, did you know?” It chuckled, its laughter an eerie sound rattling against the underside of its armor.

 

“But mortals make for a more convenient food source,” it went on to say. “Their wishes, their dreams… they would all belong to me, and I would be… revered, forever.”

 

Djeeta wondered if the same was true for Aglovale, and then she wondered what it meant to be tied so closely to the hopes of the very people he despised. To be revered meant to be loved, but she had felt no love from them when she first listened to their woes.

 

“I think I understand,” Djeeta replied as she wrapped her hand around the flower’s stem. “So you want to live and be loved… forever?”

 

The Oomukade hissed lowly as its antennae aligned themselves in her direction, a reminder that she still had its attention. “None of that matters in this very moment, Djeeta. As my mate, your eyes will be for me alone, and you will revere me—”

 

Djeeta’s stomach twisted as she jerked her hand, the stem of the flower biting into her skin instead of quietly snapping like it wanted nothing less than to part from the earth sustaining it. Disgust melting into panic, she began to tug on the flower, the soil bulging around its roots until the centipede froze and turned its head towards her altogether.

 

“...What are you doing?”

 

“Nothing!” Djeeta gasped, reaching around for Percival’s blade, but the Oomukade didn’t give her a chance to draw it when it rushed her in the blink of an eye, towering over her like a giant serpent as she yelped and fell backwards.

 

“Then let us consummate our union,” it said lowly, the depths of its voice penetrating her to the very bone. “You’ve kept me waiting for so long, I can barely contain myself, dearest.”

 

It slowly crept closer towards her as Djeeta scrambled backwards over a deer skull. “W-wait, we’re moving way too fast,” she protested, kicking the rest of the corpse between them as she combed her brain for excuses. “You said you’d take on a different form for me, right—”

 

“I changed my mind,” the Oomukade said nonchalantly, its legs curling impatiently as it snapped its jaws. “Consider this punishment for betraying me, not that you’d crumple so easily, Djeeta. After our vows, I promise to only give you my love. Forever.”

 

The monster lunged for her and Djeeta yelped again as she rolled out of the way, drawing from it another impatient snarl.

 

“Don’t make me chase you,” it growled. “Or I won’t make our first time so forgiving.”

 

It coiled around, its tone shifting again in the abrupt way that made her skin crawl. “But if you’re afraid, then I’ll comfort you for as long as it takes, so come here… Come closer to me, Djeeta.”

 

She hated the sound of her name on its tongue, and she hated how easily it could shift from venom to sweetness as if true emotion meant nothing to it at all, but she had to overcome all of that as she fixed her attention back on the flower that stood just beyond the cage formed by the Oomukade’s limbs.

 

The monster clicked its tongue as it reared its head, taking the moment to reassess her scent. “...You seem upset, dear. So upset that maybe... maybe you have something else on your mind.”

 

Laying low against the ground, Djeeta bit her lip as she stretched her arm towards the flower with the blade to sever it in the other, eyes trained on the monster.

 

“You wouldn’t happen to be after this… would you?” it asked in a sickeningly soft voice as her blood ran cold, its armored tail nearly taking her wrist clean off as it suddenly coiled around the flower.

 

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” it purred, stroking the delicate petals with dexterity that surpassed its blindness. “I would gather a bouquet of them as my dower to you, but these blossoms of hallowed blood have waned alongside the memories of those ungrateful, fleeting mortals.”

 

“Wait! We… we can make a bouquet of them together after you become a god then,” Djeeta mustered, sweat trickling along the tendons bulging from her neck. “We can have all the flowers we want, and nobody will forget about you again-”

 

The Oomukade laughed deeply, ground shaking while the single flower trembled at its post. “What a wonderful idea,” it purred. “This scarlet would be too beautiful to let fade into obscurity, but I can no longer behold it thanks to Lord Jorougumo. As such… it’s rather useless to me until then, isn’t it?”

 

Djeeta’s body lunged for the flower before her mind could register, but it was too late as the Oomukade dashed it from the earth with a casual flick of its tail, rendering it into several little pieces before her very eyes.

 

The world seemed to stop right then and there as she watched the warm glow vanish from the petals floating slowly down to earth, her mouth opening and closing wordlessly.

 

“You thought you could deceive me a second time, you conniving bitch,” the Oomukade snarled, twisting its head around as Djeeta crawled towards what remained of her last hope, fingers shaking as they combed through the bones and dirt. All it took was a single second, a single stroke of the tail to ruin everything because she’d been too slow, too careful. “I give up on making you my mate. I’ll pluck the limbs from your tiny insect of a body instead, and I’ll make the Jorougumo listen to your screams until I’ve had enough of that too.”

 

The Oomukade flashed its fangs and dove for her a second time as her despair contorted into trembling rage. Drawing Percival’s sword, Djeeta swung the blade around, sparks flying where steel met chitin until she drew back and drove the tip into the seam of the Oomukade’s armor.

 

The monstrous centipede snarled with pain, ripping up the earth as its body thrashed around and showered her with dirt and broken bones.

 

“You…!” It stopped to laugh, its voice dry and breathless from anger at the audacity. “So you’ve finally learned to bite back, huh! I’ll ruin you, Djeeta. I’ll make you regret every second of your worthless life, and when I’m done, I’ll dump your head on the Jorougumo’s doorstep before I devour him too.”

 

“...I don’t get it,” Djeeta began, her own voice swelling with mounting rage as its threats were the last thing she cared about in that very moment. “How can Lord Aglovale even see himself in the same light as you?”

 

The centipede tilted its head. “How? That's the question of the century—”

 

“He’s far… He’s far kinder than you, far stronger than you,” she snarled, cutting the monster off. “I saw him beat you. He’s more deserving than you’ll ever be of everything you think you can take from him.”

 

The Oomukade glared at her with its empty eyes, the entire length of its body bristling with indignation. “I'm so sick of you stupid and self-centered mortals. He could’ve surrendered the divinity to me at any time and I would’ve granted him the painless death he’d been chasing for so many years, but no. No, he’s only mocked and insulted me at every turn,” it snarled, venom dripping from its fangs while its socket continued to ooze. “Now he’s wrapped this stupid little girl around his leg, and for what? You’ve accomplished nothing, and my curse will devour both him and his true name.”

 

Djeeta stopped. “...What?”

 

The Oomukade’s tone shifted to that of bone-aching sweetness when it realized her confusion. “Even the most rudimentary sorcerer would know that a name makes for the most potent ingredient.” It twisted its head around as if to mock her, legs flexing back and forth as the grip around her sword grew slack. “I suppose if you knew better, you wouldn’t have told me his so carelessly… which makes this whole debacle your fault, doesn’t it?”

 

Djeeta lunged at the centipede, her blood roaring in her veins. It had to be a lie—Aglovale told her it didn’t matter, and it made sense to her that he’d never entrust something so valuable so easily. He hated humans, distrusted them, so why—?

 

“You’re just trying to distract me! There’s still a cure, I know it—” she snarled, catching one of the monster’s legs and slashing it at the joint, but the Oomukade only cackled more, its voice seeping into her like its own form of poison.

 

“You can hack at me all you want, but I have more legs than you can swing at with that little knife,” it gloated. “And you know—”

 

It whipped around and tackled her into the trunk of the nearest tree, its jaws inches away from ripping her in half if it wasn’t for the sword she had shoved between them, steel rattling against its weight.

 

“—All it’ll take from me is just a small little bite.”

 

Djeeta’s heart stuttered as a drop of venom dripped onto her front and ate through the leather of her harness like acid. She ripped the straps off of herself and threw them aside, dodging the Oomukade’s fangs by a hair’s width before she took to a sprint, slashing at the monster’s serpentine body wherever it got too close.

 

She didn’t know what she was fighting for at this point, the flower’s last glow slowly fading from the corner of her eye as she fended off the centipede’s countless limbs, but even if she could gather the petals and somehow make her escape, its power would die by the time she’d reach the manor.

 

Her eyes prickled with tears as she hacked at the laughing centipede, despair driving her blows instead of technique. She wanted to make it talk, she wanted to rip every extremity from its writhing body until it fessed up the cure, but Djeeta knew she was only kidding herself when it seemed that a new leg would sprout where the old was cleaved off.

 

The Oomukade finally caught her with its tail, sending her crashing into another tree as her weapon tumbled from her grip. She saw the flash of fang and venom and threw herself to the side, rolling unceremoniously along the forest floor until she could bring herself to a stop.

 

The Oomukade turned its head towards her, crawling slowly now as she backed away, finally registering the telltale stinging emanating from the fresh gash on her arm.

 

“I win, Djeeta.”

Chapter 14

Djeeta grit her teeth together as she dragged herself along the forest floor, keeping her head close to the ground while she felt the monster’s shadow loom over her, swaying back and forth as it reveled in triumph.

 

“It’s okay to cry a little. Don’t be shy. I want to make sure he hears.”

 

“Bite me,” she snapped.

 

“Already did, my dearest,” it purred.

 

Blood trickled from the fresh wound on her arm, the bones of the Oomukade’s prey digging into her underside as a voice within her asked if this was where her journey would end too. She promised the others she’d return with the medicine, and she promised herself that she’d finally be able to repay a fraction of what Aglovale had done for her, but instead, she was left wondering if he had foreseen this too.

 

“You’re still moving… I should applaud you for holding out for this long,” the monster gloated. “But humans don’t exactly praise cockroaches for their resilience, do they now?”

 

“Finish the job then if you have somewhere better to be,” Djeeta snarled to which the centipede laughed. She retrieved Percival’s sword, the steel of the hilt rattling as she rolled back over to glare at the other who only scoffed at the sound of metal.

 

“I do, actually, but I rather listen to you weep and squirm as the same venom that has defeated the Jorougumo eats you alive as well,” it replied. “So again, cry and scream a little, won’t you?”

 

Djeeta’s fist shook around the sword as she silently dared the monster to approach. “You sure talk big for something that’s had its rear handed to it at least twice.”

 

That wiped the smugness from its demeanor as the Oomukade snarled, fangs glinting in the dappled sunlight. “Shut up! Our last encounter was my win! You being here is proof enough of that—”

 

Her lips twitched at how pliant the monster’s temper was as she gathered a load of saliva in her mouth and spat. “And yet you’re still here, not a step closer to being a god.”

 

The great centipede hissed, rearing its head as it always did before it tackled the spot she was sitting a moment before. “And what do you know about that?” it demanded, shaking the soil loose from its head. “Do you think you can run your mouth just because of that broken sword? Do you think it can protect you from the venom that’s already inside of you?”

 

Djeeta tightened her jaw as she spared a single glance at the blood still oozing out of her cut. She didn’t know how much time she had left, and she didn’t even know if she should be using it to taunt the monster, but if she could just find another opening, another opportunity—

 

The Oomukade lunged again, and missed again, toppling a tree to the ground as Djeeta leapt out of its path. Her last run-in with centipede venom was so awful and debilitating that she couldn’t help but be surprised at how quickly she could still move and drag Percival’s sword behind her, egging the monster into lashing out without a mark to hit. 

 

“How—!” It seemed to be thinking the same thing as it let out a strangled howl after another failed attempt, blindly sweeping its tail around. “How are you still moving! Was it too shallow? Not enough? No, all it takes is a few drops…”

 

It started muttering to itself, wringing its fangs together before it paused as Djeeta’s skin prickled with a sudden chill, the scar on the back of her hand tingling.

 

“No…” it said again quietly, its voice sinking into her with the foreboding weight of the mountain itself. “No, no, no… That’s impossible, not from that small of a bite—you can’t be immune, no human can be immune when not even the god of the forest can conquer my…—”

 

The Oomukade twisted its head around, roaring with enough force to send her toppling backwards as she slapped her hands to her ears.

 

“What have you done—!” it shrieked as Djeeta grimaced, its rage like knives pushing into her eardrums. “How have you turned my servant’s venom against me, no, how have you dared—!”

 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about!” Djeeta shouted back, still covering her ears, but the Oomukade was not to be placated as it smashed its tail into the closest tree, pulverizing the trunk into mulch.

 

“So this was his doing then, that conniving spider?” It writhed at the sheer audacity that Aglovale might’ve outsmarted it yet again. “But why impart a drop of his own power for this stupid, useless, little human? Why? Why, why, why? It would’ve made him weaker—”

 

Weaker? Djeeta’s eyes traveled along her arm from one bite to another, resting on the pearly-white marking that pulled the surrounding skin taut. The realization pierced her chest like a dull knife as she recalled Aglovale calmly kneeling beside her, holding her close with his mouth to her wound. She remembered the strange warmth that blossomed from his lips like the fervid glow in his eyes, the pounding within her chest that reached to her fingertips, and the way her pain seemed to all but magically melt away—she’d been too distracted by her own captor’s tenderness to fathom that there might’ve been something else he’d done to tide her through her pain.

 

She snapped out of the recollection and not a moment too soon when the Oomukade let out another strangled cry and tackled her, its fangs meeting the steel of Percival’s sword as its jaws fought to close around her body. 

 

Djeeta hated to admit it, but the two of them were in the same boat when it came to Lord Aglovale’s perpetually dubious intentions.

 

“It doesn’t matter,” it hissed. “I’ll stick to my first plan and tear you from limb to limb and surely, the Jorougumo will finally—”

 

Djeeta slid until she was sandwiched between the trunk of a surviving tree and the Oomukade’s mouth, both hands on the hilt with metal rattling. She glared into the void of the monster’s empty sockets, inky black blood dripping from one of them and onto her hand as Djeeta felt her heel begin to lose its hold.

 

She saw no part of Aglovale within that void, not even when his nine-eyed form towered over her with all of his hurt and anger. They were worlds apart, irreconcilable in her eyes—she knew it now, and she knew it then.

 

“You’ll… you’ll never beat him,” she managed through all the weight of the Oomukade’s upper body bearing down on her. “You know he’s still alive, and somehow, you think you’ve won when you can’t even kill this single little human.”

 

The Oomukade’s acrid breath burned her eyes as it growled, time passing agonizingly slow between them in their stalemate. Her bones were giving in, adrenaline slipping from her grasp as the pain of her injuries were finally starting to set in, but Djeeta only mustered her core and pushed back as she felt the serrated edge of the Oomukade’s jaw begin to press into her arm.

 

And then in her own eyes was a glimmer, captured by the steel of Percival’s sword, and from the glimmer, a spark and crimson flame that bloomed between them and engulfed the Oomukade’s head.

 

The monster howled in pain and shock, violently recoiling while Djeeta yelped when she realized it was the sword itself that was on fire. She nearly cast it away in her flailing, but her fingers were glued to the hilt as if there was something invisible binding her hand to it, but even then, there wasn’t a single burn or boil on her skin.

 

She turned her eyes back on the reeling Oomukade, its armor scorched from where the fire had licked it. Drawing her arm back, Djeeta did what she couldn’t do before with that broken branch and hurled the blade like a javelin straight into the monster’s bleeding socket, its glow cutting through the darkness like a comet in the night.

 

She met her mark without an inch to spare, and the monster screamed, throwing its head from side to side trying to put out the fire, but Percival’s companion only burned through its skull, the blood around its socket sizzling like oil on a hot iron before its voice sputtered out altogether. She watched as the towering body of the monstrous centipede careened, bracing herself before it finally fell to the ground with an earthshaking thud.

 

As the dust cleared and fire died, Djeeta felt the strength finally leave her bones as she crumbled to her knees, chest heaving before she glanced at the lifeless form of the Oomukade. Swallowing thickly, and then swallowing again, she tore her gaze away and crawled along the ground, sifting through the bones along the way for the last bits of the scolodendris flower.

 

She gathered the stem and leaves and petals into her trembling hands, mustering what little strength she had left to sit up on her haunches. The scarlet petals pulsed with a faint glow, its light fading with each passing moment as she scrambled at what to do next

 

Nearly fumbling the pieces of flower, Djeeta hastily pressed the stem to her wound, twisting her arm around to try and get the blood flowing faster.

 

“Come on…” she hissed lowly, nearly stabbing it into herself. “Come on, you came from blood didn’t you? Hurry up and take mine—”

 

But despite her pleas, the light continued to fade as despair began to sink back into her bones.

 

“Remember, life unto life.”

 

“I’m trying—!” she lashed out at the emptiness, blood trickling from where she bit into her lip. She searched the scarlet for another answer as the petals seemed to match her pulse with what little life it had left, weak and fluttering. She had won, but what good was that if the single purpose of her journey was wilting by the second in her hands? What good was saving her if she couldn’t even help him just this once?

 

“Life unto life.”

 

Djeeta blinked slowly, the tears in her eyes vanishing before they could fall as she turned the pages upside down within her head.

 

“...You drive a pretty hard bargain,” she finally muttered, lifting her hands and taking the remains of the flower within her mouth to swallow it all.

 

The sweet aroma of the flower belied none of its sharp bitterness as the petals melted on her tongue—true to its rumored origins, it was like swallowing blood as she crushed the center with her teeth and swallowed the seeds too, the whole of it nearly making her gag before she forced everything to stay down.

 

Face twisting into a tight grimace, she held her stomach and rolled over as a dull throbbing began to take root inside of her core, spreading its tendrils until they were buried deep within her lungs. Scarlet bloomed like fireworks across her vision, fading away before her eyelids birthed new blossoms as she was plunged into sudden darkness.

 

The weeping procession stretched for miles, winding like a river. People of young and old shed the same tears, clutching wreathes of scarlet flowers to their hearts in elegy as the sun set on the body of their most beloved god. They marched slowly in tandem, and like an open wound, they left behind a trail of the promised scarlet.

 

Gasping, Djeeta reopened her eyes and rolled back onto all fours, her sweat collecting within the folds of the dead leaves below her as the vision faded from her mind. 

 

Severed from the flower, the earth beneath her hands could no longer sustain it, and so on a hunch, she’d offer up her own body as its new soil. She would’ve become soil anyways if she’d died and laid forgotten here in the woods, and the flower apparently agreed.

 

Swallowing again with the scolodendris’s astringent bitterness lingering on the back of her tongue, Djeeta stood back up and forced herself to make her way over to the fallen Oomukade.

 

The monster somehow seemed smaller in its stillness, its rippling legs now unmoving as she bent down to fish her weapon from its skull. Only after she dislodged the blade and tied it to her waist with what she had left did Djeeta pause at the faintest sound of breathing.

 

“Why…” it rasped. “Why did you choose… him…”

 

Djeeta straightened herself and slowly took a step back, watching as the monster lay there, struggling for breath between words.

 

“A heartless… god… without love…” it continued weakly, jaws twitching with the last vestiges of its life. “But I was loved… I… I had fields… of red…”

 

Djeeta wondered if the Oomukade knew what it meant when it spoke about love, and then she wondered if it was even fair to ask when a god’s throne seemed like a lonely post where the lives of people seemed so far away, where the thing they called “love” was measured in blood.

 

Maybe somewhere along his own journey, Lamorak had asked himself the same thing when he left these mementos behind.

 

“They were mine…“ Clear liquid trickled from where Djeeta had pulled the sword, streaming down the Oomukade’s face like tears as it lost itself within its ancient memories. “They were so… beautiful…”

 

White light began to poke through the cracks in the Oomukade’s shell, slowly engulfing its body like the glow that had cloaked the forest spirit in Aglovale’s hands. The smallest fragments were the first to lift and break away, taking to the air like flakes of ash.

 

“No… Noo…” it rasped, fighting weakly against the light as the tears continued to pour from its eye. “I… I don’t want to die…”

 

Djeeta blinked slowly as she stepped closer and knelt back down, feeling like she were wading through a dream as she reached into the light and placed her hand upon what was left of the Oomukade’s head. The very monster that haunted her dreams and set her on this desperate journey in the first place was just another beast running from death, not much more now than a trembling pile of dust.

 

“I don’t want to be… forgotten.”

 

The part of it she touched finally broke apart, dissolving between her fingers and taking to the breeze that carried its glowing fragments deeper into the forest. Before long, there was nothing left of the great centipede except for the shape its fallen body had imprinted upon the bone-ridden earth and the heaviness she carried within her chest.

 

There were no more threads left that could keep her from him when Djeeta returned.

 

But in place of translucent silk were gnarled vines woven together to form a thorny cocoon in the center of the room. Tendrils sprouted from the fissures in the walls and floor where the forest had broken through the barriers of the manor to shield and protect its master, desperation sewn in the way the wild vines spread across every surface as Djeeta stepped over bits of broken glass where a displaced mirror had fallen and shattered.

 

She had no patience left for any of it as she slashed at the inky black thorns, hacking at what she could with one hand and ripping away the half-severed bits with her other, ignoring the sting of scarlet lines forming along her skin as she delved deeper into the layers of the cocoon.

 

When Djeeta had finally cleared enough to make it to Aglovale’s bedside, her own pain was worlds away as she set aside Percival’s sword and sat beside him to gingerly push the stray locks of hair from his sleeping face. The Oomukade’s poison had dried to an oily sheen, black streaks across his skin where it had poured from his eyes and ears and mouth and nose. 

 

“Lord Aglovale, I’m back,” she whispered, voice hoarse as she leaned over him. “Aren’t you going to wake up now?”

 

Aglovale still breathed, his chest slowly rising and falling like the distant rustling of leaves, but his radiance was gone. His skin was pale as if it were dusted with ashes, his lips blue and cracked—the luster had vanished from his hair, clumps of dried blood and tar clinging to the strands before Djeeta gently combed them out with her fingers. 

 

She leaned closer until she felt his haggard breath against her own lips, arms placed over his chest as she hung onto him. “Please,” she begged softly. “Please, Lord Aglovale. Don’t… don’t leave me here alone.”

 

Her wish must have reached his ears when his eyes cracked open, clouded and bloodshot, but what made her own breath stop as her arms slid back to her sides were the nine irises and nine pupils that peered back at her—five in one socket with four in the other.

 

“That name,” the Jorougumo murmured, his voice deep and reminiscent of the depths of the groaning earth. “The ones who’ve called me by that name are already long gone.”

 

He slowly pushed himself up and turned to face her in earnest, his shadow spreading across the room before it melded with the shape of the tangled thorns.

 

“Who are you to me then?”

 

A weight dropped inside of her chest as she found her words again. “You don’t recognize me?”

 

Aglovale leaned in to close the distance she had put between them, regarding her with an eerie calm that made the hair on her arms stand up on end. “Answer me properly. Who are you to me?”

 

“I’m—” She stopped, realizing that the answer didn’t come to her as easily as she hoped. She had wondered the same thing, curled up in the solitude of the room that Aglovale had given her during the earlier days of the manor. Whether that question came from within or from Lord Aglovale’s own tongue, Djeeta found herself at a loss of what to say until she remembered what she had set out to do in the first place. “I’m your offering,” she answered after a moment, chest slowly falling as she watched the god for his reaction.

 

Something wavered in those depths, but the rest of Aglovale’s face was even more unreadable than before. “My offering,” he repeated, mulling over her words with the inkiness in his mouth. “My offering…”

 

He reached out and brushed away the ends of her hair from her shoulder before he pressed his palm to the side of her neck, gently stroking the spot where her jugular throbbed. His eyes traveled from her neck to her arm, darkening at the sight of her countless cuts and bruises that littered her exposed skin before his lips curled at the bite left by the Oomukade.

 

“...Lord Aglovale?” she tried again, but the other only traced his hand along her arm, fingertips kissing her skin until he was lifting her knuckles to his lips. He gently pressed his mouth to the small raised cuts, some left by the thorns, some from her scuffle with the centipede. Blinking slowly until he closed his eyes altogether, Aglovale breathed deeply and exhaled, his breath sweeping along the length of her arm and up her neck.

 

“You smell even sweeter… like a flower,” he murmured, transfixing his gaze upon her once again. “What have you done, my offering?”

 

She didn’t know. After everything she’d done just to make it back to him in one piece with the cure in tow, she couldn’t even begin to explain.

 

But Aglovale seemed to forgive it as she watched him map the delicate underside of her arm with his lips, her own heart floundering with every touch. He clearly wasn’t thinking straight if he didn’t even recognize her, but each kiss she dared to call a kiss made her wonder all over again if there had always been some part of him that longed for this, hungry and lacking as the one before her. Maybe she wasn’t thinking straight either.

 

“I’ve tasted this scent before,” he said quietly. “I made a promise, yet it’s been so long that I no longer remember it alongside so many others. And so, this too will…”

 

He didn’t allow her the chance to ask to whom that promise might’ve been made for when he decided that touching her was no longer enough as he parted his lips and took her wounds into his mouth, reminding her of the pain and wiping it away all the same. She shivered again.

 

“Don’t be afraid, my offering,” Aglovale whispered, mistaking the tremble for that of fear like there couldn’t be any other reason for the tiny bumps lining her skin. “You’ll live on forever… inside of me.”

 

Oh, Djeeta thought as her world turned on its side when she was pushed onto the bed, Lord Aglovale’s visage crowned by the midnight thorns as she gazed up at him. This was what it took for him to finally treat her like the tribute the villagers had intended for her to be.

 

Yet the traces of hesitation stitched into his hunger made her question if he believed even his own words.

 

Djeeta held his gaze, searching until she could see clearly within the gruesome fracturing of his eyes that he still had one foot inside of a dream. Looming over her, he was still half-asleep, or even more amusing to her, sleepwalking and babbling nonsense. In spite of all common sense, she found herself smiling softly with the realization.

 

“I’m not afraid, Lord Aglovale,” she said to him, speaking gently to keep from waking him. “But I’d rather keep walking alongside you.”

 

That gave him pause, a sense of qualm flickering just briefly across his expression. Djeeta tilted her head to the side.

 

“You don’t want this, do you?” she asked him. “Not like this.”

 

The Jorougumo seemed more conflicted and confused, a far cry from the usually impenetrable demeanor of the Aglovale she knew who was so self-assured in everything he did.

 

“Regardless if you choose to say,” he said after a moment. “You will leave, one day or another, one way or another, and that name… will finally be forgotten.”

 

“But you don’t want that either,” she replied. “That’s why you gave it to me. Even if things didn’t work out—” she spoke so casually of how close she might’ve been to dying that she surprised even herself, “—you still had hope that maybe… maybe something could change.”

 

Aglovale’s mouth twitched as he slowly bore down on her, the thorns in his mouth peeking out from beneath his lip. “Impertinence,” he growled. “Is this how you intend to bargain for your life?”

 

That was a tone she was familiar with. “Come on, Lord Aglovale,” she chided him in turn, knowing very well that she was dancing on the edge of his fangs. “My life is a done deal. I’m here for you.”

 

He paused again, his glare softening like he were trying to make heads of what she was saying, like he was afraid to take her words for what they meant. “...You will leave,” he said again as if he were trying to convince himself, his eyes growing cloudier as weakness began to overtake him. “Knowing this… I still allowed my own offering to burrow in so deeply—”

 

Djeeta reached up and took his face into both hands, gently thumbing the contour of his cheeks before her fingers came to a rest beneath those too-many eyes, but Djeeta held each and every one of them with her own gaze, refusing to look at anything else but him.

 

“Lord Aglovale,” she whispered, drawing this part of him back to her. “Lord Aglovale, I’m right here.”

 

She brought herself back up as she wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him close as she listened to his breath grow more haggard by the second. Just hours ago she thought she’d lost him, she thought she might’ve failed him as the Oomukade’s laughter rang in her ears, but Aglovale was alive in her arms, and she knew more than anything else that she wouldn’t let go no matter how much pain the future may bring. Since the very beginning, she had chosen the winding path after all.

 

“You don’t have to think about anything else,” she told him as she held onto his warmth like it might vanish at any second, his weight sinking deeper into her embrace. “Right now, I’m all yours… and that’s all there is to it.”

 

“Mine…” he rasped like the word was too good to be true. His fingers bit into her skin, but Djeeta only held him in turn, the mess of his locks spilling out from between her own fingers. She gazed past him and followed the thorny tendrils that stood like the bars to a wrought-iron cage, one that she had pried apart herself when she clawed her way back to him. 

 

Aglovale was the forest, she had realized somewhere along the way. As terrifying as they were to behold, the long thorns were brittle, little more than a warning to keep away from the equally fragile core of their ailing host. Djeeta closed her eyes for a moment then as she breathed deeply, taking in the fluttering warmth that was Lord Aglovale’s heart as the god had no strength left to guard it for much longer.

 

“A wafting sweetness… yet it drowns me,” he murmured against her skin as she felt him unravel. The warmth of his mouth closed against her thrumming pulse, eliciting a shudder from deep within her before he parted just a hairs width away. “It makes me wonder… what your heart tastes like.”

 

Even now, those words seemed to pain him, and so Djeeta gathered as much of him as she could into her arms, letting his hair and silk spill out from over her sleeves. “You can tell me about it afterwards, Lord Aglovale,” she whispered into his ear as she felt the last of his resistance fade. “I’ll listen, like I always have.”

 

Djeeta heard the pop of her own skin tearing open when Lord Aglovale buried his fangs into her neck, pain shooting through her like lightning as he pulled her clothes away and left her shoulders naked to the air. The mounting pressure threatened to crumple her like paper within his arms, but her fingers found purchase as they dug into his back, her own warmth swelling around his mouth before it pooled at the shelf of her collarbone.

 

“Finally,” she breathed, eyes transfixed on the ceiling as scarlet blossoms opened their buds from inside her, their sepals reaching for the earth while their stamens gazed towards the heavens. She felt her skin tremble from his breathless groaning, Aglovale forsaking air to take in mouthfuls of her blood like he’d been longing for this for years unimaginable. The undeniable hunger he kept under lock and key beneath that frigid demeanor finally came to a head as he tore into her a second time just to drink in the way her flesh would break inside of his mouth, blood splattering onto his cheek from the force of the bite. 

 

And then the pain faded, gradually ebbing away with every beat of her heart. A cloying warmth spread from where Aglovale’s mouth met her skin, another world’s worth of colors dancing across her mind’s eye to form a meadow alongside the scarlet flowers. She knew now that this was Aglovale’s own venom, his own power flowing into her—far kinder yet just as voracious as the Oomukade’s own as he ate her alive.

 

“Aglovale,” she hissed softly just to make sure that he was still there when the tingling numbness began to spread from her fingertips to the rest of her body. Aglovale responded by bearing down with the rest of his weight, nearly bending her all the way back as her eyes fell from the ceiling just in time to witness the thorns that caged them burn away into nothingness.

 

A soft glow washed over the withered garden like a ripple in a pond. Color bled back into the earth, leaves swelling with life as flowers turned their heads towards the sky. Djeeta watched as soft green vines crept across the ground, bringing back to life what it could, consuming whatever it couldn’t until the scar upon the forest faded altogether as everything returned to its verdant splendor. Even the fissures between the upended floorboards filled with soft moss, reflecting the sun to cast the room in a gentle green light.

 

Her eyelids slid shut as long-awaited relief filled her chest. With her journey finally coming to a close, the strength left her body as she fell back against the bed, but Aglovale wasn’t done with her as he made sure she could feel every inch of his longing, his mouth closing around her pulse as tightly as their fingers wove together.

 

Djeeta dug her toes into the sheets as he continued to drink, lips parted for air as she clung to whatever part of him she could to keep herself grounded through the saccharine fog. All around in her haziness, she felt him there, his tongue greedy as it bore inside of her, his fangs equally so as if they were searching for something.

 

And then even Lord Aglovale’s venom couldn’t help her when Djeeta nearly bit through her tongue swallowing a scream. It was like her own veins were being uprooted as the flower clung to her insides as tightly as it had clung to the earth of the Oomukade’s lair. The sound of her own body ripping and tearing from the inside filled her ears as her back arched off the bed in mind-numbing agony, the rest of herself pinned down by the limbs.

 

And then she felt the stem snap like a singular thread, setting her free as the last of the scarlet vanished into the maw of Lord Aglovale’s hunger. Gasping for breath, Djeeta opened her eyes just as he released her throat, finally satiated. Her blood smeared across his face would paint a grotesque portrait of his visage if it weren’t for the tiny flowers she found dotting his hair and the folds of his robes like snowflakes, the forest’s reach encroaching on the manor itself as delicate green tendrils unfurled before her very eyes. Reeling still from having the centipede’s last flower ripped out of her, she brushed her fingers against one of them in her daze to watch the end of it coil like a fiddlehead.

 

Djeeta still found it beautiful, knowing where it drew its newfound life.

 

Aglovale loomed over her, the seams that revealed slivers of his more monstrous form melting away as his eyes returned to the singular crimson that she knew so well. Djeeta gazed back at him as his lips mouthed the shape of her name before the last dredges of his consciousness faded from his eyes. Opening her arms once more in her exhaustion, she caught him as he collapsed against her chest, his golden hair falling all around them like threads of gossamer amidst the scattered petals.

Chapter 15

In the painless emptiness, a voice called for him.

 

He awoke with a small weight upon his chest, softness beneath the palms of his hands, and a great blue sky that stretched overhead when he opened his eyes. He knew immediately that he was no longer in the forest, or anywhere remotely close to it, but his whereabouts were the least of his concerns when he carefully sat up to find a small child sleeping on top of him.

 

Ruffled hems and wooden buttons, soft lashes and hair the color of straw—the more he studied her sleeping face, the further he drifted from any reasonable kind of explanation. He watched the girl stir without any amount of urgency, yawning while she rubbed one eye with a tiny fist.

 

“You’re finally awake, sleepyhead,” she said while he wondered what test of sanity this was supposed to be. “Why were you sleeping out here all by yourself?”

 

Here was an open field. Long blades of grass rippled like the surface of a pond. That same breeze which combed through the tips of his hair was gentle, the kiss of the sun on his cheeks soft. Delicate flowers peppered the field as far as his eyes could see, innocent and unassuming in their quiet existence. He glanced down at the open palm of one of his hands, slowly curling and uncurling his fingers as the silk that tied him to the land was nowhere to be found—without his web, he was a spider drifting in the open sea, the freedom he found in it so unfamiliar to him that it bordered on uncanny. 

 

Aglovale had never been to this place, not even in his dreams, but alongside that sense of ease was a whisper of something in the clear sky and soft grass that reminded him of something else he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

 

Regardless, this place was far too peaceful and far too kind of a fate for somebody such as himself. To think he still had a soul to be devoured even after everything was a joke for the ages.

 

“Hello?” The child leaned into him when he didn’t answer her, unafraid as she peered up at him. “Are you okay, mister?”

 

In a flurry of dark blue silk, Aglovale flipped their positions and pushed the girl onto the ground, her tiny body nearly disappearing into the thick grass as he held her down with his fingertips on her throat.

 

“Did you intend to torment me with this, Lord Oomukade?” he asked, voice dangerously quiet. “I’ve stopped wishing for this kind of peace a long time ago.”

 

The child only blinked. “But my name’s Djeeta.”

 

Aglovale’s lip curled at the centipede’s audacity. “Do not lie to me.”

 

But her face only broke into a scowl, those eyes glaring at him with the very same defiance that outmatched anything the Oomukade could ever muster. “My name’s Djeeta!” she repeated, louder this time. “Don’t call me a liar!”

 

He watched his own reflection falter in her depths, the crimson eyes of his deceptively mortal likeness staring back at him. He had been the god of the forest for a very long time, yet ironically enough, it was the fragment of the intimate truth in that deception that had him taking his fingers away as he let the girl go.

 

The child who called herself Djeeta sat up, watching him carefully before the tension gradually faded from her demeanor. She tilted her head to one side, and then the other, cautiously bringing herself closer towards him as curiosity got the better of her.

 

“...What’s your name?” she asked after a moment.

 

Aglovale lifted his gaze to meet hers, wondering the meaning of her appearing before him like this at the threshold of his own end. The girl was several years younger than the Djeeta he knew, but her eyes were just as bright, voice just as clear, and the heart she wore on her sleeve just as earnest as she asked for his name.

 

“It is Aglovale, child.”

 

Djeeta’s face lit back up when he answered her. “Aglovale!” She rolled her tongue around the consonants of his name like it were something foreign. “Aglovale, that sounds just like royalty, doesn’t it? Are you a king?”

 

He could almost laugh for how genuinely enthusiastic she was in this open field, staring at him like he really were the king of whatever wild imagination she possessed.

 

“I’m afraid not.”

 

“A prince then?”

 

“Even less so.”

 

She visibly drooped, lips pulled together in a pout. “...I thought I’d finally get to see another kingdom in the outside world, but if you’re not even a prince, then…”

 

That, he laughed dryly at. She was equal parts cheeky, equal parts honest—from falling asleep on top of a stranger to approaching him so boldly, she was so bereft of anything resembling propriety that it made the Djeeta he knew look meek in comparison.

 

“I’ve no taste for children,” he told her, neglecting to share that he could still swallow her in a single bite if he so wished, but the girl proved amusing enough for him to entertain when grown men would tremble to be in her shoes. “Regardless, you should hold more fear for me, child.”

 

“Why? Because you’re a stranger?” she asked innocently. “Why would I be afraid of strangers when the outside world is full of them? Silly.”

 

She was so simple and naive that she bordered on profound as Aglovale scoffed lightly, resting a hand on the ground beside him as his hair slid from his shoulders to pool beside it. However, he was spared from having to conceive an appropriate reply when the distantly shrill voice of a woman cut through the field and startled the girl onto her feet.

 

“Djeeta—!” the voice hollered. “Djeeta, where have you gone you horrible child!”

 

He watched the child scramble around. Seemingly making up her mind, she chose to snatch one of his hands instead of fleeing without him, tugging on him with the surprising strength in her little body until he brought himself to stand.

 

“If you don’t return this instant, then you can sleep right outside, you ungrateful little—!”

 

“Let’s run, Aglovale!” she hissed, pulling him along without waiting for his answer. The difference in height between them as he followed her was so great that it was almost comical, but Djeeta didn’t let that slow them down as she dragged him through the grass. “Missus will kill me if she finds us both out here.”

 

In this strange and impossible world, there was little he could do but yield himself to the child’s will as she cut a path through the field. The woman in question called and called, her voice more or less unintelligible to his mortal ears before it faded altogether as they approached the furthest end of the field, the edge of a forest gradually coming into view.

 

“Where are you taking me, child?”

 

“A secret place!” she answered, eyes sparkling. “We’ll both get in trouble if we’re caught, so we’re partners now, Aglovale!”

 

Partners. The concept was about as foreign to him as his dress and accent were to her, but the girl had no qualms with throwing the word around, devoid of vigilance as she was decorum.

 

Djeeta leapt from the grass like a wild hare, breaking through the threshold of the forest and taking him with her. “Safe!” she cried out before they both slowed to a stop, leaves and twigs crunching beneath their feet in place of the soft grass. Aglovale paused as the sound of running water within the forest drew his gaze elsewhere, and he left the girl to catch her breath on her own.

 

He made his way to the edge of a shallow stream, the water clear, but not so clear that he couldn’t make out his own reflection upon its sparkling surface. Just like before, two crimson eyes stared back at him, and when Aglovale lifted a hand to touch his face, his reflection did the same.

 

It was as if he were looking into the mirror of Djeeta’s own eyes, beholding the very same reflection he had long forgotten before the girl had tumbled into his life. And then he realized. All around, he felt her there—the gentleness of the breeze that rustled the leaves on their branches, the warmth of the dappled sunlight on his skin. This world was kind because Djeeta was incapable of anything else. 

 

It was kind, because this was her heart.

 

The length of his hair swaying about his frame, he turned to watch the child bound closer toward him as the forest that whispered in its alien language loomed over her with its warm but intangible affection like a doting guardian. She was its child—it had raised her, watched over her, and he would do best to treat her gently, but even the girl was a small part of a greater whole, the distillation of all of her innocence molded into human form. It was not the first time he had touched the landscape of a mortal heart, but that said nothing as to why he was here to begin with when she should be somewhere far away.

 

Pleased with their getaway, Djeeta only grinned from ear to ear and glowed with all the light of the sun as she knelt at the water’s edge to investigate whatever had captured his attention so raptly.

 

“What’cha looking at?” she asked, peering into the stream. “Did you see any fish?”

 

She leaned closer, and her foolhardiness finally caught up to her when she lost her grip on the moss-covered rocks, but Aglovale was there in an instant to sweep her into his arms in one graceful motion.

 

“You clumsy child. Were you not supposed to take me to this secret place?” he drawled softly as her face lit up a second time, her eyes so wide that he could see the specks of gold dancing in those depths.

 

She leaned over and pointed past the end of the stream with her finger, utterly naive to the god’s revelation. “It’s that way, we just have to keep walking—”

 

Aglovale didn’t give her the chance to finish before he pushed off of the forest floor and took to the air in one powerful leap. Djeeta was squealing bloody murder then, her tiny arms clinging to his neck for dear life as their hair whipped about their faces in the wind. The forest canopy was a blur of green beneath his heels before he descended back into the sea of leaves and pushed himself off of another branch to rejoin the sky.

 

Djeeta braved the sudden altitude when she carefully pried her face away from his collar, the tears in her eyes disappearing altogether as she took in the view. “We’re flying,” she whispered in disbelief before she broke into delighted laughter, kicking her feet as she leaned over his shoulder to take in the entirety of her village from where they were in the sky. “Aglovale, we’re flying! That’s my home!”

 

In this place, there was no silk to tie him to the earth, and there were no prayers for him to resent. He knew not why he was here, but with the sound of Djeeta’s laughter in his ears, all he could do was tilt his head back and behold the great blue sky itself.

 

Always so quick to overcome her fears, the girl went from screaming to nearly tumbling over his shoulder to glean a better view for herself. He scanned the stretch of the forest before he found a small clearing where the leaves were sparse. Surpassing the apex of his jump, Aglovale allowed himself to descend back to earth as Djeeta broke into a fresh fit of laughter, wrapped up in the fall as her stomach flew into her lungs.

 

He alighted upon a branch to break their descent, his robes billowing all about his form, and before the branch launched them back into the sky, he leapt again to touch his feet to the ground amidst a patch of pure white flowers. A sweet aroma that reminded him of Djeeta herself exploded across his senses alongside the petals that filled the air like confetti during a parade as if to greet their visitors. Djeeta giggled, grabbing at them.

 

“Ashblooms!” she explained, wriggling out of his grip to stand on her own. “It’s too hot for them in the meadow, so this is the only place you can find them in summer before they dry up and fly away.”

 

She puffed her tiny chest out. “See? I know things.”

 

Aglovale allowed one of the petals to drift into his own palm. Its surface was so smooth that it looked as if it’d been casted in wax, yet it was lighter than a feather when the breeze picked it back up again. “This is—”

 

“My secret place!” Djeeta skipped across the flowers towards the large boulder resting in the middle of the flower patch, the gray stone covered by layers of moss and lichen. She plopped down beside it, patting the spot next to her as she glanced at him expectantly.

 

“Promise you won’t tell anyone,” she told him when he too made his way over. “The flowers won’t bloom if there’s too many people. They’re shy.”

 

“My lips are sealed,” he replied, carefully setting his weight down beside her, “if you’d trust this secret with me.”

 

“You’re my friend, Aglovale,” she said like it were the most simple thing in the world. “This place is for us now.”

 

He said nothing to that, merely allowing his body to settle while he slowly breathed in the sweet aroma of the child’s precious garden—strange as she was, it was only par for the course when it came to Djeeta herself. Moments of peaceful silence passed between them before he felt her tiny hands comb through his hair. He opened one eye to peer at her.

 

“...I wish my hair was this long,” Djeeta said, eyes glowing with admiration as she stroked his flowing locks over and over. “It’s so pretty.”

 

Aglovale tilted his head, somehow finding the pull of his hair getting caught on her fingers not entirely unbearable. “It could be, if you have the patience for it.”

 

“It’s not that, I have to grow up first.” Her expression soured. “The grannies say long hair only looks good after you marry and become a mom.”

 

The corner of his lip twitched at the strange custom. “I suppose the boys of your village have no such rules.”

 

“I dunno, they’re not as pretty as you,” Djeeta replied as she began to divide and braid his hair. “They’re not as strong as you either. They always want to fight, but they cry when I win, and then I get in trouble, and then everyone says—” She suddenly stopped, pressing her lips together.

 

Aglovale gave her a moment to gather herself. “What do they say, Djeeta?”

 

“Nothing,” she mumbled.

 

“My,” he began loftily, “to think that I was the friend you would entrust your secrets to.”

 

Djeeta scrambled, nearly dropping the half-formed braid in her hands. “You are my friend!” she insisted, folding so quickly that he nearly felt bad about it. “...They say that just because my dad’s a hero, it doesn’t mean that I… that I get to show off.”

 

Aglovale paused while Djeeta continued, her voice growing tight. “I don’t mean to. They’re the ones who always start it anyways.”

 

Djeeta had only spoken sparsely of her own family, and it was never in his own tastes to pry, especially not at the time. He had little interest in her upbringing—what concern should he have had for his own offering’s past? Would she have tasted better? Would it have explained her own peculiarities, and why should he have cared if it did? 

 

Yet the small part of him that still clung to bygone matters could hardly fathom that a living parent would abandon their own child, and one so small that she came up only to his waist. Perhaps that was why she yearned so deeply for the world beyond the borders of her tiny village, the great unknown serving as the last connection to her own roots even if she no longer remembered the reason why.

 

“Do you think that you’ll find what you wish for in another kingdom?”

 

She looked away, fidgeting with the weeds sprouting between the flowers like she were suddenly ashamed of something. “I don’t know… I just don’t want to be here anymore.”

 

“Well,” Aglovale began. “You certainly won’t need a wandering prince or anyone else to take you there once you’re older. I believe your own two feet will take you wherever your heart so desires.”

 

Djeeta glanced back at him. “You don’t think I’m weird? You’re not gonna tell me that it’s dangerous?”

 

He paused, his gaze drifting off elsewhere as the other Djeeta stood in his mind’s eye. Even till the very end, there was little he could have done short of brute force to dissuade the girl from whatever she had set her mind to. He could only trust that she was somewhere else along the river with his attendants’ guidance, and then the ease within his heart grew heavy as it finally sank in that he would never see her again as she was, grinning as she did, donning the very silk he had spun for her himself as the hand loom lie forgotten somewhere on a shelf.

 

“It is dangerous,” he conceded. “But you’ll conquer any monster and make a fool of any god.”

 

Rather than instill her with confidence, his words had her furrowing her brows together as she fell deep in thought. She then finished the braid and flung it over his shoulder. Smiling softly to himself, he ran his fingers along the woven length and decided not to remark upon the absolutely horrendous handiwork before she careened to the side and plopped her head into his lap.

 

“But you look sad, Aglovale,” she said to him, her arms too short to reach his face when she raised them. “I won’t leave you behind. If you stay, then we can play together every day instead.”

 

It was quite the proposal, but he was wiser than this. Humming softly, he bent himself lower so that her fingers could just barely brush against his chin. Even after speaking with her and sharing with her these moments, he still had no idea as to why he was here to begin with. The newfound heaviness within his chest only sunk lower into the pit of his stomach as even the gentle breeze couldn’t sweep away the growing sense of foreboding within him.

 

“...I fear the price of my staying is far too great for me to pay.”

 

Her frown deepened. “Price? Why would there be a price?”

 

He chuckled dryly. “Nothing good in life comes free,” he answered. He wanted to say it was something she wouldn’t understand until she was older, but he knew her well enough already that she would never accept such a cheap explanation from him. “I do not belong here, Djeeta.”

 

She stopped moving for a moment, uncomprehending until her eyes began to flood and glisten. “But… but you’re my friend,” she said. “Are you leaving me too?”

 

The day after they met for the very first time, he remembered holding her selflessness in great disdain—past a certain point, there was little difference between altruism and sheer stupidity after all. Maybe it was his own fault for not being precise, but Djeeta had become more comfortable with wanting things for her own sake with the caveat that each of her requests were impossible to grant. It became a theory of his that she would always be difficult some way or another.

 

Aglovale watched the girl sniffle. He was not her god. She had no reason to mourn, but Djeeta sat up all the same and wiped the tears from her eyes, reluctant to let him go at all.

 

“I… I’ll forgive you,” she managed thickly in lieu of his reply. “I’ll forgive you if you let me give you a present, Aglovale.”

 

He conceded if she would finally resign him to his fate. “As you wish.”

 

He watched the child swallow her tears before she reached behind herself and pulled out a closed fist, hiding the “present” from his eyes. She held out her hand and he extended his.

 

“I worked really hard for this you know.”

 

She opened her hand and a single scarlet blossom fell into his palm. He stared at the many-petaled flower, a vague sense of familiarity swirling from within his gut before he placed it into his mouth, moving instinctively and without thinking.

 

The scarlet turned into molten sweetness upon his tongue before he swallowed it in its entirety, the warmth sliding down his throat like the familiar taste of blood. Pain that he had somehow never realized was there vanished from his body, leaving him reeling in confusion as his surroundings began to waver like a fleeting mirage. Eyes on the ground, his heart stuttered at the sight of several small centipedes that had fallen from his robes without his knowing, writhing before they burned away into ashes that disappeared into the soil that nourished the ashblooms.

 

He looked back up at the girl for an explanation, but she only smiled softly at him, one hand clasped to her neck.

 

“Got’cha.” Her smile widened into a triumphant, but exhausted grin. “You feel better now, right, Lord Aglovale?”

 

A river of crimson began to flow from where her hand met her skin, and she was gone.

 

Djeeta startled awake, her arms floundering around as she pat down the space next to herself. She was alone, Aglovale nowhere to be found as she rolled out of the futon and realized she was back in her own room.

 

It was one thing after another when she whipped her head about and caught a cluster of spiders circled around Percival’s sword, each of them taking turns prodding the hilt with their paws and going as far as shaking it a little before she hastily shooed them away, acutely aware of how flammable their furry little bodies looked.

 

“It’s not a toy,” she scolded, stashing the sword on top of one of the shelves, which was hardly an obstacle for any determined spider, but at least it’d be out of the way while she spun about her heel to take in the situation.

 

Something was off, but she couldn’t put a finger on it as she glanced back at the sword, wondering if she had imagined everything when there was no reason Lord Aglovale couldn’t tell her that it could just catch on fire.

 

And then in a heavy flood of vivid sounds and shapes, it all came back to her—the dying forest, the tar bleeding from Lord Aglovale’s body, the Oomukade’s looming shadow, the weight of her own despair as she clutched the scarlet flower, the light of raging flames, and then her own injuries—

 

Djeeta hastily pat herself down, wrenching open her robes without knowing when she had changed into them in the first place. She turned her arms back and forth before she slapped a hand to her neck, not a single wound or drop of blood to be found on her body. She glanced at the spirits staring wide-eyed at her flailing about, unblinking as always, but their silence was of absolutely no help to her as she threw the door open and stumbled into the hallway.

 

Had she been dreaming? Was the Oomukade still alive? And what of Lord Aglovale? Was this just another trick of his? Had she been sleeping while he committed himself to dying? The more questions she asked herself as her thoughts danced around the absolute worst case scenario, the more her throat tightened as tears sprung from the back of her eyes.

 

She ran through the hallways and found the secret corridor that led to Lord Aglovale’s room. Clearing the distance while panic and adrenaline flooded her body in just a matter of seconds, Djeeta nearly ripped the door right off its tracks as she threw herself inside, only to find an empty bed wrapped in pristine sheets, a few more of Lord Aglovale’s servants dawdling about and hauling away piles of indiscernible rubble until they all turned to look at her.

 

Chest heaving, Djeeta said nothing to any of them as she strode over to the window, swung open the shutters, and climbed out of it, nearly landing face-first into the garden when her ankle caught on the ledge. After dislodging herself in a tangle of limbs, silk, and grunting, Djeeta righted herself and bolted around the corner, stopping in her tracks when she found the one she was looking for standing at the cusp of the veranda before the garden.

 

He stood like a pillar of stone dressed in soft silk and gossamer that blew gently in the wind, the golden luster of his hair glowing from the sunlight reflected by the thriving garden. When she saw him last, he had been drowning in poison, his skin gray, his body withering, but Djeeta found no remnant nor proof that any of it had ever been real when his figure was as pristine and untouchable as it’d always been.

 

Djeeta didn’t care that her clothes were nearly sliding off of her body when she strode over and threw her arms around his middle, squeezing him tightly as she buried her face into whatever part of him she could manage. He was warm, solid, his robes soft as she rubbed her nose into them just to really make sure that he was real. She could still be dreaming after all, especially when this Aglovale neither pushed her away nor droned on about her impudence or insolence or whatever it was he liked to complain about. 

 

And so she stood there in her wordlessness, soaking in every part of him that she could. The birdsong, the warmth of the sun, the wafting aroma of blooming flowers and wild herbs—they were all a part of him too, thriving with life free from the centipede’s curse.

 

It felt like a peaceful eternity had passed until Djeeta felt him break the stillness, the weight of his hand resting against the back of her head before she looked up at him for some kind of answer. She didn’t know what to say, having been too preoccupied with finding him to come up with anything meaningful for when she did.

 

But Aglovale filled that space for her, parting from her just enough so that he could adjust her collar, folding the panels of silk over one another before he tightened the sash around her middle.

 

“You’ve became slovenly,” he said while she was trying not to cry. He tied her bow and cinched her waist, keeping the belt neat and orderly before he adjusted her collar a second time and smoothed down the wrinkles in her sleeves. She felt like she was a child again being fussed over by one of the village aunties from back home until Aglovale went as far as to tuck her hair behind her ear, his scarlet eyes piercingly warm and all-encompassing when she met them. 

 

“I am… at a loss,” he confessed softly, lowering his gaze as she felt his eyes linger on the crook of her neck longer than what a passing glance should’ve been. “My servants have done their best to enlighten me, and yet I stand here, very much alive and incognizant of the true extent of my own actions.”

 

He spoke, but she only cared about one thing. “You’re… you’re okay now, then?”

 

Aglovale made a noncommittal sound. 

 

“Not only have you slain the Oomukade, but you thwarted the will of a god,” he murmured, his fingers hovering just before her collar like he hadn’t yet decided on what to do with them. “Neither I nor the children know what you’ve done to bring the heart of Lamorak’s adolescent fixation to me, but I can only imagine that it was something exceedingly foolish, and then I have one attendant swearing on its soul that you revived the core of Percival’s mag—” His voice rose with every word until he stopped abruptly, closing his eyes. Djeeta watched him take slow breaths, the Aglovale who was always so self-assured struggling briefly to temper himself before he reopened his eyes.

 

“...For centuries my nine eyes have been vigilant, and yet I awake with a gap in my memory and your blood in my stomach.” He closed one of his fists, his voice growing even softer until he was almost whispering. “You’ll not corner me like this again, Djeeta.”

 

“I won’t have to,” she replied. “Because you won’t try and throw your life away again, will you?”

 

That gave him pause before he tilted his chin back and sighed deeply, allowing the forest breeze to pass between them for a breath of fresh air. After another moment, he turned to leave the veranda for the garden, but Djeeta only leapt over the edge to trot after him.

 

“...Are you sulking?” she asked innocently.

 

“I will not dignify that with an answer.”

 

She smiled behind his back as she followed him to where creek flowed, her anxiety put to ease with the air of exasperation that was so familiar to her that it might as well be the sound of home. Aglovale perched on one of the rock formations by the water, and Djeeta sat right beside him without waiting for his invitation this time.

 

She leaned forward, catching a glimpse of her own reflection upon the rippling surface beside Aglovale’s own—a towering shadow with eight legs that nearly dwarfed the boulder it sat upon. Eyes never leaving the water, she reached out and felt the silkiness of Aglovale’s sleeve beside her rather than the fur of his other form.

 

She had been afraid of him before, and she hated it.

 

Djeeta closed her fingers around the fabric, the softness she held in her hand defying what her eyes told her. Her heart beat steadily, and Aglovale seemed to be fine with whatever she wanted to do when he didn’t pull his sleeve away. 

 

He gave her her moment, and she gave him his as the monstrous spider that stared at them from the water seemed to soften in demeanor. She had been afraid of him before, but never again.

Notes:

This one had to be cut short since it was getting way too long. Once again, thanks for reading!

Chapter 16

After a moment, Aglovale broke the bridge of wordlessness between them as he spoke above the sounds of the garden. “...You spoke the truth,” he said, nine eyes wavering from the surface of the water. “I was lacking… and so you acted and suffered for it.”

 

Djeeta glanced at him as he continued contemplating the water. “What I went through wasn’t so bad,” she told him, swinging her feet. The centipede only felt like a particularly vivid dream, nothing more, and all that mattered to her now was him living and breathing beside her. Although, even then, there were still some things she couldn’t just let go. “But why couldn’t you have told me the truth from the start? Why couldn’t you have asked me for help?”

 

For another moment, Aglovale was quiet. She wondered if he’d brush her off again, but a part of her knew that even he wouldn’t try and press his luck again.

 

And she was right. “I was… proud,” he confessed, “and so I underestimated Lord Oomukade’s hatred. By itself, my true name means nothing, but a feud between gods and spirits is a different affair altogether.”

 

Djeeta studied him through the water. Even the great Lord Aglovale could make mistakes, but he still understood more about this strange place and its strange laws than she ever could. At the end of the day, it was a fluke that she was able to turn one of those very same laws against the monster centipede and make it out alive, and even then, she still couldn’t have done it without him. She wondered if he knew as the hazy memories of those crimson fields crept toward the forefront of her thoughts. “Was the Oomukade also a god just like you, Lord Aglovale?”

 

He tilted his chin in thought. “Perhaps thousands of years ago to the mortals who lived amongst the mountains. But they are an extinct people now, their mythos equally obsolete.” There was a slight bitterness as he spoke. “Even if it were true, the Oomukade they worshipped was different from the oversized centipede you and I both know.”

 

She frowned, tilting her head as she thought about the ones who hosted Lamorak during his travels abroad. “What happened to them, then? The people from the mountains?”

 

His face darkened just momentarily and Djeeta wondered if she’d somehow asked something she shouldn’t have. If he was upset, however, then it didn’t show in his voice. “They could not survive the test of time, that’s all,” he answered with a note of finality. “As for the centipede, it traded its identity for the delusions of its predecessor. Dead gods fester beneath the earth while their wills linger, and I’ve yet to join them thanks to this stupendously relentless human child sitting beside me.”

 

Djeeta immediately grinned, the lack of subtlety far from lost on her. “Thanks! I think a certain monster called me a cockroach not too long ago, actually.”

 

“And such cockroaches are relentless?”

 

“...In a way.”

 

Aglovale snorted dryly, a gentle sense of ease washing over her heart as she watched his demeanor lift despite himself.

 

“Doubtful,” he said as he casually brushed back her stray locks of hair once again, more comfortable than ever with reaching into her sphere as she glanced back at him. His scarlet eyes seemed to glow with so much intensity that she couldn’t help but look away, but not without catching a glimpse of the sly curve of his lips. It was only yesterday that he had his teeth in her with no room between them for any questions, but somehow it was the tiny things that left her cheeks burning and heart floundering the more she tried to keep it still. At least back then she knew what he needed from her and what she had to do. Now, she wasn’t so sure, and she blamed the wind for taking her courage away while Aglovale’s amusement deepened from the corner of her eyes.

 

“No such vermin could put me at such a loss of what to do… Should I thank you?” he asked loftily like he were a king rolling around the fate of the peasantry within the palm of his hand. “Or should I punish you? No one has lived to defy me twice, and yet I find myself losing count with you.”

 

Djeeta scowled. “You can’t punish me for that,” she said. “You said it yourself—things only got this bad because you were so stubborn, and I think having you cured at the end of the day has earned me some kind of pardon.”

 

Aglovale paused, which made her pause in turn. “Cured?” he echoed softly, taking his hand away before he turned it over. Djeeta glanced between him and his open palm. “I am alive, yes, but there is still one matter left to settle before I can say that I’ve been cured, Djeeta.”

 

She felt her blood stop as the color vanished from her cheeks as quickly as it appeared. “Matter? What kind of matter?”

 

Aglovale didn’t answer her as he suddenly stood, turning his head towards the mountain. Djeeta leapt up to join him, trying to remember what she had missed, but when she looked to him for another clue, she only found a suspicious glint in his eyes that tripped the alarm in her head instead. Her feet reacted first as her body turned to flee, but Aglovale had already swept her legs out from beneath her in a flurry of silk before he scooped her into his arms.

 

“Lord Aglovale!” she gasped, wriggling around like a trout caught in the bear’s maw. “Lord Aglovale, let me go! You can’t just pick me up whenever you feel like it like I’m a kid —!”

 

“Oh? Let you go?” he drawled in such a way that sent shivers up her spine as he held her over the water. “Let you go here, you mean?”

 

“Lord Aglovale!”

 

Raucous laughter boomed across the garden and Djeeta wondered if he’d somehow lost his mind as she clung to his shoulders to keep him from dunking her into the cold water below. Apparently, he thought this was hilarious.

 

“I’ve decided,” he declared over her flailing legs. “You’ve had your chance to escape, Djeeta. As such, you will bear the full consequences of your actions and accompany me for this task of mine.”

 

Somewhere else, Lord Aglovale’s attendants gathered at the door from within the manor to bear witness to the commotion that filled the usually tranquil garden. They exchanged glances with one another, each of them finding mischief to be a strange look on the Jorougumo as they watched their master torment the poor girl by dangling her over the stream.

 

Apparently dissatisfied with simply leaving the manor in disarray for his servants to clean up, Lord Aglovale collected the both of them and spirited Djeeta away to wherever his whims so dictated, the latter strewing his name across the forest with great indignation.

 

As all eyes watched the two of them disappear into the woods, one spider let out an exhausted wheeze and slapped its rag onto the floor. The others murmured their sympathies.

 

Aglovale let her go, and Djeeta fell to her knees at the foot of what used to be the meadow. Scorched by the late summer heat, the delicate flowers from before had long withered and shed their petals, tiny seeds stowed amongst the earth awaiting the first springmelt. Golden stalks of grass had pushed through the mulch some time between then and now, swaying gently as if in greeting as Aglovale drew his gaze back to her while she turned to glare at him. Her hair truly was the color of straw, longer than it was when they first met.

 

Djeeta paused for a moment, her glower softening around the edges when she held his gaze for just a while longer.

 

“Lord Aglovale, you seem… different.” Again, he saw the telltale signs of her worry bleed into her expression.

 

He couldn’t help but smile softly to himself as he walked briskly past her, the tail of his robes swinging behind him with great flourish. She was more perceptive now—no, she had always been more perceptive than he’d ever given her credit for. Combined with the depth of her inexplicable compassion and lack of priorities, it was a force that had brought him to his wits’ end more times that he’d like to admit.

 

“Djeeta.” He spoke her name, then closed his eyes as he mulled over the syllables like the child had done with his own. In the span of his incapacity, the Djeeta behind him had done the impossible and slew the Oomukade, doing unto it what she had set out to do unto him—that is, until the people she had sought to help betrayed her instead. How amusing it was, then, that they had both underestimated her. 

 

“Djeeta… you would go this far for my sake. Why?”

 

He felt her eyes on the back of his head as she carefully stood up from where he had dumped her.

 

“I thought you were going to die,” she said. “I couldn’t have just let that happen.”

 

“But why?” he asked again, turning slightly to look at her as she seemed to be at a loss for words, but he knew her resolve wasn’t so flimsy that she’d let their exchange end here. “If you had, then rather than being swept up by my whims, you’d be enjoying your freedom instead.”

 

She scowled, stepping towards him. “Call it a change in priorities then. How could you have expected me to just walk away when you’ve saved me twice—” she paused, “—no, three times now?”

 

Aglovale couldn’t bring to mind the third occasion he might’ve saved his former offering from her own foolishness, but one matter at a time. “You are simply repaying a debt then.”

 

“No, I…” she trailed off, frowning to herself this time as she lowered her gaze. Aglovale tilted his head, studying her expression as he watched her work through each of her thoughts. “It’s not that—”

 

He leaned into her with his presence from where he stood. “Oh? I’m afraid you will have to explain to me.”

 

She refused to buckle. “I didn’t want you to die, Lord Aglovale,” she said, grounding herself as she looked back up at him. “I wanted us to spend more time together, I—” She swallowed. “I said I wanted to walk with you just a little longer.”

 

The divinity inside of him stirred as if those words should’ve been familiar. His eyes did not leave her even when he felt something ancient begin to crumble within his chest and against his wishes. He lifted a hand to his breast and dug his fingers into the layers of woven silk that covered his skin as if he could reach in from the outside and force the pieces back together. He knew not what expression he was wearing, nor could he glean it from the depths of Djeeta’s eyes when he found that the deeper he gazed into them, the deeper her unclouded sincerity seeped into him.

 

Even some poisons could be sweet.

 

“...Lord Aglovale?” she asked softly as she stepped even closer, mistaking his grimace for that of pain. Even now, it was him that she was always concerned about. “What’s wrong? Is this what you meant by earlier?”

 

Unable to bear it for any longer, he turned away from her. Half-formed memories stirred, but failed to break the surface as they fell back into darkness of yesterday. 

 

Hundreds of years, the days passed by like clockwork as he moved through them, crowned by his enduring solitude. Everything was as he had placed it and nothing happened within the forest without his knowing—every breath drawn and taken because he so allowed it, and every thought and action his own with no one left to take it. By the forest, and by the treacherous mortals who prayed to him, he was a god, and he bowed to no impulse nor temptation.

 

Yet ever since the girl had fallen into his web, he found himself at odds with all that he had kept in line. Every thread of silk he had so meticulously placed, pulled askew. Every wall, toppled. His emotions, his temper, his hunger… and now his heart—all rebelling against his better senses like he were no more than a bumbling fool.

 

And still, even as the dull throbbing inside of his chest grew heavier and heavier, he still couldn’t run from the prying eyes of Djeeta’s own worry.

 

“...My brothers were just like you, you humans and your vagrant hearts,” he said to her, tilting his head back towards the sky like he often found himself doing these days. Before she had tumbled into his life, he had no reason to ever gaze at the heavens. “I could not keep them from the outside world. They would have withered under the shade of the manor, but still… but still, it felt like a betrayal to watch them go. 

 

“They became enamored with the world and forgave its people while I sunk deeper into my rot.” Trapped between the polarizing ends of his own will, Aglovale found himself looking right back at her. “When humans pray to the Jorougumo, they open their hearts to me—were you aware of that? I see that very same rot inside of them, and I see the short-sightedness and selfishness that have led to their own undoing time and time again.”

 

Djeeta pressed her lips together, and he wondered what it was that she was feeling for her to look so troubled. 

 

“Does it hurt?” she asked him first, taking the words straight from his mouth. He couldn’t help but smile mirthlessly at that.

 

“It hurts in the way that the flames of rage may have you writhe and ache, but when you’ve already been consumed by them, it is not the pain that you are thinking about.”

 

He lifted a hand to brush against the gently swaying stalks of grass, their feathery seeds stroking the underside of his fingers as his gaze weighed closer to the earth. He plucked one such seed and rolled the grain between his fingers.

 

“I inherited the body of a god, but retained my ugliness as a human. Even my own brothers could not stay by my side, and yet you…” He lifted his gaze once more and met her eyes. “And yet you’re telling me that you wish to remain here?”

 

It was only because her eyes shone with such clarity that he could glean from them her resolve. He nearly felt foolish for asking.

 

“I am,” she said, and he knew there was no other answer he could have expected from her.

 

“Then here lies the matter that I must tend to,” he said to her before he turned back around. “Behold and bear witness to it.”

 

The air around them shuddered beneath austere crimson, shimmering as he mustered the seeds of his magic. “You are standing in the presence of Lord Aglovale,” he spoke, the lowest depths of his voice coming from deep within, “the highest sovereign of this land and all-seeing steward of the forest. All bounty is of my blood, and all life is of my blessing.”

 

He did not have to yell for his breath was the wind that swept across the land. He inhaled deeply, then exhaled slowly as he first lifted his hand to his shoulder, then unraveled the length of his arm, stretching it out as far as it could reach. His palm faced the sky, middle finger pinned to the flesh of it by his thumb as he fixed his eyes on the furthest end of the horizon.

 

Lord Oomukade was dead, felled by a human. All manner of spirits and monsters would vie to fill the void left behind by the centipede, and those most foolish and ambitious would consider it a stepping stone to the post of a god. He could not afford to be weak, nor could he afford to spend another day licking his wounds. All it took was a single miscalculation after all, and it was only by Djeeta’s own stubbornness that he was given this second chance.

 

He took another breath and focused on the tiny seed pressed between his fingers. The child of that peaceful dream smiled from the eaves of his heart as if to silently cheer him on. It was absurd—he had no use for anyone’s encouragement, but she smiled all the same, never the one to be deterred just like the young woman standing behind him.

 

The wind picked back up as if in anticipation, the long tresses of his golden hair swirling about his frame, and he snapped his fingers.

 

The world was engulfed in an explosion of white, transforming the golden fields before them into a land covered in snow. He closed his fingers around the wheel and forced it to turn, rewinding the very seasons so that the delicate flowers could flourish in spite of the encroaching autumn. Tightly-wound buds sprung from the earth in thick bouquets that completely eclipsed the ground beneath, flowers clustering and pushing each other aside as they unfurled beneath the light of the sun. At the slightest breeze, those same waxy petals took to the air like countless feathers, the blossoms they left behind no less lush.

 

He stepped forth one pace and the sea of flowers that Djeeta had called ashblooms rippled like the surface of an ocean, new buds sprouting wherever there was an inch to spare. Piles formed where the flowers swayed, dashed by the winds before new blossoms took their place.

 

“Perhaps I overdid it,” he murmured, slowly lowering his hand. He heard the rustling of Djeeta’s footsteps behind him before he turned to face her again, only to find the soft fervor of homesickness stitched across her expression.

 

She didn’t say anything as her gaze reached past the great expanse of white, her lips slightly parted without any words to leave her mouth. She didn’t have to tell him that’d it’d been several years since she last returned home, nor did she have to tell him that she had never seen ashblooms beyond the pastures of her village.

 

“Rejoice,” he said. His gaze softened as he brushed the stray petals from the top of her head. He was sure that if he left her as she was, she’d turn into a blooming snowman before long. “It appears that I’ve been cured after all.”

 

She looked at him, and he met her eyes in turn, heart as disobedient as it was. “Lord Aglovale, how did you—?”

 

He lifted a finger to his lips. There was no meaning in the flowers he took from that child’s secret grove. They were vehicles of convenience—vessels to test his powers of manifestation and nothing more. He would need to be capable of much more in order to brace for the impending changes that would wrack the forest in the Oomukade’s absence, but he couldn’t say that the glow of the flowers called ashblooms was entirely unpleasant, their light reflected by Djeeta’s own honeyed depths.

 

“You said you wished to walk with me,” he told her. “Then walk with me, Djeeta.”

 

Each step sent a shower of petals fluttering through the air as he carved a path through the blooming field, Djeeta wading through the flowers behind him. By the day’s end, the silvery stretch would turn back into sun-scorched gold, but at least for now, she could admire them as they were if she so wished.

 

“The centipede’s flower has hidden your wounds from me,” he said. “But I am not so easily appeased by its deception. I have harmed you, without my own knowing, but I have harmed you nonetheless.”

 

“But I’m your offering, Lord Aglovale,” she replied, the frown evident in her voice.

 

“No, did you forget that I’d released you first?” he asked without expecting an answer from her. With the way she spoke, he had to wonder if the girl would go so far as to lay her life down if the god inside of him had demanded it. He pressed his lips together. Even her foolishness would stop short of self-destruction, but the question lingered nonetheless. “Regardless, it does not sit well that you’ve witnessed such pitiful conduct from me. Take the time to think about what you would like in recompense.”

 

He felt the disapproval roll off of her in waves. “But I don’t want anything.”

 

“Don’t be so demure,” he said. “The matter of your punishment still stands.”

 

“Lord Aglovale—”

 

“I said think,” he reiterated. “Or I will find ways to torment you for every waking hour you spend beneath my roof, Djeeta.”

 

She hardly seemed pleased about as she grumbled, “I can’t believe you’re still this stubborn.”

 

He smiled to himself as he could say the same about her. Before long, they had reached the very middle of the field, and when he came to a stop, so did she. He looked up at the cloudless sky again and mulled over the soft cornflower blue. Autumn was upon them, and then the sleepiness of winter would follow. Come spring, the fallen gods rotting beneath the earth would stir as the forest’s monsters would sink their teeth into one another to take up the seat left behind by the Oomukade. But until then, there was simply only this.

 

Exhaling softly, he drank in the sweet aroma of the meadow and allowed himself to fall backwards, eliciting a sharp cry of surprise from the other as she rushed to catch him.

 

“Lord Aglovale!” she gasped, collapsing underneath his weight as the two of them fell amongst the thick bed of flowers. “Lord Aglovale, are you okay?”

 

He closed his eyes as he felt her warmth close around him yet again. “Forgive me,” he said softly. “I wanted to know what it’d feel like, just this once.”

 

Her lap was soft, her arms gentle as she gazed questioningly down at him, not entirely convinced that he was of sound body and mind. She was amusing like that, sometimes. Such gentleness from her was the same that had cradled him when he had awoken in her arms to the sweet smell of her blood and the softness of her skin barely clothed. She had looked so peaceful and satisfied then with not a shred of pain to be seen on her face, yet no words could’ve described the tumult that had overcome him in his sleep-addled state when he had realized what he’d done.

 

“...You could give me a warning next time,” she mumbled, and he made a soft noise in affirmation.

 

Djeeta allowed him to rest upon her lap without any more complaints, and he allowed her to absentmindedly run her fingers along his bangs, playing with the tufts here and there. The handful of years it took for the child from that open field to grow up into a young woman was no more than a passing moment for him. A few more handfuls, and her soft golden hair would turn white, her slender fingers withered before she too would depart from the world. 

 

A yawning ache opened from within him as he reopened his eyes to find the look on her face a pensive one.

 

“Lord Aglovale,” she said to him after mulling over her thoughts, tucking his hair behind his ears. “Lord Aglovale, why don’t we make a contract?”

 

That piqued his curiosity as he looked up at her through the veil of his lashes. “And what sort of contract would this be?”

 

“I won’t try and corner you like that again, just like you said,” she replied. “In return, you have to promise me that you won’t give your life up to anyone or anything else ever again.”

 

He chuckled dryly. “So you would have me languish if it came to that. What an odd arrangement,” he said. “Very well. Consider it done, and while we are here, let us address the matter of your punishment for defying my wishes.”

 

He felt her sigh, but she was all too willing to humor him. “Get on with it then,” she muttered.

 

“You will remain by my side with no exceptions,” Aglovale said. “That is, until the end of today.”

 

She tilted her head, her hands coming to a rest upon his shoulders. “And what if I say no to that?”

 

“Then I’m afraid I’ll have to extend your sentence until the end of tomorrow.”

 

“And if I say no again?”

 

“Then your sentence will extend yet another day and so on and so forth.”

 

She grinned, her gossamer strands swaying in the breeze. “That’s awful. I don’t think I can spend another night in that crumbling mansion of yours.”

 

“You have no say in it,” he replied, turning his nose up. “Any further complaints and I’ll have you chained to your bed and we shall have to go from there.”

 

She laughed, and the sound of it fell over him like a veil. It took the reflection in her eyes for him to realize that he’d been smiling too, and something else bloomed from the aching shambles within his chest regardless of what he had to say about it.

 

Djeeta leaned over him, casting him in her shadow as her fingers brushed along his cheeks. “...I’m glad you’re here, Lord Aglovale,” she whispered. “This still isn’t a dream, right?”

 

“Child,” he began. “Is this really all so extraordinary that you’d think it a dream?”

 

He gleaned his answer in the way she lowered her gaze, and he had to wonder if she had truly feared for his life so deeply and for what reason. He felt her thumbs stroke his cheeks as he studied the honeyed depths that were no longer looking quite right at him, soft yet vibrant in the sunlight.

 

“I’m just… glad you’re here,” she said again, his world somehow all the brighter cast in her shadow as his eyes found the soft curve of her lips. They were even rosier up close, her cheeks as fervid as the look in her eyes—so much that he wondered if she were holding back tears.

 

But he was wrong when Djeeta carefully parted his bangs and pressed her lips to his forehead in a kiss, her touch the most gentle it’d ever been as an inexplicable warmth blossomed across his tingling skin.

 

Djeeta startled, pulling away as she smiled sheepishly down at him. “Sorry,” she said softly.  “Should I not have done that?”

 

But Aglovale was not listening as he reached up just as that child had reached up, taking her face into his hands as he drank in the color that tinged her own glowing skin. She was far too innocent as she gazed back at him, wholly unaware of the manifold impulses sprouting from within. If she had ever thought him radiant, then his radiance was nothing more than a fallacy compared to what unfolded before him.

 

“No…” he murmured. “No, that won’t do at all.”

 

Djeeta let out a noise likened to a squeak when he pulled her down to the earth and cast her in his shadow instead, leaning over her as he slowly traced the back of his knuckles along her cheek. She stared wide-eyed up at him, a soft flush creeping across her skin to match the color of her lips.

 

“You truly are…—” His breath caught in his throat as now even his words began to disobey him. “—beautiful.”

 

A single heartbeat passed between them before her face turned a deep scarlet as a pitiful sound escaped her lips. He chuckled softly in return, his voice a dry rattling within his throat as he pinned her wrists to keep her from hiding her face from him. For all of her shining courage, he never considered that this was what would do her in. But he too was falling apart, stumbling so foolishly over the pieces as everything that made her who she was swept him up like the tide of the ocean.

 

“How… how can you say that with a straight face?” she eked out, shutting her eyes tight and turning her head when he drew closer yet.

 

The corner of his mouth twitched as the length of his hair slid from his shoulders to form a curtain around them, shielding them from any prying eyes that might’ve been lurking amongst the flowers.

 

“Djeeta,” he said, sweeping the question aside. “Allow us to seal our contract properly.”

 

She mustered the courage to peer back at him, opening her mouth to ask what he might’ve meant by that, but she only paused just briefly instead as he watched the look of realization dawn on her. “...Okay,” she replied, the tightness in his core nigh unbearable now as she gazed up at him with the whole of her trust.

 

He felt both mirth and dread for his crumbling will weave themselves through the fiber of his being as he released one of her hands to cup her cheek, mouth slowly parting as he guided himself closer to her.

 

But then he too paused, stung by the shred of hesitation that still lingered within him when he felt the tremble beneath her skin. “...Will you push me away?” he asked, whispering into her ear. He had promised her no escape, but it was only fair that he gave her one last chance before they crossed the threshold. “I would forgive it.”

 

“I won’t,” she murmured back as her fingers climbed the length of his arm and combed themselves through his hair, drawing him even closer to show that she meant it. It was her turn to pull him in, and he felt the last throes of tension fade from her body as she did so. 

 

“I promise.”

Chapter 17

Notes:

NSFW [click for content warning]

Cunnilingus

Her name was Djeeta.

 

It was the only memento of her mother her father left behind for her alongside the trinkets that lined the shelves within the home they used to share—little objects with no one around to explain to her what they were for or where they had come from.

 

More to it were books. Some were written by her father, some by others, and some by the hand of something called a “press” that could write letters in little square boxes, but it wasn’t like she was any good at reading anyways as she rolled around on the hearth, books strewn about and earmarked, the thinner and less well-loved ones serving as bookmarks themselves for their much thicker counterparts as she committed the pictures to heart and filled the emptiness within with stories of her own.

 

And so her nights were filled with dreams of faraway kingdoms and towering castles big enough for a hundred people, warriors in shining armor and gleaming swords as they swept through the skies riding winged horses and giant dragons and ships that flew instead of sailed. 

 

And then her days were filled with people, for better or for worse.

 

They were in one of the sideyards behind the schoolhouse when Djeeta took her lips away from the butcher boy’s knee, wiping her mouth as she looked up at him expectantly.

 

“There,” she said. “Feel better yet?”

 

The boy grinned and for a moment, she thought he was going to thank her and they could finally lay everything between them to rest until he suddenly leapt up and kicked up clouds of dirt, sending bits of it into her eyes while he cackled.

 

Scowling and rubbing her face, Djeeta opened her mouth to tell him off for it until she heard several more footsteps emerge from the nearby bushes as the lot of them began to snicker and laugh at a joke that she apparently wasn’t invited to.

 

“She did it!” he said gleefully. “I told you guys that she’d do it!” She wondered what the big deal was supposed to be, but then Djeeta watched the boy lick the flat of his palm with a sneer on his face before he used it to wipe the “scrape” from his knee, leaving behind perfectly untouched skin.

 

Djeeta bristled. “You lied to me!” she accused, biting back a string of words she knew she wasn’t supposed to say. “You said you fell!”

 

“You’re the one who fell for it, stupid,” he jeered before another one of the boys—the baker’s son—came up from behind and smashed his mouth so hard against her cheek that she felt her jaw rattle, his teeth nicking her skin before the stench of days-old food shoved between his molars filled her nostrils so thickly and so suddenly that her stomach curdled.

 

“I win!” he howled in victory, puffing his chest out before he grabbed a handful of her smock to keep her from running off. “Bet none of you can beat that one!”

 

“Let go of me!”

 

“You kissed him, so why won’t you kiss the rest of us, huh?” he demanded before the other boys broke out into a fresh round of laughter, but Djeeta quickly put an end to all of that when she took a small branch laying on the ground and promptly swung it against the boy’s head, snapping it in two.

 

He fell to the ground and onto his behind, all three of them staring at her in shock between the fury etched on her face and the splintered half of the stick clutched in her fists before they realized what she’d just done.

 

And then the boy’s face folded and crumpled like paper as he broke into a fit of hysterics.

 

“Mom! Mom! She hit me!” he screamed, turning red from the neck up as tears streamed down his cheeks. Djeeta watched him cry and sob, her own tiny chest rising and falling as her anger slowly began to seep out of her. “Mom! Mommy—!”

 

Another pair of footsteps frantically crashed the scene from the schoolhouse, and she knew she was done for. This wasn’t the first time something like this happened after all.

 

“What in the name of the sky is going on here?”

 

All of the boys except for the one still crying on the ground rushed over and grasped the hem of their teacher’s dress, whimpering while accusations tumbled out of their mouths. Djeeta watched it all happen as she stood in the clearing, growing numb in the hands.

 

“Teacher, she hit him! We all saw her do it!”

 

She glowered and the boys whimpered again, to which the missus narrowed her eyes.

 

“Djeeta,” she said slowly, the weight of that familiar disappointment sinking into her as she bit her lip. “How many times have we gone through this now?

 

“They started it!” she cried, the equally familiar tightness closing around her chest as she felt their eyes on her. “He kissed me and then he tried to grab me!”

 

“Nu-uh!” the butcher’s son immediately shot back, hiding behind their teacher’s legs. “We were just playing and she’s the one who kissed me first!”

 

“Kiss?” their teacher repeated, tilting her head as her eyes widened like that was the biggest takeaway here. “You are all just children! Especially you, Djeeta! That’s something you save for someone special—what would your father say?”

 

Djeeta felt something pop in her temples, a flash of rage glaring back at her from the depths of their teacher’s eyes. “...What would you know?”

 

The other turned pale, the lines in her face growing even harsher than they were before. “Excuse me, child?”

 

“I said—” she hollered, putting every ounce of her own rage into each word as the boys stared open-mouthed at her, “—what would you know about what he’d say?”

 

Djeeta glared at her, at them all, taking one deep breath before she hurled the stick, the boy beside her yelping when it bounced harmlessly off the ground. Then she turned, and she ran.

 

“Djeeta!” their teacher screeched when she had finally gotten a hold of herself, but she had already cleared the yard and hopped the fence. “Djeeta, get back here, you horrible child—!”

 

Yes, she was a horrible child, she thought as those familiar words echoed through the depths of her heart. But at least no one had to answer for that horribleness.

 

She turned her eyes towards the great blue skies as she ran through the pastures that surrounded their village. No one but her dad had ever been brave enough to venture through the tall grass and past the forest, so of course they couldn’t know anything. And because they couldn’t, they liked to pretend, riding on the coattails of whatever trace was left of her dad within the village as they preached about him like they knew him. But he was her father, not theirs.

 

There were no golden eagles and there were no mud giants as she continued running. There was nothing but her own two feet to carry her as she crossed the golden fields to break through threshold of the forest, and in the shade of the trees and soft whispers of the nearby creek, there were no fairies to say hello to her as she fell to her knees at the waterside. 

 

Chest heaving as she gasped for breath, she leaned over the water’s surface to stare at the lump forming on her cheek. Remembering what her dad had told her and what the aunties always liked to parrot, she splashed water onto the tiny cut, feeling a little bit of satisfaction from the fact that the lump on the baker’s son’s head would probably be twice the size of her own.

 

And then she felt guilty, leaning back onto her haunches as she awkwardly wiped her cheeks dry with her sleeves. 

 

She thought of the boy and his stinky breath. She thought of him and how he cried for his mom, wondering when the last time she had cried was. And then she wondered who she would’ve cried for if it’d been her on the ground.

 

But there was no one—no one to answer for her mischief, no one to explain that maybe she was a kid too. Even here at the bank of the creek, there was no one but her, and there was certainly no one from the village who would bother dragging her back, but she supposed she preferred it that way.

 

Knowing even that though couldn’t stop the weight of her loneliness from sinking into her as she curled up on the ground, not a single fish in the waters to witness her as she buried her face into her arms.

 

But those memories seemed so small and inconsequential now as she was kneeling outside of the weaving room, gazing through the gap in the door at the man they called the god of the forest while he wove silken threads through the guides of the loom. His fingers were lithe and beautiful, translucent nails ending in perfectly rounded edges as they belied terrible strength and a coldness melded with an apparently awful temper.

 

Squabbling with kids her age felt so petty compared to the situation she found herself in now. In the end, she was the one who had to apologize, and she remembered urging herself over and over not to be mad anymore. The world was bigger for some, smaller for others, and everyone moved about their own spheres in the ways that they knew best. Both she and her father had chosen their own paths, and it was her own two feet that brought her into the realm of the forest god.

 

She closed her eyes as she silently leaned against the edge of the door, listening to the rhythmic scrape of the wood. Thousands of miles away from home, the hearth here too was warm.

 

Lord Aglovale’s eyes seemed to glow like embers in a gentle darkness as he cast her in his shadow, pinning her to the ground with the frame of his body alone even though she felt far from trapped as she gazed up at him, asking herself once again if she were dreaming.

 

He said that she was beautiful. It was an answer to a question she didn’t think about all too often, so to be thrown head-first into it by him of all people had been more than what she bargained for.

 

Lord Aglovale was the beautiful one. Painted by the light of the fire as he wove throughout the night at that loom, he was beautiful. Even in all of his rage and fury and loneliness, he was beautiful. But he was more than that too, she thought as she framed his cheeks with the very same gentleness she found in his eyes.

 

“They’re like rubies, did you know that?” she asked him before pausing thoughtfully. “No, prettier than rubies… When the light hits them just right, you can see just a bit of gold, like a sunset.”

 

She tilted own head as if she could somehow catch the sunlight at the aforementioned angle. Lord Aglovale only blinked slowly, his feathery lashes nearly long enough to brush the tip of her thumbs.

 

“We were about to consummate our agreement,” he said. “And now you are waxing poetics about my eyes.”

 

She smiled at him. “I really do mean it though.”

 

He lowered his gaze, turning his head just slightly enough to briefly press his lips to the underside of her wrist, the corner of his mouth twitching when he caught a glimpse of the tiny bumps spreading across her skin.

 

“A small taste,” he explained to her. “...But there’s something else that troubles you, Djeeta.”

 

She felt her heart drop just the slightest bit, horrified by the prospect that maybe he could actually read her mind. “I—you think so?” she replied lamely, nearly perishing at the thought of what he’d say if he knew how much of a country bumpkin she really was.

 

But Aglovale didn’t press it, gleaning from her her unwillingness to divulge herself as easily as he gleaned her wandering thoughts in the first place.

 

“Allow me to give you something else to think about then,” he said to her. “I would need your participation in this, Djeeta—this begins with your idea after all.”

 

Only from him could the intent she felt from his words feel so gentle yet potent as it sank into her. After meeting his rubied gaze for another moment just to align their intentions, heart beating loudly within her chest through the stretch of it all, she finally closed her eyes as she surrendered her hands to his grasp.

 

Aglovale’s lips were the gentlest they’d ever been when he pressed them to hers. The bite of his fangs, the desperation of his hunger—those were all things that felt like a dream, but maybe there was a different kind of desperation that burned inside of him, inside of her too. The kind that surrounded the flesh rather than ripped into it, the kind that sprouted and bloomed, tying together disjointed pieces with a sort of magnetism. She didn’t really know what she was getting at, only that amidst the perfume of the ashblooms, Lord Aglovale still smelled like the freshly crushed pine needles she knew so well by now.

 

It was the first time she’d ever tasted him, she realized, her heart stuttering as she allowed herself to press deeper into his warmth. It seemed like both an eternity and an instant passed between them before Aglovale pulled himself away—to give her a chance to breathe, she also realized as her chest swelled.

 

“It’s done,” he whispered. “But you’re not so satisfied with just that, are you? Djeeta?”

 

She caught a flash of his smirk before her eyes closed again, his mouth against hers once more.

 

She tasted him in earnest this time as he pressed her hands into the grass and flowers, her lips parting reflexively when she felt his tongue. When he slipped inside, electricity crackled and danced along the length of her neck, chest, and thighs, all the way down to the tips of her toes as they curled within her slippers. He was the bite of the morning air, the kiss of cold dewdrops falling from the leaves, but he was sweetness too, and Djeeta wanted him to understand as she welcomed him into her mouth that she truly was glad that he was here—whole, solid, and so very warm—all things that she could grasp and feel within her own two hands.

 

Lord Aglovale must’ve felt something in the same vein because his hands were on her body now, his lips leaving her mouth, but not her skin as he traveled downwards and laid kisses along her jugular with the confidence of walking a familiar path. He traced the echoes of his violent hunger, lacing the spots where there should’ve been scars with a gentleness so full of intent that she could hardly stop herself from arching into him in all the places that he was touching her.

 

And then she felt his teeth, touches of sharpness through the softness of skin. He scraped them against her veins as if he were teasing the idea of a bite, but he never followed through before his lips closed around her again.

 

“I am a bit unhappy,” he confessed against her collar after another moment of that, his breath both hot and cold against the wetness he left behind, “that you would have me compete for your undivided attention now of all times.”

 

She reopened her eyes to peer down at him, wondering how that could even be possible with all the ways her thoughts were tingling in the aftermath of his touch. “That’s not true—”

 

“No,” he conceded. “I’ll make sure it’s not a competition at all.”

 

That was her only warning before he slipped a hand between the folds of her robes, eliciting a soft gasp of surprise from her when his fingers closed around the mound of one of her breasts. He pushed and pulled with just his palm alone, kneading her while her thoughts floundered around trying to figure out why static was dancing between her inner thighs when it was her chest he was touching.

 

“Lord Aglovale—”

 

She felt his smile against her skin, and then he answered by pushing against her flesh until her breast popped free from her clothing altogether, the shy bareness of her skin so utterly exposed as she flustered, reflexively burying her fingers into the overflowing silk of his sleeves.

 

Aglovale’s remaining hand snaked from her wrist and along her arm, his touch a whisper through her clothes as she suddenly became aware of how thin her robes really were. It took her another moment to realize that he was undoing the same sash he had spent that morning readjusting and tying, his slender but unyielding fingers slipping through all the grooves of her silk as he worked everything loose.

 

“W-wait—” she gasped, but it was too late as she felt her robes slip open to reveal her other tit, the rest of her clothing barely pinned in place by the back of her shoulders against the ground and her legs pressed awkwardly to Aglovale’s sides.

 

However, he still stopped his ministrations and she swore she felt her body deflate with disappointment as he pulled his mouth away, the scarlet of his eyes far sharper and far more piercing than they were just moments ago.

 

“Shall I wait?” he asked softly. “Or shall I…?” He trailed off, allowing his hands to do the rest of the talking as he traced a finger along the rim of her clothes. He paused, meaningfully, his eyes never leaving her own before he finally peeled away the layers from her body like he were unwrapping a gift. She watched the way his gaze drank in her sharp inhale, the young autumn air like winter against her bare skin while her nipples grew stiff and an even deeper shade of pink. She flushed with embarrassment and something unnameable—something hotter that made the rest of her feel too-warm and infuriatingly sticky as if itching to be stripped just to spite her shame.

 

That familiar wave of soft amusement washed briefly over Lord Aglovale’s features before he dipped his head down once more. His lips parted with an even softer pop and she watched him, borderline stunned as he took one of her nipples into his mouth and engulfed her with the heat of his tongue.

 

Her knees jerked around him as she gasped out loud, but Aglovale barely gave her a moment of grace before he took more of her flesh into his mouth, not the one to leave her other breast unattended as he gripped it with one hand, slowly kneading it in circles to mirror the way his tongue was stroking laps around her nub.

 

His eyes were on her all the while, burning amber studying every gasp and every flutter of her lashes with each stroke of his tongue. That seemed to please him, although she didn’t exactly know why, wondering if this was somehow a game to him too, but the deeper her fingers dug into his shoulders, the more she realized that it was like he knew her body better than she did as he started fires in parts of her by touching her at others, both purposeful yet merciless.

 

And then he sucked, tongue digging into the slit of her nipple. Gasping, Djeeta lurched, curling up against him as she clung to his shoulders. She felt the electricity inside of her begin to bleed around the edges, turning into something hot and molten as the drum of her heart beat grew louder and louder until she couldn’t hear the sound of her own whimpering. Was she afraid? She’d never been here before, and she didn’t know if it was good or bad, only strange as the one thing that kept her grounded was the weight and warmth of Aglovale’s body as she held onto him like her life depended on it.

 

And then he eased up, allowing the heat within her to cool just the slightest bit, but Djeeta wasn’t so naive to think that it was over when she felt the pair of his hands hug the sides of her torso before they slid downwards, mapping her curves along the way as they left her ribs for the softness of her waist before arriving at the divet of her hips.

 

His mouth lagged behind, departing from her breast, but leaving a trail of saliva that went from hot to cold as she unconsciously arched into him all the while. Before long, he had stripped her of her undergarments too, his hands pressed against the naked underside of her thighs while he was gazing up at her from beyond her navel, eyes filled with mirth. Djeeta trembled.

 

“Like a flower,” he murmured, nuzzling the pale expanse just beneath her belly button as scarlet smiled like the devil.

 

She swallowed, knowing better by now that she couldn’t take her eyes off of him for even a second. “Who’s being poetic now?” she asked, but it backfired when she felt his chuckle reverberate through her skin and reignite the embers within her core. “Wait, Lord Aglovale, wait—”

 

He pulled her legs apart and the rush of air she felt against her heat had her cheeks turning crimson. “That’s the second time you’ve asked me to wait,” he murmured. “If there is any part of this that you hate, then I will stop, but if it’s shyness that gives you pause, then…”

 

Djeeta felt her knees rise higher into the air when Aglovale pushed against her thighs, giving himself space and ground as he settled himself between her legs. She watched him, the maddening flames spreading from inside of her as she teetered on the edge of no return. She had never prepared herself for this—a part of her felt that there was no way she could’ve ever prepared for this even if she had seen it coming—but she didn’t want him to stop here either. It wasn’t pain she was afraid of, but Lord Aglovale was gentle and beautiful and she was just a little frog in a well that had somehow found its way into his grasp.

 

“Djeeta.”

 

He pulled her back into the moment, and then she remembered with shining clarity that wherever he wished to go, she wanted to go too.

 

“I’m okay,” she managed in a small voice and it was like she broke an equally small curse, the warmth blooming within her chest reflecting from deep within Lord Aglovale’s eyes.

 

“Good girl,” he murmured in reply, slowly dipping his head between her legs before he fixed his mouth to her heat.

 

She was the one who gave him the go-ahead, but again, nothing could have ever prepared her for any of this as she breathed deeply while Aglovale’s tongue worked away the last of her uncertainty. He really did know this part of her better than she did, every stroke and every squeeze deliberate and purposeful as he embroidered her with blooming pleasure like she were just another one of his tapestries and she was bound to the loom at his utter mercy.

 

Her lips parted as her eyes finally shut when she felt him press between her folds, seeking out the ends of her delicate nerves with frightening precision. He curled his tongue against her and she keened softly in reply, their words and voices traded for heat-drenched sounds and purposeful stroking, alien pleasure sprouting from the core Lord Aglovale so masterfully tended to. He must’ve been through several bodies before with how sharply she felt him focus on her clit and suck, his experiences vaster than the ocean in his centuries of living while all it took was a stroke of his tongue to make her whole body spasm. He sucked harder, painting her vision with stars as he took in another mouthful of her like he was starving again while her voice trembled and quivered.

 

“L-Lord Aglovale, Lord Aglovale—” His name was all she could manage to eke out in the maddening swirl of heat, but it was enough as he pushed his urges deeper into her until all of his intent was inseparable from her pleasure, pushing and pulling in tandem with the motions. Her ankles hooked together behind him—she didn’t want to suffocate him, but she couldn’t help it when one masterfully-placed stroke elicited a sharp but breathless cry from her lips as her hands buried themselves in the softness of his hair. 

 

It was just like him to find another way to devour her as he dragged her into a strange world filled with slippery warmth and a cloying pleasure that threatened to pull her overboard. She felt his tongue push deeper into her folds before dragging against her slit, and that was when she felt it—the tiniest sliver of hesitation from him that vanished quickly beneath the rolling heat, but she felt it all the same. Peering down at him, she reopened her mouth to ask him if anything was wrong.

 

But Lord Aglovale didn’t give her that chance as he shoved her deeper into the bed of flowers until her lower body was almost entirely in the air, devouring her with a voraciousness that sent her thoughts spiraling and the back of her head knocking against the ground. He abandoned her slit to focus on her nub, swollen and sensitive from all of the attention he’d been pouring onto it seconds before. Whimpers bubbled from deep within her chest before she swallowed them back down, but it was becoming too much as she dug her heels into him, her hands grasping at his hair less gently that she would’ve liked. The heat was becoming torture now, but she still couldn’t get him to stop as his tongue continued to demand from her something that she couldn’t even comprehend as she struggled to hold on.

 

“Please—it’s too much, it’s too much, I can’t—” she gasped as she dug her fingers into his scalp, but Lord Aglovale only pushed deeper into her as his reply, sucking and licking and pushing until she was wriggling with agony from beneath him.

 

And then everything unraveled, washing over her like a tidal wave as her vision turned white. Back arching off of the ground, agony turned into maddening bliss and rolled over her in waves as her hips jerked back and forth against her will. The tail-end of a long and drawn-out cry left her lips as Djeeta clung to him, her body overcome with a pleasure it had never tasted but was eager to embrace.

 

When the deepest throes finally faded, she collapsed, gasping softly as she reopened her eyes just in time to see Lord Aglovale pry himself away, but not so far that she couldn’t feel his warmth. She watched a clear slick drip from his mouth before he licked his lips clean and swallowed, sending another punishing jolt of electricity shooting through her. That didn’t seem to escape him when he gave her another devilish smirk.

 

“Oh? Are you keen for another round, Djeeta?”

 

“N-no,” she immediately said, swearing to herself that she’d get back at him for the challenge one day. “You’ll seriously drive me crazy this time.”

 

“That doesn’t sound so horrible, does it?” he said and she groaned softly, sinking deeper into the grass.

 

Ashblooms were sacred to the people of her village, and she just desecrated them, but that was the least of her worries as Aglovale rose to meet her again. A hand snaked beneath her chin and she allowed him to tilt her head into another kiss, the taste of herself strange on her own lips as she greeted his tongue once more. They parted, and she found herself wishing that he’d linger just a while longer, but Lord Aglovale only smiled softly down at her before he brushed the stray strands of her hair away from her skin.

 

“You did well,” he said to her. “Our contract is sealed, and I trust you won't be forgetting the details any time soon.”

 

She gazed up at him, her brows furrowing with a slight frown. “Is that it then? You did everything, and I wasn’t able to do anything for y—”

 

He placed a finger on her lips, effectively silencing her.

 

“...Gods are obsessed with firsts. First-borns, first-times, first-harvests—that was your first climax, was it not? And now it belongs to me,” he said, scarlet eyes aglow. “Forever.”

 

Djeeta felt herself burn right up again. “Was it… was it really that obvious?”

 

But Aglovale didn’t answer. He only laughed, and she launched herself at him, knocking him back down into the grass before she rolled onto his chest to keep him from getting back up.

 

“Don’t laugh! Stop laughing! This is important to me, you know—” she demanded, but like always, Lord Aglovale wasn’t one to be defeated so easily no matter what mood he happened to be in.

 

As she met his smirking face, it was like the world itself had changed in the matter of half a day. One moment, she was fighting for not only her own life, but Aglovale’s too. The next, they were in a field of flowers that she hadn’t seen since the day she left her provincial childhood behind.

 

Aglovale pressed a hand to her bare midriff, having never broken from her gaze. Before she could ask him what he planned on doing next, her stomach gave off an astoundingly loud growl.

 

“Oh.”

 

He gave her a slight squeeze, which didn’t make matters any better when her cheeks turned a deep red. “Skipping breakfast after the ordeal of yesterday is rather unforgivable, isn’t it?” he asked loftily. “I’m surprised you’re still raring to go all things considered.”

 

She scowled. “You’re the one who suddenly carried me off here.”

 

“I suppose you’re right,” he conceded as if the thought had never occurred to him. “The days of your sentence await us and we’ll have to plan each of them better than this, won’t we?”

Chapter 18

Djeeta found a kind of normalcy in the manor when they returned that afternoon. Only after spending a fair amount of time away from it did she realize what she used to find decrepit had somehow been rendered spick and span over the following months, the ever-shifting hallways woven from Lord Aglovale’s magic familiar in their own ways. Even the spiders had found a way to patch the roof, returning everything to how it was before—or at least, how it was before when Lord Aglovale had first brought her here.

 

When she followed him into the weaving room, a tray laden with food was arranged where they had once shared tea together. One of Lord Aglovale’s attendants sat nearby, legs tucked politely beneath its body as if it had been patiently awaiting their return since that very morning. Djeeta recognized the soft purple ribbon tied around its leg as the spider that had smashed to pieces the centipede that bit her. All that aside, her mouth watered at the promise of a meal before she stopped in mid-stride when she realized only one portion had been laid out.

 

“Go on then,” Aglovale said, noticing her hesitation.

 

She glanced up at him when she finally took a seat, watching as the other found his usual place at the loom. A flurry of movement from the corner momentarily caught her eye as the spider with the yellow ribbon and a taste for daisy chains made a beeline straight for her lap until her chaperone for the day shooed it off. “You’re not gonna eat anything?” she asked him.

 

The corner of his mouth twitched. “How mindful of you when I’ve already had the meal of a lifetime.”

 

Djeeta stared at him, wondering what on earth he was talking about when the only thing she saw him put in his mouth today was—

 

“Lord Aglovale!”

 

He laughed just when she thought she’d seen the end of it, wondering what she’d done to inspire this kind of mischief in somebody like him.

 

It came to a point that Lord Aglovale could no longer make any excuses for her.

 

With the centipede no longer gnawing on the edge of his thoughts, the last twenty-four hours came back to him in a rush of noise and color, a cacophonous stake that had been driven deep into his stagnant eternity. Amongst it all was the memory of her face hovering above his own—hot, fat tears spilling from her eyes and rolling down her cheeks. What business did she have back then, looking so distraught? By all reason and logic, his demise should’ve been her fortune, and had she one modicum of sense, she’d be one step closer to sailing across the ocean to the old life that was surely waiting for her.

 

However, not only did she remain, she defied him, going as far as walking from one maw of a beast into another. Did she know? Did she know how close she was to being swallowed up by the Jorougumo? Had he not torn himself away from that cloying dream in time, he would’ve eaten her and that would’ve been the end of her story. What then would have been the point of all his trouble and agonizing if she was going to end up inside of his stomach anyway—

 

And then a disquieting thought occurred to him. Perhaps she did know, yet for reasons that remained beyond his reach, she returned to his side all the same.

 

Aglovale watched his attendant nudge the girl into finally eating, her cheeks swollen with a healthy dose of embarrassment. She was easy to fluster at the very least, and he would take what he could get.

 

Pleasuring her was simple—he was well-versed in languages of the flesh, but all else that came with her were entirely different matters. Each time she threw her arms around him, she squeezed him tightly, fearing for him rather than the monster that stood before her. She was so sincere about it that he could hardly muster the strength to pry her off. Be it any other mortal who would dare, he’d rip them apart on the spot, but with her, his hands could either only hang uselessly by his side or gently pat her head, moving not by his will, but by old and buried memories he thought he had long given up—memories of uncertain, yet warmer times. And it was fitting because that was what Djeeta brought to him—warmth and uncertainty.

 

At his wit’s end, he could no longer turn his eyes away from the possibility that Djeeta simply wanted to remain here and by her own free will.

 

“You ridiculous girl,” he quietly muttered before he could stop himself, feeling his first headache in an entire century. Djeeta glanced up at him.

 

“Are you hungry?” she asked, leaning across the table with a chunk of fish pinched between her chopsticks and absolutely no regard for even the most basic of table manners. Aglovale blinked, reminding himself that this was simply par for the course as his resolve crumbled and he spared himself from having to answer her as he obediently took the meat into his mouth. He felt the scowl of his attendants who had not yet forgiven him for driving her off in the first place.

 

“Finish the rest—” lest he never hear the end of it from his own servants, “—if you collapse from hunger, I will need to think of a more creative punishment for you.”

 

“Whatever you want,” Djeeta replied, rather pleased that he had accepted the bite as she returned to feeding herself. She paused as if another question had come to her, but before she could ask it, a pair of spirits arrived with the cargo they had spent all morning preparing in tow, and Aglovale watched those soft brown eyes light up with color when she caught a glimpse of what was inside. He had to applaud their timing at the very least.

 

“Had I been any more competent, I would not be delivering your spring robe to you at the cusp of autumn,” he said before realizing his lips had somehow curved into yet another smile, headache already forgotten.

 

“It’s… mine?” she asked him even though her hands were already all over the silk before she snatched them back, belatedly recalling at least some manners. He could only find it all the more amusing. “It’s way too nice, Lord Aglovale. I’ll ruin it—”

 

“Nonsense,” he said, cutting her blathering short. “What reason do you have to be so demure when even prisoners should be properly clothed.”

 

She didn’t seem entirely convinced, but Djeeta swallowed her hesitation and carefully lifted the robe out of its crate, silk gliding smoothly over the edge. Pink and silver threads blended together to create a pearlescent sheen as he watched her fingers trace the peach blossom motifs he had embroidered into the sleeves. It was a simple design that took hardly any effort on his part, her awe an overreaction, but what mattered to him was that he could finally deliver on a promise that had gotten lost in the string of centipede-related incidents. Delay any further, and Aglovale could see her getting carried off by a giant vulture for all that he knew given her current penchant for danger. At least she’d no longer be dressed in rags or his brothers’ old clothes then.

 

“You made this yourself?” she asked. “For me?”

 

He tilted his head. “Why are you surprised? I said I would, didn’t I?”

 

Her gaze dropped to the ground, cheeks dyed a rosy pink to match the silk itself as she clutched the robe close to her chest. “...Thank you, Lord Aglovale,” she said softly as something wavered in her eyes. Aglovale felt something inside of his own breast twist and flutter like an animal in the middle of its death throes as he watched her.

 

He was a god. Naturally, this wasn’t the first time he’d been thanked for anything, but with thanks always came a catch, a certain expectation. Always, except for now when Djeeta’s gratitude was as difficult for him to behold as her sincerity.

 

“It’ll suit you,” he found himself saying. “If only you could wear it for a bit longer than this.”

 

She glanced up at him, brows furrowed together. “What do you mean by that?”

 

He shouldn’t have brought it up as his gaze wandered to the atrium, splashes of gold and red dyeing the formerly verdant heart of the garden, but it was bound to come up sooner or later especially when she insisted on lingering. Nonetheless, a part of him was still disappointed in himself for cutting the moment short when he would’ve much rather continued picturing her in all different manners of garment. “The days are growing shorter, Djeeta. Once winter arrives and the last leaf falls, the forest will sleep, and so I too will…”

 

Aglovale felt the jolt that pierced her heart from where he sat.

 

“...For how long?”

 

“No less than three months,” he answered without mincing his words—she deserved at least that much. “I’ll awaken before the cusp of spring, but no sooner than that.”

 

“...Oh.” Her eyes fell to the ground once more. “You’re finally out of your bed, but now you’re just gonna go back to it in two more months.” She tried to laugh, but it was a painful sort of sound before her grimace twisted into another frown. “But how will you eat? Who’s been keeping the fire going? Won’t it be cold? That’s way too long for anyone to be sleeping, Lord Aglovale—”

 

She was as vexing as usual when it was always him she was worried about and not what the implications meant for her. “It’s a hibernation, Djeeta. I’ve fallen dormant every winter after the ten years following Lamorak’s passing. I’m afraid it’s a habit my body is incapable of escaping.”

 

“No, I—” she floundered around, clinging to the silken robe. “I get that, I was just surprised, that’s all.” She let out another cracked, painful-sounding laugh. “I guess I should’ve figured it out after I noticed that you don’t sleep at night. So this makes up for all of that then? Your late night spinning sessions?”

 

“You could choose to look at it that way,” he conceded. He watched her pull herself together as she mustered a smile right back at him, carefully beating out the robe before holding it up to the light of the atrium as she spun on her heels.

 

“Time’s of the essence then!” she said, the blossom-dyed silk fluttering around her. “Turn around, Lord Aglovale, and then you can tell me if this actually suits me or not.”

 

With the autumn equinox came autumn rites. Just as humans collected their harvest and the beasts of the forest gorged themselves until the very last sunset of the season, he too had his obligations to complete before the descent of a long and dreary winter.

 

Djeeta was spinning in circles behind him as he led the way downstream along the river. The blossom-dyed silk suited her in ways that old rags never could, and the girl seemed to glow all the more for it. His gaze quietly softened as he kept his eyes pointed forward. He had called her beautiful aloud, possessed by a strange fever as he was, but it was a simple truth he didn’t regret as he wondered if he could finish another robe for her by the close of the season, perhaps something more suitable for winter.

 

He paused the thought. There was no reason for him to believe that Djeeta would choose to stay for that long.

 

“...So what are these ‘autumn rites’?” Djeeta asked him, breaking the silence between them as she matched his stride. “Is it something the previous Jorougumo taught you how to do?”

 

“The previous Jorougumo was already senile when our paths crossed,” he told her. “He cared very little for the details and affairs of humans. No, rather, this is something I’ve taken upon myself to ensure that there is still a forest for me to wake up to come spring.”

 

She tilted her head, just as curious since their last outing together. “And that is…?”

 

“Custodial work at the thresholds of my territory,” he said. “Think of it as securing the doors and windows to your home before you leave for a long journey.”

 

“Makes sense.”

 

“And beneath this home are the corpses of old gods.”

 

She stared at him, waiting to see if he was joking with her, and when he didn’t say anything, she merely let out a small “Oh.” She blinked furiously, glancing at the ground with her newfound awareness for what lurked beneath. “So are we keeping things in or out?”

 

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Whatever that will earn me my peaceful slumber.”

 

The first leg of their journey brought them to the western threshold of the great forest. In the distance from the rocky path that ran along the lower mountain ridge, they could make out the silhouette of the very village he had unsuccessfully tried to steer her to. Any further and she’d be able to see the ocean for herself.

 

Djeeta leapt off the path and made her way as close to the edge as possible while Aglovale followed close behind. The people of the village were no bigger than ants, but she still seemed all the more fascinated as she watched them trickle into their golden fields, walking back and forth with colorful banners that they could make out from even here.

 

“What are they doing?”

 

“Welcoming the harvest,” he said as he opened his arms and offered them to her. “Would you like to get closer, Djeeta?”

 

She stared at him, eyes glowing with curiosity but lips pressed firmly together as they both recalled her telling him off for swinging her around like a “sack of potatoes” without so much as a warning.

 

“It will take us several more hours to climb down the mountain and who knows what you may miss in that time,” he added.

 

“...Fine,” she grumbled, but she seemed pleased all the same as she resigned herself to climbing into his arms, obediently wrapping the pair of her own around his neck. After securing his hold on her, Aglovale leapt from the ground, using the the conifers that dotted the face of the mountain as his stepping stones.

 

Djeeta squeezed him, drinking in the last of the mountain air as she took a deep breath. Her eyelids slowly slipped shut as she sighed. “Somehow this feels like deja vu, Lord Aglovale,” she said to him. “When I was a kid, I always dreamed about flying whenever I looked up at the sky.”

 

“As did I,” he replied as the memory of that young child smiled at him from that open field. “But this is about as far as I will go.”

 

He alighted softly upon the grassy top of a cliff overlooking the edge of the village. From here, they could make out the faces of the people and the clothes they wore—tunics sewn from painted fabrics and adorned by strings of scales made from mollusk shells and hammered out disks of copper that sparkled and jingled together as they moved about. Drawn by the distant sound of twanging, drumbeats, and murmuring voices, Djeeta wordlessly slipped out of his arms and walked towards the edge of the slope.

 

It was the first time in a very long time by mortal standards since she’d last seen another human, and now she was watching a whole village of them go about their lives as they made their first preparations for the season. The fields were usually empty save for the farmers during the majority of the year, but in autumn, they bustled with life as villagers from every walk of life joined hands regardless of their background. Children danced in circles, breaking apart, scattering, running and laughing before they joined together again like a flock of starlings. Adults and their beasts of burden carried baskets overflowing with that summer’s bounty, offerings not for a god, but for themselves with the evening’s promise for a feast.

 

Djeeta watched them. He already knew what she was thinking without asking when the wind carried to him a thick and sickly sweet scent that made his heart drop into the pit of his stomach.

 

In her eyes was a deep longing and loneliness. Even when he had threatened to lock her in her room and keep her forever, he had never seen her so homesick as she watched strangers go about their lives, preparing for a celebration that had little to do with her, but it mattered not that they were strangers. They were human, and by that virtue alone, they had more to promise her than he ever could.

 

What delusion of his was he entertaining when he spent those hours with the needle, stitching together panels of silk with her image in mind? What buried instinct was he feeding into when he wrapped her up like a spider would with its prey?

 

Djeeta wasn’t looking at him. Her gaze wasn’t meant for him, and then he realized that it was not that she wished to stay, but that she had simply forgotten what it meant to be free. Now, she had her reminder. Now, she was walking away from him. Now, she was leaving. Surely.

 

Lord Aglovale moved as if he’d been possessed, a violent urge surging through his veins as black thorns sprouted from his gums. The hands that erupted from his sleeves entertained no delusion of humanity as he made a grab for her, a voice inside of his head roaring at him to never let go, even if it meant swallowing her whole after all—

 

And then Djeeta turned around, and Aglovale sunk his fangs not into her flesh, but into his own monstrous urge, ripping it from limb to limb as he wrested back control over his mind and body. His legs buckled from being interrupted so violently in mid-stride, and Djeeta was moving before he could even register as she kept him from falling to his knees.

 

“Lord Aglovale!” she cried out, hoisting him back onto his feet while she wobbled on hers. “Lord Aglovale, are you okay?”

 

He didn’t answer her, or rather he couldn’t with his voice still stuck in his throat, the rest of him reeling as he asked himself if this was somehow the Oomukade’s doing, its grudge still lingering even after the body had perished. One moment, he had been still, at ease even, and then the next, he'd been seized so suddenly and for what—. If not the Oomukade, then from where could such an impulse be born from?

 

Djeeta was staring deep into his eyes now, searching for any hint of an answer in his stifling silence. And then she was glaring at him, brows furrowing together in anger.

 

“I knew it,” she said, her voice a finger pointed directly at him. “You said you’d be fine. Of course you’re not. We had the whole month to get started on this, but you couldn’t even sit still for just one more day, could you? We should’ve just stayed home.”

 

Home. The word on her lips loosened the poison’s teeth on his heart, and he felt all the more pathetic for it. All this time he’d been disparaging her stubbornness, but it was he who reacted first over the first sign that she was no longer his offering to keep. He wondered if it was pride or stubbornness that drove the aching in his chest then, or if it was something else he couldn’t name, but Djeeta didn’t wait for him to come up with an answer as he watched her face soften.

 

“Let’s go back, Lord Aglovale. The autumn rites can wait just a little bit longer.”

 

“No,” he managed, trying and failing to steady himself on his feet but perhaps it wasn’t weakness that kept him glued to Djeeta’s hold on him. “We are here now, and a little bit of vertigo is no reason to turn back.”

 

Djeeta seemed dissatisfied with his answer, but she at least seemed to understand which battles to pick with him before she wrapped her arms around his body and gave him a good squeeze, resting her head against his heart that was still pounding traitorously in his chest.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“I’m hugging you. What do you think I’ve been doing all this time?” she answered without looking up at him. “You have no problem taking my clothes off, but you don’t even know what a hug is? Geeze.”

 

“I know what a hug is, child,” he said, a touch defensive before he realized it was her burning cheeks that he was feeling through the layers of his clothes. “Rather, why?”

 

She finally glanced up at him, the longing he saw from before gone from her depths and replaced by his own reflection in all of its clarity. His eyes were as scarlet as he remembered, and there were no thorns to be seen in his mouth as she beheld him. He wondered if he had imagined her loneliness too.

 

“You looked like you needed it, Lord Aglovale,” she told him. “That’s all.”

Chapter 19

Notes:

We're almost at the one year anniversary for this story! I just want to thank everyone for sticking with me all this time, and I hope you'll continue to enjoy Djeeta and her silly little spider.

There were no more fires to put out, and so Djeeta was left to herself, perched on a tree branch with her legs swinging back and forth as she watched the festivalgoers wade below her, oblivious of their visitor.

 

Djeeta held her hands out in front of herself, palms facing the canopy of the tree as she opened and closed her fingers. Then she lifted her arms and slowly hugged the air, shutting her eyes as she imagined Lord Aglovale’s weight in her arms, the scent of crushed pine needles and juniper lingering in her nostrils. He was warm, heavy, his heart beating loudly enough to make her wonder what could’ve upset him so badly and so suddenly.

 

But then she thought that maybe it wasn’t so sudden, that this was only the culmination of the myriad changes that had taken a hold of him since they first met. When she found him in the garden that morning, even the air about him seemed different, shifting like the direction of the wind or the passing of the seasons themselves. 

 

She closed her arms around herself, squeezing her elbows as her brows knitted together. That part of her knew this too.

 

The god of the forest had a brittle heart as he kept his troubles to himself.

 

Djeeta craned her head towards the canopy, gazing at the darkening sky peeking at her through the gaps in the leaves. Like the devil himself, it was the shift in the air against the slight breeze that announced his appearance when his footsteps were nearly invisible to the ear. She wondered if it was something that only came naturally to him or with practice, and she laughed to herself at the idea of Aglovale practicing his dramatics and footwork in the courtyard for the single purpose of sneaking up on poor girls like her.

 

He loomed over her as the excess fabric of his robes rippled around his steady form, the brittleness that was so evident before gone from his eyes if she were ever none the wiser.

 

“Have you had your fill of people-watching?” he asked her.

 

She swung her feet. “The festival hasn’t even started.” She tilted her head. “Rather, where were you? There’s a fine line between people-watching and watching people have fun without you, and frankly, leaving me in a tree probably puts me on one side of it, Lord Aglovale.”

 

Aglovale didn’t say anything, his face utterly unreadable before he leaned in close, his hair forming a golden curtain around them before he took her face into his hands. Djeeta blinked, her neck prickling with a slight itch with how intensely he was staring into her eyes.

 

“I like this look on your face,” he finally murmured after a moment. “Were you thinking of me?”

 

Djeeta scowled. “No,” she lied, to which Lord Aglovale smirked. “...Maybe. It’s not always a good thing!”

 

“I can’t possibly know what you mean,” he replied loftily, taking his place beside her and lounging lazily across the tree branch as if he couldn’t be bothered to sit up straight. “I did say that I had come here to carry out these rites, did I not?”

 

Djeeta looked at him. “That’s what you were doing?” Her face soured with disappointment and betrayal. “Without me?”

 

“Are you upset?”

 

“No,” she lied again even though she couldn’t keep the grumble out of her voice. She spent the entire trip curious about what these rites entailed when Lord Aglovale was about as vague as he often was when she poked him about it. Was it magic? Sacred and ancient rituals known to nobody but the forest god himself? Her imagination ran wild during the silence she spent picturing Aglovale glowing with a brilliant light, the tail of his clothes dancing all around him as he commanded towering gates with the same finesse he used to move the walls of the levee. Her face puckered up with even more disappointment as she swung her legs about while Aglovale only laughed.

 

“There are four sites to visit, but only one occasion of this kind,” he said. “I purged and closed this one without so much as a scene. There would’ve been nothing to see, Djeeta, although I suppose I bear some responsibility for the impression I must’ve imposed upon you.”

 

“Just a ‘sorry’ would’ve been fine,” she said, looking away from him as she fiddled with the texture of the embroidery stitched into her sleeves. “...And maybe not, but there would’ve been you. I like watching you. Everything you do is…” She trailed off, but Aglovale didn’t let her off the hook.

 

“Is…?”

 

Djeeta eyed the distance between her heels and the ground. She’d be shattering her legs in three places, at a minimum. “...Beautiful,” she confessed, taking a different sort of leap instead.

 

For a moment, Aglovale didn’t say anything as he mercifully took his prying gaze away from her, choosing instead to watch the very same people she had spent the last few hours tracking throughout the evening.

 

“...What kind of things do you find beautiful, Djeeta?” he asked softly before she felt a pause in his breath. “Not this, perhaps.”

 

Djeeta tilted her head, wondering if by “this” he meant himself, or the people piecing together the landscape of their festival. Lord Aglovale found lying difficult. He told her this himself, but it was something she could see for herself in all the tiny riddles that made up who he was—the small deflections, the harmless questions he’d pose to her even during the most tumultuous times of them knowing each other. This was one of them, and she mulled over it.

 

She found plenty of things beautiful, the first to come to mind their journey here—the autumn sunset of seven colors, the golden ginkgo trees, the hand-stitched peach blossoms trailing behind her as she walked. And then there was Aglovale himself, refined and infallible as he lead the way. Back then, she had found him frightening and unpredictable and as temperamental as anyone would expect of a cruel god, but he had always been beautiful. Bedridden, sickly, pale, and within arm’s reach, he was beautiful then too.

 

But it was frustrating in its own way. He was more than that, but if she were ever eloquent enough to capture his essence in words alone, she wouldn’t be making her living slaying monsters and hunting down lost cats, collecting pennies on a bounty while she could count the number of times she slept under a roof before coming here in one year on one hand.

 

“I do,” she said, choosing to gesture at the bushels of mums and wreathes of chrysanthemums whose colors were like strokes of a paintbrush on the canvas of the field from where they were sitting—it was easier than looking into his scarlet eyes at least. “Haven’t you ever wanted to learn more about the people you don’t know?”

 

She caught the passing scowl on his face when she glanced at him. 

 

“I already know them. They are a different people, yes, but it only makes the rot they share within their hearts all the more egregious.”

 

Djeeta tilted her head to the side. “So I’m like that too?”

 

Aglovale scoffed. “Don’t be obtuse. You’re different, Djeeta. Vexing, unequivocally forthright, and contrary to everything,” he said. “You are not them, and I am not you, so I cannot see the world as you do.”

 

“You don’t have to, Lord Aglovale. I’m just another person,” she replied, legs swinging idly below her. “And I think you’ve already changed in your own way. Who knows, you might find people-watching not half bad at all.”

 

“Do not press your luck,” he replied, but there wasn’t any venom in his voice, and Djeeta found herself smiling quietly as the last of the sun dipped below the horizon, the people below lighting the torches as the distant sound of music began to find its rhythm.

 

Flowers dyed in the very colors of the sunset were arranged in a grand aisle, silk banners swaying in the gentle breeze as the weather favored the night. Dancers completed their routines, shaking bracelets strung with seashells in a way that made her think that it was something for good luck. But through the beating of drums, flowers, and flickering of torchlight, there was something else that caught her attention as she watched several villagers wheel what looked like a giant effigy of a bird-like creature dressed in the same chrysanthemums of the aisle it rolled through.

 

“What is that, Lord Aglovale?” she asked, ignoring the way her stomach rumbled at the wafting aroma of the festival fare.

 

“Their god,” he answered. “A god of storms that washed ashore the bounty from which their ancestors sprung from, or so they say.”

 

“Another god?” She looked at him, catching the reflection of dancing embers in her eyes. “So if they find out we're here and pick a fight with you, you'd win, right?”

 

Aglovale chuckled, his voice a dry rattling sound amidst the resonant festivities now set in motion. “Naturally, but you’ll never see such a thing since the Jorougumo already devoured the creature well over a thousand years ago.”

 

“Oh.” Djeeta glanced back at the giant effigy that had been so lovingly constructed and adorned, each stick that made up its skeleton meticulously trimmed and held together in bundles by bright red cord. “I… Is no one going to tell them?”

 

“No need,” he said, clearly amused by her horrified expression as he watched people of all ages line up without any need for direction, dancing in procession with reverence and joy on their faces around the storm god’s likeness. “The people of the forest live beneath my shadow, but this is not like that. I suppose their hearts are freer in that sense, living for themselves alone.”

 

Djeeta couldn’t let go of her morbid curiosity. “Devoured, though? Why would the Jorougumo do that?”

 

“Who knows? I never asked him,” Aglovale replied. “Perhaps they had a disagreement, perhaps it was a challenge. Monsters are eating each other everyday—you saw for yourself the kind of creature the Oomukade was.”

 

Djeeta looked away from him and back at the people. She certainly did, but that didn’t say much as to what kind of thing or person the fabled Jorougumo who came before Lord Aglovale was. All she knew about him were the scathing words Lamorak left behind of the old god. Aglovale himself seemed strangely indifferent when he spoke of his predecessor, but if that god was the reason those three brothers survived long enough to live out their lives, then could he have been so horrible?

 

The last of the torches were lit, and tiny flickering flames filled the edge of the clearing where it was darkest like stars in the night sky. Djeeta watched children sprint through the space between the crowds, donning bird masks and swinging around colorful streamers, and it suddenly occurred to her that the tiny hammered-out plates of copper that adorned their clothes were meant to resemble feathers. 

 

She didn’t know anything about the god of storms either, but she wasn’t so nearsighted that she couldn’t see the joy on their faces or how lovingly crafted everything from the bed of flowers upon which the effigy rested, to the effigy itself was. A thousand years was a long time, and for all she knew, memories of their god were already lost to time, but she had to wonder how much of that really mattered if they could still dance and sing with their whole heart like their god was still alive and watching.

 

The people of the sea and the people of the forest were like night and day.

 

Djeeta quietly looked at Lord Aglovale to try and glean what he thought, but instead she found him watching not the people dancing around the dead god, but the children playing, their laughter loud enough to reach them even from where they sat high above. His mouth was a soft line, his brows equally relaxed, but his eyes were filled with a mixture of emotion that was both everything and nothing at once—something she would’ve missed if she hadn’t spent so much time and energy trying to piece out his facial expressions when he wasn’t laughing at her. An idea suddenly came to her.

 

“...Do you like children, Lord Aglovale?”

 

That sense of longing vanished as he scowled softly, just like she knew he would. “Don’t be ridiculous. Their tiny little bodies are hardly a morsel.”

 

She had a feeling he was being generous with her question, but she still couldn’t help but poke the sleeping bear a bit more. “I mean more like… as children are, you know,” she said, gesturing vaguely as they watched one of the smaller ones spin on his feet like a human tornado before tripping and falling flat on his face, ruining his clothes and strewing bits of food and streamer everywhere just like how an actual tornado might. Djeeta mourned the fallen skewers that still looked equally tasty on the ground until they were inevitably trampled by the crowd to the boy’s great distress.

 

“Clumsy things,” Aglovale said with a click of his tongue. “They’re noisy, unruly, and exhausting little creatures. You spend your whole life protecting them from themselves, and for what?”

 

His words were scathing but his eyes remained soft while he spoke. An older girl quickly waded through the crowd to rescue the fallen boy, pulling him away from his broken things he tearfully reached for as she repeatedly stroked him on the head. Djeeta watched them vanish into the crowd with the boy ending up on the bigger sister’s back—to find more skewers she hoped.

 

“I don’t know, I never really thought about it like that,” she admitted. “I guess I never had to look after anyone smaller than me before. Not like you.”

 

Aglovale didn’t say anything to that, but the look in his eyes never did change as he quietly watched the other children of the sea run through the night, weaving themselves through the dancing crowd like fish in a stream.

 

The night was dark and cold as Djeeta lay flat on the ground, the last of the festival clanging faintly in the distance. The spot she had scoped out wasn’t half-bad—she was used to this—but she still found that she couldn’t sleep as she stared long and hard at the twinkling sky overhead.

 

Having had enough, Djeeta sat up. “Lord Aglovale?” she called into the darkness to no answer. Brows furrowing together as she wondered where he could’ve gone, Djeeta rose from her spot and shuffled past the dying embers of their campfire.

 

“Lord Aglovale?” she called again, louder this time. “Lord Aglovale, where are you?”

 

He couldn’t have been sleeping—he said so himself that he didn’t sleep at night. Heart beating nervously in her chest, Djeeta left the small clearing to feel her way through the trees, nearly tripping over her own two feet in the dark.

 

Someone was standing in the doorway as the winter air blew past his silhouette and sent shivers down her spine. It was cold. He needed to close the door. She didn’t want him to go, but she’d be good this time. She didn’t want him to go, but it’d work out just like it always did.

 

He turned his back on her and within that moment, the door closed on the memory of his face within her heart.

 

Aglovale wouldn’t, but the air in her lungs grew thick as her breath lodged itself in her throat. She whirled about on the spot and squashed the small voice inside her head, staring into the darkness as she tried to make out any hint or sign to where he could’ve gone—

 

And then she saw it, a faint glimmer that she mistook for a sliver of moonlight until she waded closer and found that it was a translucent cord swaying weightlessly in the darkness. Without thinking, Djeeta reached up and yanked on it.

 

An invisible force suddenly and violently hurled her straight into the air until all she could see were the tops of trees below her heels. And then the world about her grew still when she reached the apex, finally remembering how to scream when she began to fall.

 

But Djeeta never hit the ground, instead landing on something springy that threatened to send her hurtling back into the air if she hadn’t been clinging for dear life. Only when she forced her eyes back open as her whole body bounced up and down did she realize she was stuck to the center of a web-like lattice stretched between a circle of trees and suspended several feet in the air.

 

And then she pieced two and two together.

 

“I was calling for you!” She glared into the darkness, knowing that he was watching her. “Why didn’t you say anything!”

 

A slight tremor ran through the web. “...I wanted to savor you calling my name just a little longer,” came Lord Aglovale’s voice as she glowered at the sheer audacity. “Why are you not asleep yet?”

 

“I thought—” Her voice cracked and she realized her heart was still hammering in her chest as a strange tightness settled deep inside of her. She swallowed and tried again, willing herself to calm back down. “I couldn’t sleep. It… it would’ve been nice to hear your voice, that’s all.”

 

She sensed movement from the corner of her eye and she turned her head to find Aglovale’s silhouette break from the darkness as he stepped into the moonlight, the weight of his footsteps barely registering atop the web as he walked the silk like a tightrope. Every breath she took created a tremor, but he was like a ghost as he walked—ethereal and barely there.

 

But Aglovale was very much alive as he slowly and quietly knelt beside her, his warmth like a beacon in the crisp autumn night. Throwing caution to the wayside as the weight of the night closed around her, Djeeta dropped her head onto his lap, fingers burying themselves into the hem of his clothes in case he thought of prying her off.

 

Instead, he only swung his arm around, allowing the length of his sleeve to cover her like a blanket as he shielded her from the cold. She felt the weight of his hand rest on top of her head, and the tightness inside of her chest finally unraveled as she wondered what it was that had her so worked up. Of course Lord Aglovale had always been here, terrible as he was for watching her squirm though.

 

“Will you be able to sleep now?” he asked her.

 

“Maybe,” she mumbled, making herself comfortable. For a moment, she tried closing her eyes, only to reopen them as her curiosity had her studying the strange but intricate web they were both resting upon. The lines of silk seemed to glow beneath the moonlight, each individual fiber within the threads glittering in a way that reminded her of the embroidery stitched into both her and Lord Aglovale’s sleeves, and then it hit her.

 

“This is… your silk,” she said quietly, turning her hand to drape the shimmering fabric across her fingers. Of course it was. He was supposed to be the spider.

 

“I did mention that I have no shortage of time nor materials,” he said. “Do you find it distasteful? Knowing this is of my body.”

 

She hugged her robes to herself, the fabric gentle against her skin as she wondered if she could find those familiar hints of pine if she delved deep enough with her nose. “It’s precious,” she said. “Even more precious than before.”

 

“...Precious, you say.” She lifted her gaze as he lowered his. “It’s only a byproduct of idle hands. I spent all my years in front of that loom, spinning and weaving without any thought or reason. Spiders know little else.”

 

Djeeta rolled from her side and onto her back, gazing up at him still as the stars twinkled about his head like a scattered crown. His hair was as silver as the night they first met, his eyes as deep a red as she remembered. There had been a kind of sincerity in his austere gaze back then too. “But you made it for me.”

 

She felt the pause in his breath as he regarded her with a plaintive look in his eyes. “...Every day… every day it’s like this with you,” he sighed. “It’s horribly uncanny how the three of you could find meaning in anything.”

 

She knew instantly that he was talking about his brothers—there was nobody else that could make his voice so soft when he spoke of them. A thousand years ago, there was a god and its village by the sea. Three hundred years ago, three boys lived together in an old manor, and once upon a time, there was a different god that roamed the forest. What was a nebulous history to her was simply just another collection of memories to him.

 

He could deny it all he wanted, but she knew his heart was a heart that harbored a deep love—maybe it gathered dust over the years, but what was brittle, time would fail to tarnish.

 

“Lord Aglovale,” she began, feeling the fingers combing idly through her hair slow to a stop as he awaited the rest of her question. “Why didn’t you tell me that I was wrong?”

 

Aglovale tilted his head, the length of his hair sliding from his shoulder to brush against her cheek. “What’s this all of a sudden?”

 

She pressed her lips together, fingers tightening before she spoke again. “When I said that you couldn’t be Lord Aglovale back then at the manor, why didn’t you tell me that I was wrong?”

 

He looked amused for some reason, but she was serious. “Would you have believed me?”

 

“I don’t know,” she said. “But you didn’t even try. I would’ve thought twice at least.”

 

Aglovale chuckled dryly, allowing his head to fall back on his shoulders before he sobered up and turned his gaze towards the sky. “No, I suppose I didn’t,” he conceded. “Perhaps for a moment, I thought it would’ve been nice if it were true.”

 

Her brows wrinkled together. “What?”

 

He smirked, the moonlight casting harsh shadows across his face. “I thought it would’ve been nice if you were right, if the Aglovale who was cast out of his home had already died all those years ago. Then perhaps his spirit would be in the same place as that of his brothers, of his parents. And I… would just be this.”

 

Djeeta immediately sat up, her face inches from his own as she looked deep into his eyes, searching for a different answer. “That makes no sense, you looked so angry —”

 

“Oh, I was, make no mistake. I thought how dare this mortal child believe she knew everything, looking at me with those eyes, but I was all manner of unsightliness that night, Djeeta, as you know.” Aglovale’s smile deepened without any mirth when he found that wasn’t any consolation to her. “...I will never see them again, Djeeta. When I die, whether it be tomorrow or thousands of years down the road, my body and spirit will join the old gods rotting beneath the earth.”

 

“...That’s awful, Lord Aglovale,” she said, as if denying it could bear any kind of change. She was never much of a philosopher, dedicating her entire life to living in the moment, but she wanted to picture something kinder for him after the end of his long journey. Anyone deserved it. “Why… why though?”

 

Aglovale closed his eyes, his shoulders falling as he allowed his head to tilt to one side beneath her prying gaze. “Because I am a god,” he answered like it were simple. “What sanctuary do we have beside the heaven of our own making? This is mine, and I will pay for it in due time.”

 

Djeeta pursed her lips together, at a loss of what to say before she collapsed back into his lap, unsure of why she felt so defeated. Aglovale hummed.

 

“Are you upset, Djeeta? It was only a jest when I said that I might die tomorrow,” he murmured, his fingers finding their way back through her hair. “As per our contract, this is something you will never have to worry about in your lifetime.”

 

“I don’t want you to die at all,” she muttered.

 

She knew she was being childish when Aglovale chuckled. “...Fascinating. Lord Jorougumo said something similar to me once upon a time, except he was far less naive about it.”

 

The title sounded strange on his lips as Djeeta rolled back over, gazing up at him as her cheek somehow found its way into the palm of his hand. “...The Oomukade said you made a contract with the Jorougumo to save your brothers. Is this what that was? Taking on the worst job in the world?”

 

It must’ve been her imagination or a trick of the moonlight, but she swore she saw a glimpse of adoration in his eyes. “No,” he said.

 

She frowned. “Then what did you give?” she asked before she stopped in her tracks, remembering where her tactless curiosity had brought her before. “...You don’t have to answer that. I was just wondering—”

 

“No,” he laughed again. “All the messes we’ve found ourselves in are solely because I did not answer your questions. Although it’s… odd.” Aglovale lowered his eyes. “Even my own brothers never asked such a thing.”

 

Djeeta watched his gaze wander, the look in his eyes growing distant, but she didn’t push him, content to wait for however long she needed to if he was willing to humor her.

 

“Everything,” he finally answered. “I gave everything.”

 

“Everything?”

 

“My past, present, and future,” he explained. “We had not eaten in days, my parents were dead, and there was no other quarter for us within the forest. You have no siblings, Djeeta, but if it otherwise meant watching one waste away from starvation with no strength to even cry while the other swelled and bloated with myriad diseases, you’d find that no price was too great.”

 

Aglovale returned to combing through her hair as he reminisced about horrible things.

 

“I could not just simply sacrifice myself and die—how was I supposed to make my singular life equal the weight of my two brothers’ when the spider could’ve eaten all three of us if he so wished? So I gave everything, and Lord Jorougumo indulged in this to the fullest extent of the word.”

 

“...Why?” she asked him as an awful tightness took hold inside of her chest. She could imagine in her mind’s eye three boys stumbling through the forest, hungry, sick, and frightened, but what she couldn’t imagine was seeing this and choosing not to help without asking for something in return. “He was supposed to be a god, and you were just a kid. It wouldn’t have cost him anything at all to just help.”

 

Aglovale clicked his tongue softly as he idly brushed her bangs behind her ears, the night air kissing the nape of her neck as he did so. “I told you before, haven’t I? Mercy is a humanistic notion and the gods are monstrous things who will do as they wish. Nothing of theirs ever comes free, Djeeta.”

 

Djeeta scowled, tilting her chin back. “But I’m still alive, and I never had to give you anything for it.”

 

That gave him pause before he broke out into a fit of wholehearted laughter, his voice booming through what was otherwise the silent forest.

 

“Child, you never asked me for your life,” he finally replied after sobering back up. “You hardly asked anything of me at all aside from blessing that wretched village with more than they deserved, to which I already told you no.”

 

“But what if I did though? Ask you to spare my life.”

 

Aglovale made another thoughtful noise. “But you did not. It was your own choices that brought you to this place to begin with.”

 

He was so stubborn, Djeeta thought as she refused to look at him in the same light as the centipede who was all kinds of unpleasant, and the Jorougumo who had taken it upon himself to extort children. Aglovale took her resounding silence for resignation and she swore to herself to get back at him for it one day, but tonight, she only wanted to listen even though the more he spoke of the past, the heavier that tightness weighed inside of her.

 

Djeeta felt his quiet sigh. “Anyhow, you asked me if my current circumstances are a result of that contract, Djeeta. It’s true that this was not part of the terms,” he said. “...But my brothers were my ‘everything’ and it was for their sake that I entered such an agreement.

 

“They came into this world and into my arms, then left it just the same. Perhaps this was the only means to which the Jorougumo could see our contract to its complete totality.”

 

“Awful,” she muttered thickly, having rolled onto her side to ease the tightness welling inside her throat as she buried her face into his middle. It should’ve went without saying that Lord Aglovale had to watch his younger brothers pass on without him, but to hear it in context made her feel ill. “That’s awful.”

 

Aglovale laughed again, but his voice was softer this time, hardly above a whisper as he turned to stroking her hair like she was the one who needed comforting. “It’s done, Djeeta,” he said. “Although on this night of merrymaking, I've done nothing but upset you.”

 

She peered up at him, swallowing the knot in her throat. “I was the one who asked this time.” She ached as she sat herself back up, gathering the will to reach up and take his face into her own two hands. “I… I hate it, but I’m glad I did. I’ve always wanted to know more about you, but every time I learned something new, I felt like I was only scratching the surface.”

 

He tilted his head, silver cascading over his shoulders as he gazed at her through the veil of his lashes. “What are you thinking in that head of yours then, child?”

 

“I’m thinking that despite everything, I’m glad we met,” she said, her voice suddenly wavering. “I’m glad you’re here, Lord Aglovale. I want to know everything about you, about your brothers, about the home you had to leave behind. I want to know why, about everything.”

 

“...You greedy thing, you’re already on the verge of tears with just this.” He pried one of her hands away from his face only to turn his head and press a kiss to her veins. She watched him part his lips, his teeth briefly flashing in the moonlight before he seemed to reconsider. “Did I not just tell you that these things do not come free?”

 

She wasn’t deterred. “You owe me a favor, remember?”

 

Aglovale blinked, and then his face split into something coy. “That I do. But you will not be squandering a divine favor on something so trivial.”

 

“But you just said—”

 

“I know what I said,” he cut her off before he fell back and dragged her down with him by the wrist, the web bouncing lightly beneath their combined weight. “What I want from you is your proper slumber, yet I have an inkling feeling that your tenacious sense of compassion has made such a thing difficult.

 

“I’ll tell you a different story then,” he continued. “By the end, I expect my proper payment.”

 

Oh, Djeeta realized as she laid her head against his chest. He was just being ridiculous again.

 

The night went on as the last of the festivities finally died down in the distance, Lord Aglovale’s voice sinking into her as he broke away from the Jorougumo and spoke of a primordial land awashed by endless floods and raging storms. It was a story that spanned tens of thousands of years—a perpetual cycle of destruction—but Djeeta never did find out when the cycle was broken after her eyes finally slid shut, the calm of Lord Aglovale’s voice fading with the last of the night.

Chapter 20

Some time during the night, Aglovale found himself sitting up again, the child who had wagered her soul against the Jorougumo sleeping peacefully in his lap. His knuckles gently stroked the length of her hair without any fear that he might wake her as he counted the number of lashes on each eyelid for the umpteenth time that night.

 

Blonde hair that had been cropped at the shoulders when he first laid eyes on her that day had grown inches past her collar, and he thought of the small child who had combed through his own locks with her envious fingers while she mourned the strange customs of her village.

 

It suited her, he thought, leaning down to part his lips for the whole of her scent. Child or not, if she were to set aside her grudges and return to that countryside village, perhaps the resident crones would finally concede that she was ripe enough for marriage. Aglovale’s lip curled. Nonetheless, he found it difficult to imagine a mortal man worthy enough to stand by her side, brutish lumps of flesh that they were.

 

But that wouldn’t do either. Djeeta was not him, and no bright flame was made to burn alone forever in darkness. It was for that reason he allowed his brothers to leave the forest to begin with, and not without a great deal of trouble.

 

He came to a pause, thoughtful. Percival would’ve been fond of her, as would have Lamorak, but he would’ve rather swallowed thorns than subject her to the middle child’s tomfoolery. Percival would’ve treated her kindly and honestly at least, and she would’ve handled his fragile heart with gentle hands in turn. Had she been born just centuries earlier, perhaps their paths could have crossed, and perhaps he could’ve watched the love his mother believed in exist outside of the stories they used to tell each other. Perhaps they could have wed, and then bear children, tiny versions of themselves running carefree throughout his forest for years to come. Perhaps then he could’ve become something more than a spider spinning cobwebs alone in a corner.

 

His eyes grew heavy upon her sleeping face as his hands slowed to a stop. He didn’t know to what end these thoughts were, or why it was his brother he thought of. Percival was dead, and he was playing make-believe with his ghost. Djeeta would’ve frowned upon it too if she were privy to his thoughts. She was not so apathetic that she’d leave it to somebody else to fill the pages of her life. He knew this of them both, and yet his mind had wandered all the same as if there could be anything more than his own monstrous reflection smiling at him from the corner of his mind.

 

Two months. He had two months before winter would finally consume him, and this was how he was whittling away the time. If he was not daydreaming, then he was thinking about the girl and how she might fend for herself come winter regardless if she were huddled in front of the furnace or braving uncertain seas back to the land she came from.

 

Aglovale exhaled slowly, evenly. There was nothing left that the god could take, but knowing even this, he couldn’t fight the heaviness that weighed him closer to the bundle of warmth curled up in the nest of his robes.

 

Until she had tumbled into his life with the grace of a boulder, he never realized how loudly one’s thoughts could murmur in the dead of night.

 

The unmarked road to their next stop was a winding one as they departed from the land of the seaside village and its eternally sleeping god. The first half of it was what Djeeta called a “scenic route” as bright yellow ginkgo leaves fluttered down to earth like the feathers of a bird, every autumnal gust of wind showering them both with another wave of leaves pirouetting through the air like scores of ballerinas.

 

Djeeta caught one of them in mid-air and twirled the fan-shaped leaf between her fingers before she caught up to the other. The long train of his hair flowed almost weightlessly behind him like the streams overflowing with the golden leaves they walked past, each strand translucent on its own. The frigid morning that nearly made waking up impossible seemed far away now as the dappled sunlight warmed the stretch between her shoulders.

 

But the world of golden light didn’t last long as Aglovale lead her deeper into the unfamiliar forest, the branches that flanked their path growing sparser and more uninviting the further they walked.

 

“Djeeta,” came a sudden whisper in the newfound darkness, but before she could find who said her name, Aglovale’s hand slipped beneath her jaw to hold it in place.

 

“Do not answer,” he said, his eyes still trained on the path before them as his expression remained unchanging. “They know not what they say unless you answer.”

 

“Who is ‘they’?” she asked stiffly, daring not to look before Aglovale relaxed his grip and dropped his hand when he was convinced that she understood what not to do. 

 

“A breed of spirit,” he answered. “But I’m afraid you will not be able to charm these ones as you had with the others.”

 

Djeeta swallowed, unconsciously hovering closer to his side as she found herself unsure of where to look until a flicker of light from between the trees nearly caught her eye, but what was a single wisp turned into many as they drifted aimlessly through the air and into their path. Aglovale placed his hand on her shoulder and pulled her even closer, the broad of his sleeve shielding the small of her back as they continued walking.

 

“Djeeta.”

 

“Djeeta… it’s been hard for you, hasn’t it?” the whispers continued. “Suffering in silence. Alone.”

 

She flinched, more grateful than ever for Aglovale’s presence as the uneasiness inside of her chest grew harder to ignore. She sucked in her breath, then slowly exhaled before asking, “How do they know my name…?”

 

For some reason, that brought a scowl to his face. “What are they saying?”

 

Djeeta frowned. “They sound like they feel sorry for me,” she said. “Don’t you hear them too?”

 

“I hear my brothers’ laughter,” he said. “Humans do not tread here. Your presence must be quite tantalizing for the medusozoa, but they are nothing more than distractions if you do not humor their blathering.”

 

The wisps of light he called medusozoa seemed to drift lazily through the air, belying any danger as they reminded her of the jelly-like creatures that she’d once seen floating through the ocean in droves. A part of her grew curious as her eyes followed the thread-like tentacles trailing weightlessly behind each ball of light, but the spirits abruptly scattered like flies as Aglovale walked unflinchingly through their midst.

 

“Djeeta!”

 

“My lord.”

 

“Djeeta, forgive your old man.”

 

“Different…”

 

“You smell wonderful, dear…”

 

“Bear with it,” Aglovale said to her, his voice firm yet gentle as he kept her anchored to his side. “I know they are unpleasant creatures, but we are almost there.”

 

She took another deep breath. It wasn’t that she was afraid of the little blue balls of light, but there was something about hushed and disembodied voices that made her skin crawl. She wracked her brain trying to figure out what it was that felt so familiar until the scar on the back of her hand began to itch.

 

But Aglovale was right. They stepped out from the darkness and back into the sunlight of a clearing, leaving the drifting spirits behind as they hovered at the threshold. Djeeta squinted, blinking rapidly as her eyes readjusted to the light and made out the shape of a great tree planted in the middle, its gnarled trunk spiraling towards the sky as golden leaves broke away from its branches and floated serenely into the shadows of the surrounding forest. At first glance, she thought it was beautiful, wondering how old it must’ve been until something about it felt odd in a way she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

 

Aglovale was acting strange too. He took his hand away from her shoulder, but not without briefly patting her on the head before he walked on ahead towards a clear pool at the base of the tree. Djeeta blinked, momentarily at a loss for words as she touched her head, wondering what had gotten into him all of a sudden before she jogged to catch up.

 

Aglovale knelt before the water, his shimmering robes mirroring the surface of the pool as he procured a shallow dish. As she watched him lower it, she realized the grass upon which he knelt stood unnaturally still, not a single bug nor fly to be seen even though they were in the middle of uncharted wilderness. She tilted her head back, finding that the sprawling branches were equally barren. The leaves drifted where there was no breeze, the usual sounds of the wild replaced by utter silence—it was like she was standing in the middle of a painting, beholding a tree that was not quite a tree while leaves that were not leaves floated all about.

 

The sound of breaking the water’s surface made her jump when Aglovale carefully filled the dish. He swirled the crystal-clear liquid, then contemplated it with that unreadable expression of his before he poured the water onto the grass beside him. Before she could ask him what he was doing, he scooped up more water, swirled it again, and slowly brought the dish to his lips to drink from. Djeeta lurched, nearly knocking the dish out of his hands like it were poison.

 

“We are done here,” he said, seemingly oblivious after he emptied it a second time.

 

Djeeta frowned. “I—that’s it?”

 

“I told you there would not be much to see, didn’t I?” he replied before he slowly stood up and turned around, but before she could muster any kind of retort, he broke the stillness of the picturesque grove and seized her by the arm, pulling her under the cover of his outer robe without so much as an explanation.

 

“Lord Aglovale—?” He immediately stifled her by shoving his hand to her mouth. She made an indignant kind of sound before she rared to bite him because how dare he shush her, only for a third set of footsteps to mar the silence of the grove.

 

“Lord Jorougumo, the Immaculate Thread,” spoke a voice like silk as Djeeta froze against his side. “To cross paths with you again at this time of year… it must be fate.”

 

“...Staghorn. I will overlook this impudence just this once,” Aglovale replied, speaking from the depth of his core as Djeeta felt his voice rumble through her own body. “Spare me the platitudes. Your god returns every year, as you know that he must.”

 

The voice that reminded her of thick honey on a hot summer’s day only laughed softly. “As austere… as always, my lord. ” Shuffling noises. “When the word of the woods told me what befell you and the Oomukade, I feared… but here… you are. Although it was… an upset, I must admit. I had to wonder… had the great Lord Jorougumo grown soft?”

 

Djeeta scowled. As if their unwelcome visitor had any idea what it was talking about when Lord Aglovale could’ve kicked the Oomukade to kingdom come if it weren’t for her. Finally stealing a glance from between the crack in Lord Aglovale’s robes, her retort died in her throat. What stood less than twenty paces away from them was a giant deer-like creature that dwarfed Aglovale threefold in height. Its fur was long and scraggly, a tawny brown from which tree-like horns sprouted like branches while the shape of its body seemed shriveled in a way that suggested hunger. The monster was blind, which explained why it had not remarked upon the awkward person-shaped lump glued to Aglovale’s side, but unlike the Oomukade, it still had both of its pearly white eyes intact. Morbidly fascinated, Djeeta watched its head slowly sway from side to side, unable to bely the weight of its giant horns while its mouth was stretched into an eerily humanlike grin.

 

“Do not waste my time with this,” Aglovale said, calm despite it. “I invite you to find for yourself if I’ve grown soft.”

 

The monster made a dry chuffing sound before it lifted its snout to sniff the air, taking a cautious step backwards as it did so. “Soft… No… no, not quite… But there’s something else folded into your scent, my lord… Something sweet…? No… Lord Oomukade’s venom? Yes, I smell the Oomukade… but there’s still something else…”

 

Djeeta buried her fingers into Lord Aglovale’s side and he responded by quietly tightening his grip on her shoulder

 

“...A human woman,” the monster purred after a single pause. “Yes… the word of the woods did tell me your offering from the humans was a woman. Alive, warm, and young… but not so young that you turned it away.” A ripple ran through the monster’s fur as it shuddered like a half-corpse. “Did you savor her, my lord? You must have… for the scent to be so fresh it smells alive.”

 

Something rumbled from deep within Lord Aglovale’s chest, but the inflection of his voice didn’t change when he spoke. “Mouthiest of your breed as always, but I taste a particular note of insolence from you. Perhaps you are not here to simply receive your god?”

 

The Staghorn leered. “...What of it, my lord? Will you do unto me what you did onto the Oomukade?” It shook its head with a hoarse murmur that sounded more beast than silk. “The centipede was of… grandiose delusions, intending to usurp you by fully mating with a human.” Djeeta felt her stomach drop as her hands grew clammy, her chest pounding with a horrible feeling that she couldn’t name until Aglovale’s arm grounded her back to earth. “So… very delusional… but at least it could appreciate how beautifully versatile mortal women may be…”

 

Djeeta felt the chill radiate from him before he even spoke. “Tread carefully,” he said softly.

 

The Staghorn’s mouth split into an even wider grin, flashing blunt-edged teeth. “Even… the lowliest of humans… can provide flesh. But there is more, my lord… You hoard the tributes to the forest… and yet you are… naive to greater indulgences. To make flesh… to watch it swell…”

 

Her stomach churned again. There was a horrible dissonance between the monster’s off-putting eloquence and the words it uttered.

 

“...I see,” Lord Aglovale murmured lowly as his grip on her loosened. “I mistook your envy for ambition—it is not my post that you wish for, but the scraps from my table.”

 

The Staghorn’s demeanor audibly cracked, folding so suddenly that even she was taken aback. “No… no, you are the delusional one. The woods have tasted your blood, Lord Jorougumo, and all… all the lords of the forest will be… vying for your head. Do you believe that arrogance is… a luxury… you may afford?”

 

“Why do you ask?” he said cooly. “You are no lord. You are nothing but a mere beast that has learned to talk by devouring humans. You are not fit to lick the feet of the Oomukade’s corpse, much less covet that which belongs to me.”

 

Aglovale pulled away from her, his silk sliding over her form as he stepped towards the monster, and then she met the Staghorn’s milky and unblinking gaze, realizing that it was not as blind as she thought it was when its mouth curled horribly at the sight of her.

 

“A human—!” it snarled, rearing back on its hind legs as its demeanor shifted instantly. “You brought… living flesh… to my lord’s shrine?” By the time it met the earth again and lowered its head to charge, Lord Aglovale was already upon it, both hands wrapped around its horns before he threw its massive skull to the ground.

 

The monster folded like paper, veins and tendons popping from its slender legs that flailed uselessly against the dirt as it heaved and whinnied before flopping uselessly on its side. Mouth pulled into a grin of itself, Aglovale forced the beast’s head backwards until its snout was pointing straight at the sky, jaw slack as its eyes rolled frantically in their sockets.

 

“Gaze upon the mortal who slew the Oomukade,” he drawled, bending its neck even further back until she heard a string of horrible popping sounds. “You who stole the tongue of mortals, but know nothing but the language of filth, have not earned the right to address her in such a way.”

 

He slowly began to twist its head as its mouth started to foam, gasping and moaning while it still thrashed about until she couldn’t bear to watch anymore.

 

“That’s enough, Lord Ag—Lord Jorougumo,” Djeeta said, the name ill-fitting on her clumsy tongue. “You don’t need to go this far—”

 

Before she could even finish her sentence, however, the monster screeched with fresh indignation, tongue pitifully flopping around like a worm thrashing in a cauldron filled with foam. “I…! I have not… fallen so low… that a human speaks… for me!”

 

Aglovale narrowed his eyes, meeting her gaze to ascertain for himself that she truly was appealing for mercy on the Staghorn’s behalf.

 

The monster was seething even as tears began to swell from its eyes. “But you, Lord Jorougumo… you have! For… a lowly… mortal…! Heresy… heresy… heresy…!”

 

“I am beholden to the softness of this child’s heart,” Aglovale said lowly and almost nonchalantly as he ignored the accusations. “But you may rejoice, for I will now deliver you from your own blasphemous tongue.”

 

“No—!” The monster’s scream ended in a horrible gurgle when Aglovale plunged his arm into its gaping mouth, pushing his fist deep enough into its throat that she could see it bulge from the outside. She watched, speechless as the beast choked and gagged around the girth, its eyes threatening to pop out of their sockets while Aglovale was shoulder-deep inside of it, truly unperturbed by its wild thrashing.

 

And then the torture finally seemed to end when he slowly withdrew his arm, pulling from its mouth a fist-sized ball of light clasped tightly in his hand. The giant beast collapsed altogether, heaving for breath between them as Djeeta stared dumbfounded at the flickering light. Aglovale then opened his mouth, fangs peeking out from between his lips like he intended on devouring the orb before apparently reconsidering, to which Djeeta found herself grateful for.

 

“…It may not look like it to you, but this is mercy, Djeeta,” he said. He held the ball of light out to her as if in invitation, and after a moment’s hesitation, she silently reached out with a finger to touch it.

 

The orb exploded into a mass of glowing tendrils that latched onto her hand the moment her fingertip brushed against it, but Aglovale crushed the heart of it before it could make it past her wrist. Tiny fragments of light then broke away from between his fingers, drifting through the air like ashes before fading away altogether as if no harm could have ever come from them.

 

The sense of illness from before still lingered inside of her stomach. “...What was that? What did you do?”

 

Aglovale only nodded towards what remained of the Staghorn, but what remained could no longer be called a monster as she watched an ordinary buck sit up, nose flaring and ears twitching as it took in its unfamiliar surroundings. Without much of a warning, it scrambled to its feet like any startled animal and Djeeta immediately stumbled back as it gazed upon her with its jet black eyes, allowing a single moment to pass between them before it bolted into the forest, the flash of its tail the last she saw of it. Aglovale clicked his tongue. 

 

“A pity. It would have made for a nice pelt.” Pinning the excess fabric of his sleeve to his side, he then walked past her to dip his arm into the pool. 

 

“The thing you called a ‘Staghorn’ was just… a deer?”

 

“A deer is a deer, child,” he said to her with his back still turned. “But the Staghorn are pitiful creatures, a kind of parasite. It just so happened that this one was so enraptured yet enraged by humanity that it was driven mad, losing sight of its original wish to become human.”

 

There was a strange air of familiarity in the way he described the creature. Djeeta glanced back towards the forest where the deer had vanished, wondering what she was missing this time. “Could it have…? Become human I mean.”

 

Aglovale flicked his arm dry as he stood back up and straightened his robes. “No,” he said simply. “Left alone, it would have devoured more humans in a hopeless pursuit.”

 

She supposed he was right—the silken speech and too-wide smiles were imitations that only succeeded in making her skin crawl. It should’ve went without saying that killing and eating people did not a human make, although knowing even this, Djeeta couldn’t ignore the heaviness that had found home in her chest as she thought of the Staghorn’s tearful eyes.

 

The Oomukade had also cried before it disappeared.

 

Aglovale rejoined her and offered his hand. Djeeta reached for it, faltering only just for a moment. She wasn’t surprised that he could crumple the monster to the ground like it was nothing, but it was the glimpse of anger in his eyes melding with the smile on his lips to form something cruel that gave her pause. She was sure he would’ve ripped the monster’s head off if she hadn’t said anything. And she didn’t know why—why she cared, and why she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

 

“We’ll take another path through the forest,” he said to her, his voice back to its usual inflection. The very hands that nearly tore the beast apart were warm despite the cold water that filled the pool. “You’ve seen enough reasons why mortals do not tread here.”

The day seemed to never end after Lord Aglovale completed the last of the autumn rites without so much as a peep from another spirit obsessed with eating people. It was only the cusp of evening when Djeeta collapsed onto the hearth of the manor, rolling onto her back as the attendants ferried out a tray laden with hot tea and a small plate of cakes soaked with honey. Hungry as she was and exhausted, Djeeta merely plucked one of the oversized spiders from the safety of its peers, holding it up in the air as it helplessly wiggled its legs around.

 

“You really are the sweetest things,” she sighed. “It’s a scary world out there, isn’t it?”

 

The eight-eyed forest spirit made a brrrip sound, and Djeeta smiled. She hadn’t seen the soft green ribbon very often compared to the yellow and purple ones, and so she decided on the spot to smother it with attention while she had the chance.

 

The spirit released another high-pitched wheeze when she squeezed it to her chest before letting it go. Burning her tongue on the tea and stuffing a cake into her mouth in a matter of seconds, Djeeta made her way over to the doors to the courtyard to find Aglovale kneeling on the ground with a flat-edged tool in one hand and a fresh pelt in the other.

 

“Lord Aglovale,” she called out. “Isn’t it too dark to still be working?”

 

“The darkness suits my eyes well enough,” he replied.

 

Djeeta frowned. “But you’ve always kept the furnace lit at night while you worked.”

 

“The children like to watch, and… they prefer the warmth.”

 

A soft clunk drew her attention downwards as she found a lantern placed by her feet. The creature responsible gazed up at her with expectant eyes before she smiled softly at it, bending down to take it before she made her way outside. She then placed the lantern on one of the wooden posts, illuminating her corner of the garden with a warm light before she took a seat from behind him to watch him strip the skin and fat from the fur.

 

“Have you eaten?” he asked her after a moment of silence punctuated only by the sound of scraping.

 

“Yeah, a bit,” she answered. “I wanted to see what you were up to.”

 

Another moment of silence passed between them when Aglovale didn’t say anything to that. Djeeta pulled her legs up to her chest as she made herself comfortable, her eyelids drifting shut while she rested her chin on top of her knees. The rhythm of Lord Aglovale’s work between now and then hadn’t changed. She always found comfort in it even when the uncertainty of her future had weighed heavy on her mind. She should’ve found comfort in it now, but there was a different kind of uncertainty that churned around inside of her instead.

 

“Will you come closer, Djeeta?” he suddenly asked out of the blue.

 

She lifted her head, blinking momentarily before she brought herself over until she was right beside him. “What’s wrong?” she asked as he cleaned the last of the pelt and scraped out the milky bits of fat from beneath his fingernails, rinsing the blood of the kill from his arms in a fresh bowl of water.

 

“Perhaps you could tell me yourself,” he replied, but Djeeta only frowned.

 

Lit by the lantern light bouncing off of the shapes that filled the garden, Lord Aglovale’s eyes were like dollops of amber as he gazed deep into her own. A familiar shudder prickled her skin, exacerbated by the crisp autumn night as a reminder that there was no place for her to hide when his gaze landed on her lips. He thumbed a smidge of honey from the corner of her mouth, smiling more to himself when he licked it clean. She flushed.

 

“My own attendants have broken a jar for your sake,” he murmured, “yet seem content to let their master go hungry for the rest of the evening.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Djeeta blathered, embarrassed that she had inhaled the sweets without so much as a second thought. “There’s still some left that we can share.”

 

Aglovale laughed, his voice deep and rich in the way that she knew. “I cannot stomach cake, as my attendants are well aware. Petty little things, but clearly this is not the matter that weighs so heavily on your mind, is it?”

 

She scowled, although the color in her cheeks didn’t fade. It was a kind of irony that the Aglovale kneeling beside her was the Aglovale who liked to watch her squirm, but even with his mischievous streak, it was hard for her to get mad when his eyes twinkled the way that they did.

 

“I don’t think there’s any matter weighing on my mind.”

 

For a moment, he looked almost amused. “You’ve been upset ever since our little incident with the beast,” he said, finally cutting to the chase. “Perhaps with me.”

 

Her face went blank as his words sank in. She unconsciously lifted a hand to her chest as she realized that the tightness from before had never left her. “I… I don’t know why I would be.”

 

“Because you’re kind,” he replied simply. “Regardless if the Staghorn was deserving of it, you wanted to know that there was promise in its wish even if it would never come true. And I took that from you.”

 

“You didn’t say it to be cruel though,” she protested.

 

“Perhaps not, but you’re not entirely convinced of it, are you? And that was where my question began, Djeeta,” he said softly. “Your dissatisfaction is an unpleasant itch I can do without, and so I wondered to myself why that might be, why you would be upset that a bloodthirsty monster could never attain the humanity it so desired.”

 

She didn’t say anything. It wasn’t like she was any closer to an answer than he was, although to give herself credit, she didn’t know what he was asking in the first place.

 

Aglovale placed his hand before her lap. Without thinking, Djeeta took it and clasped his fingers as if that alone could shed light on his innermost thoughts.

 

“How easily you take my hand,” he said, lips curving into a knowing smile. “Djeeta, could it be that you wish that I could become human again as well?”

 

She glanced back up at him to search the eyes that held her gaze without a hint of bitterness or accusation. She was squeezing him, she realized, her heart racing as she had to ask herself if that were true.

 

Maybe a part of her did once upon a time when she convinced herself that she knew enough about him and his past, but Lord Aglovale was smiling so softly, his hands as warm as they usually were whenever she answered the urge to grab them that whatever truth there was to it before no longer held any water now.

 

“...You’re already you, Lord Aglovale,” she answered. “Does anything else matter?”

 

“Maybe not.” Aglovale closed his eyes with an air of resignation. “It was a foolish question, and I should know well by now that your kindness does not always find root in reason.”

 

“I don’t think I’m especially kind, Lord Aglovale,” she said. “I just do the things I want to do, the things that come naturally to me. That’s more selfishness, isn’t it?”

 

“It could be both,” he conceded. “Although those who are kind at heart do not think themselves as such.”

 

“Like you?”

 

It was Aglovale’s turn to scowl. “Remind yourself who you are dealing with, child.”

 

Djeeta laughed, pleased that she was finally able to get a reaction out of him. She took the moment to sober up as she turned his hand over in her own, tracing the lines of his palm and the slender shape of his fingers. Deer were deer, and people were people. She was only Djeeta, and Lord Aglovale was himself. Anything beyond that was just semantics, but she was glad that he had spoken to her about it nonetheless.

 

“...I think I know what favor I want from you now, Lord Aglovale,” she said after a moment. “But it really is selfish. I mean it.”

 

She knew she’d taken him by surprise when she felt his gaze on her. “As a favor should be. I presume you will find countless more opportunities to put others before yourself no matter what I say.”

 

She looked up at him again. “I don’t want you to think any less of me.”

 

Aglovale tilted his head like it was finally his turn to try and glean answers from her. “It’s not like you to be so meek. If this favor is not the height of hedonism, then I will be very disappointed, Djeeta.”

 

She lowered her eyes again, taking another moment to sort through her words. She didn’t know if it was that exactly, but if he hadn’t offered, then she never would’ve thought of asking like this. “I want…” She swallowed thickly, the less courageous parts of her wondering if it was too late to brush it all off and pretend she forgot what she was going to say. The rest of her pushed onwards. “I want to see your other form again, Lord Aglovale.”

 

Djeeta felt him pause as he regarded her with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity.

 

“...You strange creature, what put this thought inside of your head?”

 

She pressed her lips together for a moment, unsure of how to answer him. “I know it’s all you, but I want to prove to myself that all of me understands that too.” She brought herself to look him in eyes again. “Is that selfish enough?”

 

He blinked slowly. “So you still blame yourself for being afraid then,” he said. “I wanted you to be afraid of me, Djeeta. I wanted you to be so frightened that you would never come back here just as all humans of this land are, and as they should be.”

 

Aglovale then heaved a deep, but quiet sigh as he closed his eyes again.

 

“Does this mean you won’t?” she asked.

 

“No,” he replied. “If this is your wish, then I will grant it as promised if you can accept that I’ll not grant it right now.”

 

She shook her head. “If you don’t want to do it, then I don’t want you to do it either, Lord Aglovale. I’m sure I can think of something else.”

 

He reopened his eyes as a slight smile found its way to his lips. “I did not say that.” He sighed again, slipping one of his hands past the guard of her fingers to wrap around her wrist. “Although in the meantime, I believe I know what it is you’re truly asking for.”

 

With his free hand, he slowly pulled the layers of his robes loose, his outer silk sliding easily down his shoulders before he brought her hand to the base of his neck. Djeeta blinked, at a loss for words as she wondered what was going through that head of his when he then guided her hand to rest upon his collar, pressing her fingers to the groove of the bone.

 

“You wish to understand that other form of mine,” he said as the depth of his voice reverberated along her arm and throughout her core. “I know you spent many hours tending to me, but you are so pure that I have to wonder how much you truly understand about the form that sits before you now.”

 

“I-I—” Djeeta sputtered, helpless to the sudden change in direction as Lord Aglovale then pushed her hand into his robes and against his bare chest, making sure she felt every mound and every dip that formed the shape of it.

 

“You’re already glowing,” he pointed out with a smirk. “Has our tryst amongst your precious ashblooms done nothing for you? I suppose it was a rather one-sided affair.

 

Djeeta forced herself to look from his chest to his face. “You didn’t want to do it?”

 

Lord Aglovale chuckled dryly, bringing himself in closer until all she could see and feel was him. “That was not what I meant, Djeeta. I reveled in it, so much so that I didn’t think to satisfy your curiosity as thoroughly as your body.”

 

She wanted to turn into a puddle on the spot, but Aglovale only pulled her in deeper, his robes opening wider the lower he guided her until he was practically exposed yet unbothered by the open air. His chest swelled as he took a deep and purposeful breath, his scarlet eyes aglow as he continued to show her hand how it should touch him.

 

No detail was spared. Lord Aglovale truly was sublime, his skin as smooth as freshly-carved marble, the shape of his muscles perfectly sculpted with neither excess nor deficiency. Mortal as his body seemed, he carried an unworldly aura about himself in its perfection.

 

“You may know me through this, just as I knew you,” he told her softly. “My recompense to you for having you wait.”

 

She wanted to sink into all of his warmth and feel the give of his flesh when most of what she knew about him was steadfast and unyielding, but his words gave her pause, and Aglovale felt her hesitation in turn, loosening his hold around her wrist as he waited for her to speak.

 

“I’m not a god,” she told him. “I don’t want any more recompense from you. I just…”

 

She just wanted him, but in a shape that existed outside of the rules of a transaction. Djeeta caught a glimpse of genuine surprise on his face before she pressed her hand back against his chest, pausing to see if he would stop her before she finally drew herself in and placed her ear against him, soaking in the steady beat of his heart.

 

“I already know you through this,” she whispered. “I’m happy with just this, Lord Aglovale. You don’t have to give me anything else.”

 

After another moment’s silence, a soft hum sounded from within his chest. “Of course you could never become a god,” he replied. “And yet you’ve pulled the rug out from beneath one enough times tonight. I can only take so much insult, Djeeta.”

 

She glanced up at him. “I think you’ll live.”

 

He laughed at that. “Yes, our little agreement leaves me no choice but to endure it,” he said to her. “In the same vein, the other half of the favor I promised you is no longer negotiable either.”

 

Djeeta found that she was rather okay with that as long as she could meet him halfway.

Chapter 21

They say that thousands and thousands of years ago, this land was a land of storm.

 

From the primordial chaos, the Ootsubame gave form to the people of the sea, bestowing new life upon a land ruled by beasts before it laid itself to rest.

 

But the Great Swallow was still a god of storms, and so it would return every ten generations to embroil the land in a cycle of annihilation, churning the earth with tempest as a farmer might till the soil, burying the lives of mortals in upheaval after upheaval.

 

And when the Ootsubame would roost, respite would not last, for the Uzumaki would stir, rising from the river of life to sink the land beneath its waters. Enough mortals would learn to throw themselves at the feet of the Oomukade, finding refuge in the mountains formed by the burrowing Centipede, but the rest would be swept away and return to the ocean from whence they came, their hearts and their dreams swallowed by the deep.

 

But one day on the cusp of the tenth annihilation, a spider descended from the sky, tied to the heavens by an immaculate thread. Its eight legs were thin and brittle, its tiny body equally frail before the all-devouring rage of the Ootsubame, but it was without fear as it laid itself bare and bowed its head to the god in deep reverence.

 

“Lord Ootsubame,” the spider said. “You have spent many a generation tilling the land with the same tenacity of those who adore you. Are you not yet satisfied by the life you’ve cultivated? Do you not yet tire?”

 

“I do not tire from my own nature,” the god of storms replied. “And the divine will always hunger. The land will be cleansed by rain, thunder, and tempest, and you will not dissuade me from that which I was born of.”

 

“I do not come to dissuade you from any glorious purpose, Lord Ootsubame,” the spider said, bowing even deeper. “The heavens have seen the might of your divinity, and so I bring to you a gift befitting that of the god of storms.”

 

In great flourish, the spider presented a robe to the Great Swallow so beautiful that even the most austere of gods could only behold its shimmering form with awe.

 

“This regalia and the clouds that cradle the heavens are woven from the same thread. The silk is lighter than any feather, and it will carry you far more swiftly than any wind beneath your wings. Bless be the eyes of mortals who will behold your sublime form as you bring down upon them your divine will.”

 

Stirred by the sweet words of the spider, the Ootsubame donned the regalia as instructed, but the price of its vanity fell on its head for the spider was a clever and conniving creature.

 

Woven from the spider’s silk, the robe was sticky, and the god of storms found itself trapped in the very garments that adorned it. Wings that could cleave the sky in two and summon lightning to scorch the earth were powerless against the gossamer threads that formed the spider’s web.

 

“Cursed spider,” the Ootsubame howled with all the rage of a thousand storms. “Why have you ensnared me? Undo your trickery, or may your memory forever sink into boundless oblivion.”

 

“It is only my nature,” the spider answered. “And you will not dissuade me from that which I was born of.”

 

And with that, the spider devoured the prey caught in its web, the god of storms meeting an end no greater than that of any insect.

 

Djeeta placed a pair of juniper wreaths against the headstones overlooking the river, her cheeks and nose tinged a deep pink from the bite of winter air. Tradition from her home village called for cedarwood branches, but the juniper she harvested from Lord Aglovale’s grove worked well enough for her purposes, she thought.

 

Straightening herself and stepping back a little, Djeeta clasped her hands together and closed her eyes in another brief prayer.

 

“Thank you,” she said, “for watching over me and your brother. I don’t know where we’d be now if it weren’t for the mementos you left behind.”

 

Winter winds brushed through the ends of her hair spilling out from beneath her scarf. She didn’t know which marker belonged to whom and so she addressed them both, the pair of them centered to the cliff as she wondered what went through Lord Aglovale’s mind when he placed the headstone for one brother, clearly having left room for the other knowing that the day would inevitably come when he would be alone.

 

“If you could… if you’re listening, maybe you could visit him some time,” she continued. “I think… Lord Aglovale is someone who gets lonely easily. He’d get mad at me for saying, but he’s someone with too much love to give and no where to put it, so maybe… just poke your head into his dreams once in a while.”

 

Finishing her prayer, Djeeta turned back and made her way through the woods, leaving footsteps behind in the frost. Breathing deeply and licking her chapped lips, Djeeta let herself into the manor through the garden before she shed her pelt and unraveled the scarf from her neck as the warm air that filled the weaving room wrapped around her too. Lord Aglovale wasn’t at the loom like he usually was, but sitting before the fire, head tilted slightly to the side as she walked up from behind him and placed the third wreath atop his crown.

 

“You’ve returned,” he said to her, fingers brushing lightly against the juniper in quiet bemusement.

 

She smiled down at him. “Of course. Did you think I’d fall into the river again?”

 

The corner of his lips twitched before he turned away from her to stare back at the fire. “I was under the impression that we’ve long moved past that.” He paused, finally addressing the wreath. “What is this?”

 

“It’s a token from my hometown,” she explained. “We would make wreaths out of cedar to celebrate the Yuletide and pray for a safe transition into the next year.”

 

“Yule…” Lord Aglovale repeated thoughtfully. “And winter marks the end of the year for your people?”

 

“Midwinter, actually.” Djeeta tilted her head. “It doesn’t for yours?”

 

“I no longer pay mind to it,” he said. “You mortals change your calendar so often that I’m content to simply observe the passing of seasons.”

 

“I guess that makes sense,” Djeeta replied as she plopped down beside him to enjoy the fire. “It’s only my prayer to you for a safe and bountiful winter, Lord Aglovale. Although…”

 

She trailed off, feeling a small tightness return to her chest. “...You won’t be around to see the rest of it, right?”

 

Aglovale blinked slowly as he regarded her with a soft look in his eyes, the furnace crackling in the background. “Will you be lonely?”

 

“I… Well, it’ll be quiet.”

 

“It did not have to be like this. You could have left,” he replied. “Do you regret it?”

 

“No.” Djeeta scowled, shaking her head to both reject the notion and dispel the tightness in her heart. “Three months is nothing if it means you won’t have to wake up alone.”

 

Aglovale seemed amused for some reason. “It’s hardly exceptional. My winters for many decades have all been like this, Djeeta.”

 

“Yeah well, naturally that was before you met me,” she said, sticking her nose in the air. “I’m doing this for myself too, Lord Aglovale. As the forest god’s prisoner, I’ve conquered the summer, fall, and winter, so what’s one more season anyways?”

 

“Winter is not yet over, but this forest god concedes,” he sighed. “Regardless, I will accept the offering and take your wishes to heart.”

 

His fingers brushed against the juniper wreath again and as Djeeta watched his expression soften even more, she realized she really would miss him. She already knew the world outside was moving on without her. She had friends in other places, all of them living their own lives, but she couldn’t help but wonder if they sometimes thought of her when she wasn’t around, looking forward to the next time their paths would cross in order to trade their stories. Djeeta the traveling sword never stayed in one place after all. Lord Aglovale must’ve been cognizant of that as well when he spoke of her freedom and departure.

 

But those two things didn’t necessarily go hand-in-hand, and navigating the landscape of Lord Aglovale’s whims was enough to keep her on her toes. Maybe he would come to fully understand that she was already free, and this was what she had decided for herself.

 

“What other traditions do your people tie to this time of year, Djeeta?” Aglovale asked her out of the blue, taking her by surprise. She hopped on the opportunity though, reaching into the pocket of her sleeve to fish around for something small.

 

“I’m glad you asked,” she said while Aglovale watched her. “Close your eyes?”

 

He offered her a bemused look, but did as she asked all the same.

 

“Now hold out your wrist.”

 

“Aren’t you just full of demands tonight,” he remarked, but again, did as she asked without further complaint.

 

Djeeta pulled out a length of thinly braided hair from her sleeve, the ends of it pinched tight by resin and wire she had found in her room and hammered flat. Each translucent strand caught the firelight as Djeeta wrapped the braid around Lord Aglovale’s wrist and hooked the ends together. But as she fiddled with the wire more and more, an uncharacteristic nervousness crept up the length of her neck—at the time, shearing off a lock of her own hair seemed like a good enough idea when Aglovale had gifted her a robe spun from his own silk, but glimmering as it was, she realized that next to the garments that already adorned him, her hair was a rather dull and unimpressive specimen.

 

She had half a mind to rip it off and throw it into the furnace, but it was too late when Aglovale opened his eyes.

 

Heart pounding uncontrollably, she took her hands away and buried them in her lap. “W-when the girls from my village come of age, we make a bracelet out of our own hair and… and give it to the person we wish to spend more time with,” she hurriedly explained, suddenly unable to look him in the eye.

 

Lord Aglovale brought his wrist closer to himself, tracing the bracelet with the same care he traced the wreath as he scrutinized it. “This land has no such custom.”

 

Djeeta’s heart dropped. “It’s… it’s weird right? I’m sorry, you don’t have to wear it. I just thought that—”

 

She jumped as Aglovale suddenly burst into laughter, lifting his arm to the ceiling before he began to slowly turn his hand. His eyes flooded with glowing adoration as if he were admiring the provincial trinket tied around his wrist, but Djeeta could only stare at him, unsure of how she was supposed to react.

 

“The hair cut from your own head now adorns me like the silk that adorns you,” he said, voice deep with mirth. “But your hair is a far more sacred thing than cobwebbing, is it not? How interesting! What an interesting custom!” He broke out into a fresh fit of laughter while she was still at a loss of what she was supposed to say.

 

“I—do you like it, Lord Aglovale?” She was almost afraid to ask.

 

He sobered up, but not by much as he continued to stroke the braid of her hair, fingertips mapping each groove formed by the divided strands. “‘ Like ’? I am beside myself. Never have I received such a tribute in my entire existence.” He finally met her gaze, the brilliant scarlet of his eyes brandishing the full depth of his pleasure. “I will take your wishes to heart once more, and cherish this offering until the end of time.”

 

Lord Aglovale was so unabashed as he spoke that it almost felt like some sort of confession. A deep warmth crept into her cheeks as she dipped her gaze, fiddling with the ends of her sleeve as she banished the thought. When she began her journey, she quickly learned how big the world was and how isolated her village was in comparison. What was tradition to her came off as odd or even backwards to the people she met during her travels, but Lord Aglovale—someone who had lived his life as a god—embraced this provincial custom so wholeheartedly that she almost felt ashamed for doubting herself.

 

She had to wonder what it was about him that compelled her to revisit her roots in ways that hardly occurred to her at any other time in any other place.

 

“...One question does linger,” he said, drawing her out of the well of her thoughts. “Is something so precious gifted to just any person?”

 

Lord Aglovale let the question hang, fingers still gently stroking the delicate braid as he watched a soft frown take hold on Djeeta’s face.

 

“What do you mean by that, Lord Aglovale?”

 

She was so earnest and naive that he felt almost cruel for posing the question, but regardless, Djeeta could stand to be more cognizant of the traditions she had hailed from.

 

“If the women from your village gifted bracelets woven from their hair to just anyone, they would be running around bald, would they not?” he asked, feigning innocence as he tilted his head. “Surely there must be additional criteria to what you’ve already told me.”

 

“I…” Her brows knitted together as she fell deep in thought, bringing her knuckles to her mouth. “I don’t know, I’ve never done this before. I only watched the big sisters who helped take care of me when I was younger give them to their—”

 

She stopped, eyes growing wide as her cheeks turned a deep, deep scarlet.

 

“Djeeta?” Her name came out as a purr through the veneer of concern on his lips. “What’s the matter?”

 

“Nothingsamatter,” she said very quickly.

 

That was clearly a lie, but Djeeta made for such easy prey that he couldn’t help but bat her around a little bit. 

 

“Well, regardless,” he began loftily, “I will treasure this token of your feelings forever.”

 

He welcomed himself into her sphere, taking the moment to admire the extent to which the crimson had spread all over her features before he lifted a hand and gently combed his fingers through the length of her hair.

 

“Enough time has passed that your hair has grown long enough to offer as tribute, hasn’t it?” he murmured lowly while she was still unable to look him in the eyes. “The length suits you, Djeeta. You will not shear off any more to offer to anybody else.”

 

With that, he brought the tips to his lips and kissed them before Djeeta reached her absolute limit and jumped to her feet, taking his fun away.

 

“I-I think I caught a cold,” she blabbered, blinking rapidly while she was staring at anything but him. “I should really, really get to bed now.”

 

Without waiting for his answer, she spun on her heels to flee, but she only made a few strides across the hearth before she stopped and turned back around, marching stiffly back to him.

 

“...Good night, Lord Aglovale,” she said, leaning down to place a kiss atop his head before hurrying out of sight.

 

Aglovale watched her go, idly stroking the bracelet in lieu of combing through the rest of her hair. He felt one of his servants creep up from behind, following his gaze before both of them let out a soft sigh.

 

“I do not think that I’ve ever been rejected so hastily,” he lamented aloud as his own servants denied him any of their sympathy.

 

Midwinter arrived in the snowflakes that fell slowly down to earth, covering everything that the eye could see in immaculate white as the trees stood silent and barren. Aglovale felt the blood in his veins slow, finding that he had drifted off sometime during the night while Djeeta herself was fast asleep.

 

He had many questions for her after he listened to her spend these most recent days scurrying all over the manor. His servants would point him in her direction, but by the time he’d reach the room she was apparently rummaging around in, she’d be gone—as meddling and elusive as a mole digging tunnels in the gardens.

 

But Lord Aglovale was not one to be defeated in matters such as these when he finally caught her shuffling down the hallway, all manner of furs and quilts and blankets nearly piled to the ceiling in her arms. She turned to face him, the tower she built swaying precariously.

 

“What business have you been up to, Djeeta?” he asked while she peeked out from the side at him.

 

“It’s for your sleep,” Djeeta answered. “You haven’t put on any weight or dug out any burrows, so I figured I’d collect all the bedding you’ve left laying around the place to help you get ready.”

 

Aglovale raised an eyebrow, wondering if she thought of him as some kind of bear.

 

“My hibernation has no need for this.”

 

“You’ll get cold!” she protested. “Just because you’ve been sleeping through all these winters out in the open doesn’t mean you should. Your hands and feet are freezing.”

 

He couldn’t deny that as he absentmindedly fiddled with the bracelet he still wore, the texture of the braid instilling his fingertips with feeling once more. Huffing to herself, Djeeta continued on her way, asking neither him nor his attendants for any help turning his old bedchambers into a giant nest.

 

But he supposed Djeeta must’ve had a sense for these things when he stirred once again and found himself kneeling before the fire without any memory as to how he got there. Djeeta’s face was inches from his own as she tightly wrapped one of her pelts around him.

 

“Hello, Lord Aglovale,” she said, her voice much softer than before. “...It should've been a while ago, huh?”

 

He didn’t answer her for a moment, eyes drifting to the frost that covered the windows and the little black square Djeeta had drawn in the condensation to peer outside. It was strange. Hibernation had always been a simple matter of fact to him. After Lamorak passed away, he had no reason to think twice about sacrificing three months of his time to the cold season, yet as he felt Djeeta’s warmth and the gentle kiss of her breath against his chin, he found that he did not want to sleep just quite yet.

 

It was like he was walking within a dream when he slowly stood up and drifted to the doors to the garden like a ghost. And like a dream, his thoughts were a murmur unable to break the surface of his conscience as he wondered what was so different now that he found himself fighting the call he so nonchalantly answered countless times before. He parted the sliding doors, letting in a gust of winter air before he stepped onto the veranda, his silken garments billowing all around him.

 

“Lord Aglovale!” came Djeeta’s voice as her footsteps pattered after him. The night was without its stars and moon when he turned his eyes towards the sky, moving again to continue barefoot into the freshly fallen snow.

 

“Lord Aglovale, I—your shoes! It’s freezing!”

 

He breathed deeply, slowly, allowing the cold air to fill his lungs. “I was thinking… that it’s beautiful,” he finally said, holding his palm to the air. “Snowfall… that is.”

 

He looked at her from over his shoulder, all of her extremities flushed a deep pink with her feet stuffed haphazardly into clogs when she had rushed out to follow after him. Her breath left her in white puffs, the disgruntled yet worried look in her eyes enough to stir the heaviness inside of him. Between the two of them, it was Djeeta who was the zenith of what it meant to be alive.

 

“...I’ve not yet fulfilled your wish,” he said after another moment.

 

“Nevermind that. You’ve spent the whole year listening to people’s wishes,” Djeeta told him, feet planted to the ground as staunchly as the legs of her determination. “We have all the time in the world to wait for spring, Lord Aglovale, but for now, it’s time to rest.”

 

That was right. He had an excess of time and as such, there was no meaning in it—as long as he completed the autumn rites, it made no difference to him whether he slept for three months or five, if he delayed or did not delay, or so he had thought.

 

He realized now that each passing moment between them was something he needed to grasp, something that he needed to feel with his own two hands before he allowed it to slip into the void of being. Moments of rest, moments of silence where they’d exchange no words at all—all of it were as precious as the moments filled with her joy. He stroked the bracelet.

 

“Let’s go back, Djeeta. You’ll catch fever or frostbite at this rate and there will be no one to tend to you then.”

 

She puffed up, taking a hold of his arm as she nearly dragged him back inside herself, grumbling that it would’ve been his fault anyways. He couldn’t help but smile softly to himself though the haziness encroaching on his vision—she always was the one fearless enough to chide him whenever he pressed enough of her buttons.

 

Aglovale was grateful for her foresight when he sank into the downy blankets and layers of furs that Djeeta had gathered from the rest of the manor. Djeeta herself was close by, pulling the heavy quilts over him as the strange ache of nostalgia bloomed within him from parts unknown.

 

Nothing more than a natural obligation, hibernation was supposed to come and go without ceremony, but Lord Aglovale couldn’t help but note and ponder every bit of gesture and timing. Djeeta’s hands lingered along the side of his arm too, reluctant to let go of him even though there was nothing left for either of them to do.

 

His eyelids were heavy but Aglovale lifted his gaze to meet her downcast eyes all the same.

 

“Will you be lonely?” he asked her yet again.

 

She didn’t answer him right away this time, but as her eyelashes fluttered and her lips parted without a sound, Aglovale smelled her tears before they appeared—salty and gently floral from the lingering notes of the centipede’s flower.

 

“...A little bit,” she said tightly, rapidly blinking to dash them away. “I… I’ll miss you, Lord Aglovale.”

 

“Silly girl,” he chided lightly. “I’ll be right here.”

 

"I know I am. I know." She swallowed thickly. “You’ll really wake up on your own this time? There’s nothing I need to do?”

 

“You need not do anything but wait,” he answered. “That’s all.”

 

“Just three months?”

 

“Just three months.”

 

Djeeta found his hand, casting shyness to the wayside as she squeezed his fingers. His breath left him in a soft sigh before he slipped from her grasp to touch them to her cheek instead. At the end of the day, she was still young, her heart not yet entirely mended after a life of isolation and the trials he had put her though, but he would console her as many times as it would take if it meant that she could glean from this the tiniest shred of peace.

 

“Tend to me often, even if only to speak of your day,” he said. “I will not wake, but I’ll be listening no matter where you are, Djeeta. Then think about the things you wish to do once the snow melts and how you intend to make up for this lost time.”

 

“...Okay,” she said. “Okay, I will. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

 

Satisfied with her answer, Aglovale allowed his hand to slip as he sank deeper into the warmth enveloping him. “Good night, Djeeta.”

 

She swallowed the last of her tears for him as she mustered one last smile for the winter. “Good night, Lord Aglovale.”

 

With that, he closed his eyes, and for the first time in over two hundred years, Lord Aglovale finally felt at ease.

Chapter 22

Aglovale was beside her. They sat together in a field of white flowers that may as well be her home—a place where loneliness couldn’t exist simply because he was there. She closed her eyes, anticipating the breeze that rippled through the field before her, but something cold sank into her instead like the fangs of a lion.

 

She opened her eyes and the god of the forest simply watched her.

 

“Lord Aglovale,” she said, rising to her feet as she pulled on his sleeve. Her voice was smaller, higher, yet it still couldn’t reach him as she tugged harder on his clothes. “Lord Aglovale, we have to go.”

 

After a moment, he finally stood, but there was no urgency in the way he moved. She felt even tinier beneath his shadow, and all the strength she had taken pride in once upon a time failed her when she needed it most.

 

And then there was a shift, a change in the air as if Aglovale had finally realized the danger that approached them. He spun around, arm thrown out as if to shield her from the invisible threat, and then his body grew stiff.

 

She raised her eyes as gossamer hair fell amongst the flowers like a scattering veil. Where his head was moments before, emptiness and the great blue sky. Where there were white petals, crimson sprung like it sprung from the abbreviation of his neck. Flowing. Endless. Endless as the scarlet river of her dreams.

 

Djeeta held out her arms as his body careened slowly towards her. She caught him, his silk flowing all around her as her eyes looked past his shoulders and found his missing head lying motionlessly amongst the ashblooms.

 

No, she thought.

 

No, no—

 

“Wake up,” she said to him. “Lord Aglovale, wake up.”

 

She shook him, gently at first, but where gentleness failed her, she turned to screams, her voice tearing apart what was already a fragile peace. “Wake up… wake up… Wake—!”

 

Djeeta’s eyes shot open moments before she hit the floor, her body flailing about as if possessed. Her dream came back to her in surges, the weight of Lord Aglovale’s lifeless body suffocating her like the lead in her veins pinning her to the ground.

 

And then it was gone and she was left gasping for air with her eyes glued to the ceiling. Arms finally obeying her, Djeeta grasped the side of the bed and dragged herself back up with a vengeance just to be met with Aglovale’s unperturbed visage, the echo of his lifeless head lying amongst the flowers flashing in her mind’s eye before she swallowed it back down.

 

She buried her face into her hands for a moment, breathing deeply. She’s had many nightmares before, nightmares that all ended with her clutching Aglovale’s body as she screamed. She had one idea what could’ve disturbed her so thoroughly that she was dreaming about flying heads, severed limbs, and trees bursting into flames, but it wasn’t like Aglovale could wake up and offer his own cryptic opinion when he was peacefully snoozing away. She glanced at him again—at least someone was, between the two of them.

 

A thin layer of silk covered him from head to toe like a veil, an accumulation of stray threads from the past sixty days of his uninterrupted slumber. It took her another moment for her mind to convince the rest of her body that the danger had passed, but her fingers nonetheless slipped beneath the stickiness of the veil to stroke the back of his hand for the sake of her own sanity.

 

“Sorry if I made a fuss,” she said softly. “It was just another bad dream, Lord Aglovale. Embarrassing, right?”

 

He didn’t answer her, and Djeeta sighed deeply. She was taking horribly to solitude. There were times she’d spend her travels alone days at a time when her companions had their own plans, but never to this extreme. She’d do it all over again though if she had to—anything if it meant that she could hear his voice again.

 

But still. With day after day of unending routine just to keep herself from going crazy, it was unfathomable to her that Aglovale supposedly spent centuries doing just this. Each day brought her closer to spring, but for Lord Aglovale who had lost everything, there had been no reason for him to think that he’d be any less alone the next day following the last. Did he have companions over the years? Lovers? He never spoke of any such thing outside the memories of his family long departed, and even curiosity couldn’t distract her from the deep ache in her heart until a stray idea popped into her head.

 

“...Maybe we could travel somewhere once the weather warms up,” she said to him out of the blue. “I’m thinking somewhere beyond the sea where you wanted me to go, except I want to take you with me. Have you ever walked along the beach, Lord Aglovale? Stepped into the water?”

 

She paused, carefully threading her fingers through his own while her palm was content to rest atop his hand. She never did figure out how the silk came to be. Did it form from thin air? Did he secrete the stuff through his skin? It was just one more tiny little mystery she’d forget to ask him about.

 

“The place I was born is really far from here, but we could still visit even if there might not be much,” she continued. “I know the grannies from my hometown would love to meet you, but there’s also the forest I grew up in if you’d rather see that instead, and maybe you could tell me all about the god that might live there too… or not?” She scowled. “...I was supposed to make this sound like a good thing, wasn’t I?” 

 

Djeeta turned her gaze towards the window. Lamorak and Percival must’ve wanted to take their brother with them when they left the forest too. She never did ask why Aglovale simply didn’t go with them, even if just for a little bit—was it a sense of duty? A curse? If there was a way for him to leave, would he even want to?

 

“It would be a good thing though, I promise.” She squeezed his hand. “The world’s changed so much in two hundred, three hundred years, Lord Aglovale. I wish I could tell you about the things I’ve seen, but I’m not as good of a storyteller as you.”

 

Once again, Aglovale didn’t answer her. She could only trust in his promise that her words would reach him in his dreams, but as Djeeta watched him sleep without a single line of worry on his face, she found more and more that she could wait just a bit longer if it meant he could finally enjoy the rest he had earned.

 

Last week’s winter storm had blown a hole in the roof of the storehouse, half of everything Lord Aglovale left her for the winter lost to the rats and elements. Cursing her luck, she had been reminded yet again how much the manor depended on the little forest spirits to tend to it. Regardless, she knew she couldn’t put it off any longer when she was on her last leg of venison, and so she took the gear Aglovale—who was more a god of contingency plans than anything else at this very moment—left for her.

 

Guided by her stomach with bow and quiver in tow, Djeeta left the grounds of the manor alone for the first time in too long to venture deeper into the woods. As time went by, she had found that surviving off the land in between towns as a vagrant sword involved an entirely different skillset than the likes homemaking and homesteading.

 

But nonetheless, years of experience making half her living off the outdoors finally paid off when she found fresh deer tracks in the snow. Tapered lines where the animal had dragged its hooves pointed her forward, and Djeeta leveled herself to the horizon as she proceeded carefully. Under the roof of the manor, she never had to provide for herself in the ways that she was used to, much less hunt unless it was trapping a few rabbits to feed Aglovale fresh meat when he was bedridden, but she didn’t count that. It was like she was walking an old path, revisiting a part of herself she had forgotten somewhere in the wintry forest.

 

After a long enough while, her diligence was rewarded with the telltale silhouette of a buck in the distance. Feet anchored to where they were, Djeeta slowly lifted the bow she loaded minutes earlier as she took careful aim, bottom lip pinched between her teeth. The deer lifted its head to sniff the air and timing herself to the slack that overtook its posture, Djeeta let loose her arrow.

 

And guessed wrong.

 

The buck startled and disappeared in one direction, her arrow in another, but she wasn’t given a chance to curse herself when a harsh cry tore though the silence of the forest.

 

A cry that was most definitely human.

 

Her heart dropped. “Oh. Oh no.” Djeeta broke into a sprint, or as much of a sprint as the trees and snow would allow before she came to a stop at the place the deer stood moments before. Myriad thoughts raced through her head as she whirled around on the spot, eyes searching the endless gray and white for the source of the scream. Were there people nearby this deep in the woods? Had she known, she wouldn’t have been so careless—she grimaced, she shouldn’t have been so careless regardless, because if she had hurt, or even worse, killed someone, then—

 

Djeeta furiously shook her head, left with no other choice but to follow the path of her arrow, dreading the moment she’d find a crumpled figure lying in the snow.

 

She only made a handful of yards away before she found dark splotches in the snow alongside definitely human shoeprints. Sparing just a moment to study the tracks as the red liquid turned to ice crystals on her finger tips, Djeeta trudged on until she was faced with a dark scrap of fabric lying by itself amidst the snow, her arrow sticking out of the trunk of a tree.

 

“Shoot,” she hissed, stumbling towards the base before she knelt back down to take up the fabric. It was still pliant, not yet frozen, but its owner was nowhere in sight, and an injured person couldn’t have made it so far that she’d lose track of them already, but when she glanced upwards, her heart dropped a second time as her brows furrowed together in confusion.

 

What was sticking out of the tree wasn’t her arrow, but the bolt of a crossbow.

 

“...So the Jorougumo really is of golden hair.”

 

Djeeta whirled around at the voice a moment too late when something heavy landed in the snow behind her, her head connecting with something round and hard as everything turned to black.

 

Winters far east of the great sea were harsh, but not as harsh as the ones of his homeland. A young man midway through his twenties with a face that betrayed less than what most people found amiable, as someone once told him, leaned back against the side of the sled as he took in the snowscape of an unfamiliar countryside.

 

“It’s not every day we get farsea visitors. So what’re you in for? What big guy did you piss off to land yourself across the ocean… Tor, was it?”

 

The young man named Tor glanced at his rosy-nosed driver. He wasn’t in the business of volunteering information, but it wasn’t lost on him that the man was already doing him a big enough favor bringing him this far into the countryside in the middle of winter.

 

“There’s no such person—I’m searching for an alternative remedy for a rare illness,” he said. “One that plagues children since infancy. My liege has a young son, his treatment has become untenable, and so I find myself far from home in this sled of yours.”

 

“Well, sorry I assumed, and I’m sorry you think what you’re looking for is all the way out here,” the driver replied as he tilted his head back, hands on the reins tied to the great antlered beast that pulled the sled through the snow. “...It’s weird. A young lady also paid me to bring her out here, and she was farsea too. Sweet girl. About your age, maybe younger. She sure acted the part.”

 

“A girl?” Tor asked politely. “Did she pay you to bring her back as well?”

 

“Never did get the chance to,” the other answered. “Didn’t see her again after that. Just like you, she’d been to all sorts of places, wanted to do all sorts of things. She reminded me of the youngins’ back home and their big dreams.” The man paused for just a moment. “Thinking back on it now, I wonder if it was at all a good idea to bring you people to the forest, but you city folk do have deep pockets.”

 

“I’m sure she is faring well enough,” Tor said placatingly. While he was not being disingenuous, the last thing he needed was his only driver getting cold feet this far into their journey because of a guilty conscience, but that did not mean he couldn’t sympathize with the sense of responsibility. “Rarely do matters of importance resolve overnight.”

 

“Well, I sure hope you’re right. If you run into her, tell her the reindeer miss her, won’t you?”

 

“I will. It would be the least I could do for your service.”

 

“The least you can do is pay me with that farsea gold.”

 

His lips quirked in a soft smile. “Of course. I don’t take matters of business lightly.”

 

The other seemed satisfied with that, and Tor let his gaze drift off once again as the conversation died down between them. It was his studies as a young physician that brought him to the ruins of a fallen country reclaimed by an old god whose name was known to few outside the lines of the map. Many of his peers and former colleagues warned that there’d be nothing to find in a village ruled by superstition, but his liege was of the idea that the cure they sought existed somewhere in the world, and Tor was inclined to agree with them lest they lose hope. 

 

He reached into his bag and reconsidered taking out the well-loved tome lying alongside the rest of his instruments, deigning instead to stroke the leather-bound spine. They say that the few settlements that remained deep in the heartland had been cursed with isolation by their god for their avarice. Tor had come across tales of a local deity or several, and the deity of this land was the Great Spider whom the people worshipped as the savior of humankind that transformed the land from a land of storms to a safe haven where humanity could settle and flourish. Despite his interest in a wide breadth of studies, he had always considered himself a man of empirical matters first and foremost, but Tor couldn’t help but wonder what could’ve moved such a god from benevolence to resentment.

 

Either way, he was not here because of myth or folklore—well, perhaps even that wasn’t true when the father of cryptic medicine whose endless memoirs and journals shaped the science of today was a bit of a myth himself. This was his homeland, and while the country he hailed from had long crumbled and faded into obscurity, maybe there was still something to be found in the ruins time had left behind.

 

Djeeta woke up in a world of pain.

 

And it wasn’t just her body. It hurt to use her eyes as she blinked blearily in the partial darkness, making out three blurry figures moving to and fro against a backdrop of flickering light. Unfamiliar voices were a drone inside her ear until she realized that she was back at the manor.

 

Startling into consciousness, Djeeta tried to stand up before she found that she’d been bound by her limbs to a chair, helpless as she watched strangers who hadn’t yet noticed her peruse the room like they were in the middle of a store, taking things that weren’t theirs off the shelves to either toss on the ground with distaste, or into an open bag.

 

One of the men stood by the loom, studying the tapestry that was still tied to the frame before he tugged on the cloth, growing increasingly more frustrated when it showed no signs of coming undone.

 

“You have a knife don’t you? Use it,” said one of the others from across the room before he tossed a glazed vessel to the floor, not even sparing it a second glance when it shattered. Djeeta bristled.

 

“Do you think it’ll sell for even half as much if we fuck it up?”

 

“Then don’t fuck it—”

 

“Don’t touch that!” Djeeta snapped, nearly tipping over in her chair as three pairs of eyes immediately fixed themselves on her. They were dressed in layers of cloth and leather that had seen better days, looking like neither farmer nor gatherer or anybody else she’d expect to find so deep in the woods that they were in the forest god’s home itself. “That’s not yours to touch. Nothing is!”

 

One of the men tilted his head, a cold smile creeping across his lips as he stepped closer with the eyes of a predator. Djeeta bit back a yelp when a boot firmly planted itself against the rim of the chair between her legs, nearly tipping her backwards as her aching head throbbed.

 

“Is this all yours , then?”

 

The man put one elbow on his knee as he leered at her, flashing stained teeth as the stench of something bitter filled her nostrils. His skin was dry and weathered, hair wiry and unkempt while Djeeta couldn’t help but note through her pounding headache the thick scar that ran across the bridge of his nose. She glanced at the other two who also leered at her with equally menacing intent, the thinner one standing next to the loom drawing out his knife to saw away at the warp in slow, mocking strokes. Several of the strands popped loose, and the tapestry fell askew.

 

“I said don’t touch—!” She was interrupted by the boot suddenly tipping her back before slamming her forward again, her chin knocking painfully against her collar from the whiplash. 

 

“I asked you a question, Lord Jorougumo,” the scarred man said, his voice a dry croak that doused her in yet another wave of bitter stench. “...You are Lord Jorougumo, aren’t you?”

 

Her brows furrowed together before her heart dropped as she suddenly remembered what lead to this, and what was actually at stake.

 

“And what’s it to you?” she spat, canines flashing in the firelight.

 

The scarred man said nothing for a moment, the other two taking a break from the looting like they were waiting for his reaction. Djeeta’s heart raced within her chest as she held her glare, wondering if those were about to be the last words she’d ever get to utter, and then the man burst into laughter, throwing his head back as he took his foot away.

 

“Don’t try so hard. We already know you’re not the Jorougumo, lass,” he said. “Lucky for you, I’d like to keep this diplomatic.”

 

The anger and disgust in her breast didn’t fade as the man got on one knee to meet her at eye level. “We’re only here for the Jorougumo, so be a good kid and tell us where it is, won’t you?”

 

Djeeta glowered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

“Of course you do.” His self-serving smirk on top of the desecration taking place before her very eyes brought her blood to a boil. “Not only are you a terrible liar, but you were trying to protect it just now, weren’t you? For the life of me, I can’t imagine why, but you have nothing to do with us and we have nothing to do with you so tell us where it is, we’ll let you go, and we can part ways on pristine terms. How does that sound?”

 

“Even if you hadn’t snuck up on me like a bunch of cowards, I wouldn’t tell you anything,” Djeeta snapped.

 

The scarred man held her glare for just a moment longer before he let out a soft sigh, straightening himself as he exchanged a look with his companions from over his shoulder. Before she could react, he whipped back around and backhanded her with enough force to send her crashing to the floor.

 

A metallic taste bloomed from between her teeth as she lay reeling, her world spinning on its head with no signs of stopping.

 

“I don’t like repeating myself,” he said lowly, spatting before she felt something warm and wet land on her exposed neck. “You, scour every room. The Jorougumo should be somewhere around here if this shithole belongs to it.”

 

“By… by myself?” Came the voice closest to the loom. 

 

She heard an exasperated sigh as the same boot from before planted itself in her side, slowly squeezing the air out of her lungs. “It’s sleeping. It won’t be able to do a thing to you, idiot.”

 

Djeeta felt the vibration of footsteps as she struggled to crane her head at the figure retreating down the hallway. “N-no—” She pulled against whatever she could even when the more she struggled, the more the side of the chair dug into her arm and the boot into her ribs.

 

“Now that’s what I like to see,” the man said with a horrifyingly familiar sweetness. “It’s not too late. Save us both some time and give us a clue, won’t you?”

 

Djeeta snapped her head back to glare at the scarred man with all of the fury in her heart.

 

“No dice?” He sighed deeply, standing her back up, but Djeeta knew what was coming when he backhanded her again, the sharp smack of his knuckles connecting with her eye socket resounding all throughout the manor as she hit the ground a second time.

 

“Some things bear repeating,” he said, rubbing his hand. “I wanted to make this easy on you since you look my daughter’s age, but no matter how pretty the face, I still hate bitches who don’t listen.”

 

Head throbbing like a stake had been driven straight through her temples, Djeeta watched through the slit of her eye as the scarred man turned his back on her to pace leisurely in front of the furnace, his remaining crony standing nearby in the shadows as if he had grown bored with pilfering Aglovale’s belongings.

 

She was angry, but none of her anger nor pain brought her any closer to understanding. What brought these people here, and why were they doing this to her? Were they simply thieves? If they were, then why look for the Jorougumo? Weren’t they afraid? Did Aglovale know something like this could’ve happened while he slept? There was no way he could’ve, he wouldn’t have been so content to sleep out in the open if he had known. The Lord Aglovale who did everything in his power as he spent his last days preparing all that he could to make sure she would enjoy a warm and comfortable winter while completely neglecting himself would not have left her like this if he had known.

 

“...Talk has been sweeping through the villages, whispers if you will,” the man began, folding his arms behind his back as he meandered towards the loom—unspoken years of work, the culmination of Lord Aglovale’s art where lithe and practiced fingers worked the loom and pulled the shuttle over the warp over and over, countless times over, violated by strange hands that left it to dangle like a corpse hanging from a tree. Djeeta felt something hot and wet swell within the dome of her eyelid as a fire ate away at her insides with no where else to go.

 

“The Jorougumo’s not a real god.” The man suddenly paused, bringing a finger to his lips as he dramatically swept his eyes across the darkness of the rafters. “Oh? Heresy on the forest god’s own hearth? Has its divine lordship not appeared to smite me on the spot?”

 

Cracked lips twisted with a smile as Djeeta clenched her fists, nails biting into her skin until she felt herself bleed.

 

“The Jorougumo’s not a god,” he said again, leaning into the blasphemy, reveling in it as if the words themselves gave him pleasure before he turned his back on the tapestry like it was no longer worth stealing. Djeeta watched him return to the furnace to prod idly at the fire with one of the nearby pokers, glowing flecks of ash swirling through the air from the disturbance. “It’s just a monster we’ve worshipped for far too long—a monster not worth bleeding even one drop of blood for.”

 

A leer stretched itself across his face as he glanced back at her battered sideways form. “Well, I suppose we’ll have to agree to disagree on that.”

 

Djeeta craned her head even as the rest of her body cried for some ounce of relief. “What… what are you planning to do with him?” she managed, blood and saliva trickling from her lips to pool on the floorboards beneath her.

 

“‘Him’?” The scarred man paused. “Well, we only want ‘his’ head to bring back home—irrefutable proof that ‘he’ is a monster that can be killed so that we can finally lay our poor elders to rest.”

 

Djeeta wrestled against her restraints, again to no avail before she let out a frustrated cry. The men only laughed as they watched her squirm, chortling amongst themselves while she bashed her head against the floor.

 

“Hey… hey now, we need just a few more minutes.”

 

Djeeta glowered at them both with her remaining eye. “For what?” she seethed. “I said I’m not telling you anything!”

 

“One thing at a time, lass. Apparently you find a false god worth bleeding for,” the scarred man answered before he thrust the head of the poker deep into the heart of the furnace.

 

“I’d like to know if it’s worth burning for too.”

Chapter 23

The manor echoed with Djeeta’s screams.

 

There was no time for her blood to drip onto the floor as it sizzled into a crust on her skin, but even when the man with the scar took the smoking iron from her exposed belly, the pain didn’t stop.

 

Her head lolled from one shoulder to the other, sweat trickling down her face to form rivers along her jugular as the stench of her own burning flesh filled her nostrils, stringent and piercing even through the rawness of everything else that coursed through her. She felt their eyes on her body, watching as the agony truly sank in before he asked yet again:

 

“Where is the Jorougumo?”

 

Djeeta held onto her words like she held onto her tears, mustering a livid glare as her reply. Her tormentor made a show of dropping his shoulders.

 

“Come now, lass. You know there are only so many rooms before we find the right one.”

 

She tore her eyes from the tip of the poker to glance in the direction where his other lackey had disappeared off to. Unbeknownst to their interlopers, there was a magic that lived within the walls of the manor’s maze-like corridors, and all she had to do was believe that it would be enough to keep them at bay. That was all. That, and endure.

 

“I—” Her voice came out cracked, hoarse. “I told you I don’t know, didn’t I?”

 

The iciness lasted a split second, the lapse in feeling anything at all even briefer, but the pain that followed was just as lung-rendering as before when it tore a fresh scream from her throat.

 

The man took the iron away, leaving behind a cross charred into her naval before he took his time strolling back to the furnace to bury the iron in the coals. Djeeta gazed blearily at the flames, asking herself again how much longer she needed to do this.

 

As long as it would take, a voice within her answered.

 

Murmurs emanated from that side of the room as she realized her hearing was beginning to fail her too. Her eyes drifted shut as her head sagged forward, the lapse in their interrogation doing very little for the myriad pain emanating from every other part of her body. She wasn’t so naive to think that they were done with her though, and so she took the moment to hone the edge of her agony into fury instead, that is, until she felt something scuttle up the back of her chair.

 

Her eyes shot back open as stiff fur brushed against her knuckles, a tiny mouth latching onto the rope to gnaw away at it. She glanced at the men who continued talking between themselves to see if they had noticed, wracking her brains trying to figure out which of the hibernating forest spirits had awoken and how.

 

Djeeta had grown to loathe that valley of a scar when her tormentor glanced back at her, apparently none the wiser as his lips twisted into another leer.

 

“Have something to say, don’t you?”

 

“...You won’t be able to kill him,” Djeeta said, feeling like she’d been thrust in front of the Oomukade’s lair again. “Do you think you’re the first to try?”

 

“The first step to killing a monster is knowing that you can,” he replied, wrapping his hand around the base of the poker. “For centuries we’ve sang and danced like idiots, throwing ourselves at the feet of vermin that called itself a god, and all for what? A few drops of rain? A helping of the river that should’ve belonged to us to begin with?”

 

Djeeta tested her restraints. “But the Jorougumo is your god.”

 

The man flashed his yellowing teeth, the remaining underling placing his hand atop the mallet fixed to his belt in a silent threat.  “Times are changing, lass,” he sneered. “Our doors are opening up, and there are stories of farsea kingdoms that don’t have any god to dance for. Instead, nature bends to human brilliance. You know, don’t you? You and your farsea blood.”

 

Djeeta pressed her lips together. That was what the captain of the ship that brought her to this continent first called her, and that was what the village elders echoed over and over when they embraced her with their withered arms. She never thought much of it—she was only a stranger from a faraway land after all, but now a part of her couldn’t help but wonder if there had been another reason as to why it had to be her all along.

 

“You could be part of it, you know,” the man continued. “Greatness awaits us. Tell us where the Jorougumo is and you'll have your reward.”

 

She couldn’t help but laugh sharply, wincing as a fresh stab of pain cut through her middle. Apparently lunatics all over the world said the same stupid things no matter where they came from. 

 

“This is how you ask for help?” she shot back, glaring through the fray of her hair. As she uttered those words, she thought again about the ones who had embraced her, smiling through their tears when within their hearts, she was already dead. “Is this how any of you ask for help? You wouldn't even deserve to drink from a puddle in the road even if you begged for it.”

 

Djeeta braced herself as the man freed the iron from the coals, embers scattering through the air as he slowly approached her. 

 

“You know… you only need your tongue to speak,” he told her, extending the poker like a sword before he lifted it higher and higher until it was level with her eye. Her stomach dropped as the spirit gnashed furiously at the rope. “Shame. There’s no one else in all this land with a face quite like yours.”

 

Djeeta kicked against her restraints, craning her head away as far as she could, but it was useless when it was one eye or the other as the heat radiating from the iron finally hit the tip of her nose and then her cheeks. She could only fixate on the glowing red that threatened to consume her when the man drew back his arm, but the tip never met its mark when the forest spirit scaled her back and launched itself at him, a hissing black mass in the half-darkness.

 

He screamed, Djeeta narrowly dodging the flying iron as she toppled over. She ripped her hands free, hastily working on the last of her bindings as she glanced back and forth between her ankles and the forest spirit clawing and biting at whatever it could of the man’s face. With a string of curses, he seized the spider by its head, pried it off of himself, and hurled it violently against the opposite wall, to which it hit with a sharp crack.

 

The creature fell to the ground, motionless as a silvery liquid trickled from its mouth, but the man wasn’t done when he marched over to lift it back into the air, the limbs that dangled from its body by their joints breaking off altogether to Djeeta’s horror.

 

“Stupid monster,” he hissed as he began to drag the spirit to the open furnace. Mind going blank immediately after she realized what he was going to do, Djeeta broke free, clearing the room in a single stride before she tackled the man to the ground.

 

“Fuck—!” The blows and kicks returned when the other managed to free himself from the thrashing mass of limbs, but Djeeta didn’t feel any of it as she pulled the spirit into her arms. “What are you doing just standing there? Get the girl! Help me kill the thing!”

 

Djeeta looked up to see the second man nearly blot out the light of the furnace itself, mallet in hand. She wondered briefly if he was the one who struck her on the head earlier, but none of that mattered as she watched the hammer fall on both her and the spirit before she lifted a hand to block it. 

 

The head connected with her wrist, and her arm undulated like a ribbon before her very eyes, every single bone within it bending before shattering altogether.

 

All went quiet, at least to her own ears, and then she was screaming—screaming more loudly than she’d ever screamed in her life as agony ripped through her like a roaring inferno, coursing and violent and endless. If she’d been taken by anger before, then all of that was now ashes.

 

Her surroundings came back to her, a sharp ringing filling her head. Somehow in her pain, she could make out the pair of men hovering over her, their silhouettes shaped like that of the devil, and that was when she felt it.

 

A tremor. Soft, repetitive… like footsteps. She shakily lifted her gaze and found that she was the only one who noticed it, and her heart dropped again as a fresh wave of panic crashed over her.

 

No, she begged, her head turning helplessly back and forth like she was trapped in another one of her nightmares. No, don’t wake up. Don’t come. These people are here to hurt you.  

 

She sobbed as fresh agony surged forth from her pulverized limb, but she still had to struggle. That is, until something heavy fell from the darkness of the ceiling and hit the ground with a lifeless thud.

 

Djeeta raised her eyes even higher until she saw it—great arching limbs slowly spanning across the darkness of the rafters as old lumber creaked beneath their weight. The men were shouting now, screaming even, the shadows painted on the walls flailing wildly as the one with the hammer swung at empty air. Djeeta slowly turned her head to the side to see what had fallen from before, the remains of half a corpse lying in a jumbled heap close enough to her that she could count the number of teeth inside of that bloodied mouth.

 

Winter air rushed inside the room as the man with the scar made a break for it, but the other was still swinging blindly, a string of unintelligible words spilling from his mouth while his face was contorted into something she barely recognized as human. Djeeta watched numbly as his head suddenly disappeared inside a pair of jaws while the body continued to thrash in midair, hands clawing at the darkness as muffled screams reached their crescendo. And then he was still, and silent, the jaws vanishing as quickly as they had materialized while one more body dropped to the floor to join the mangled heap of meat and bone.

 

The doors to the outside slammed back shut, cutting off the frigid air that needled her beaten form, and then it was truly quiet once more.

 

“...You woke up,” she could only croak weakly, her lips barely moving.

 

Lord Aglovale was kneeling beside her, every piece of his demeanor taken by an utter stillness. Only when she tried to reach for him with her remaining arm did she remember the spirit she had kept glued to her chest.

 

Aglovale did not wait for her to speak again when he wordlessly took his motionless attendant from her grasp. Watching him hold the creature covered in its own silvery blood while two of its legs lay somewhere else in the room, a burning rose inside her throat.

 

“It tried to protect me,” she said. “It tried to protect me, Lord Aglovale, and now it’s… now it’s—”

 

“It will live,” he said softly, palm resting briefly atop its head before he set it aside.

 

Djeeta closed her eyes as she took in several shuddering gasps. For a moment, Aglovale said nothing as she felt him trace her swollen cheek before brushing against her blackened eye, growing still once more the instant she flinched beneath his touch. When she brought herself to look at him again, his eyes were black with rage.

 

She wondered what he thought of her in that moment, her clothes disheveled and half undone from the struggle, her body beaten and branded, her face nearly unrecognizable in the reflection of his eyes. 

 

“...Why did you go this far?” he asked her, voice just as soft as before. “You knew where my body lie. Why did you not speak?”

 

Djeeta brought herself to hold his gaze even though her body wanted nothing more than to close its eyes and fall to darkness, anything to escape the pain that ate away at whatever remaining awareness she had. She could almost sympathize with the mangled remains that lay where they had fallen.

 

“Everyone… in your life…,” she whispered, her words hardly more than a dry rustling. “At some time… some point—” She took in another shuddering breath, her chest trembling uncontrollably before Aglovale cupped her cheek as gently as he could to pull her back to him.

 

Hot tears trickled from the corner of her eyes, spilling even from the giant lump that had taken over half her face. A part of her wondered if this was just another nightmare, if any of this was even real at all. “I-I didn’t want to… I didn’t want to be… just one more person who… who betrayed you, Lord Aglovale—”

 

And then she broke down, choking on her own sobs as the reality of her own helplessness finally set in. It hurt, it stung. With all of her failures and all of her naivety, what good were any of her words when she could only lie there on the floor, crying and crying.

 

Even Aglovale himself couldn’t stand to watch her when she felt his mouth on her throat, the prick of thorns hardly registering to her weary senses. She opened her mouth to utter just one more apology, but it never came as exhaustion finally eclipsed the weight of her anguish.

 

Enough time had passed that dawn broke over the horizon, lighting the way through the forest, but that was hardly any consolation for the man as he stumbled along, one foot in a state of delirium as he cursed everything and everyone who had brought him to where he was now.

 

The Jorougumo was supposed to be sleeping. The village crones promised this, everyone knew this, even the panhandling vagrants that made their home in the filthiest trenches of their town knew this, that the forest slept during winter.

 

So why couldn’t he shake the feeling of eyes following him through the trees even when that crumbling shack of a manor was already miles behind him? It wasn’t his fault those two got themselves killed because he was the only one with the brains to run. He wasn’t a coward either. He was lied to, mislead. They all were, and that’s why they died. It couldn’t have been his fault, he needed to make sure the others knew before he—

 

The man came to a sudden stop, looking up to find another stranger standing in his path.

 

Golden hair swayed gently in the slight winter draft, crimson eyes resting serenely upon his face, but what was most egregious to him were the layers of luxurious garments that covered the man from shoulder to toe, delicate embroidery sparkling in the morning light. The stranger himself seemed otherworldly and quite out of place, like he was meant to reside inside of a palace than stand in the middle of a frozen forest, but what was his loss would soon be his gain as he pulled his crossbow on him.

 

“Give me your gold and carriage, and we won’t have trouble,” he said.

 

The stranger tilted his head without a word, expression as unreadable as it was unchanging.

 

Scowling as he wondered if he heard him right, he scanned the trees for any signs of a horse or carriage or even a wagon. “Whatever brought you here! Your driver too. Tell him you’re just taking a nice little walk, I don’t give a damn.” He hurriedly gestured with his weapon, briefly glancing over his shoulder to make sure nothing had followed him this far. “Are you stupid? Hurry up!”

 

He locked his knees as those crimson eyes continued to stare at him. Another moment passed before the other silently parted one of his layers, revealing a familiar mallet resting in his hand. The man froze, and the stranger broke his stillness by stepping closer towards him.

 

He choked as the avalanche of realization buried and snuffed out every inkling of defiance, leaving behind an empty stretch within his mind as the lord of the forest himself cast him in his shadow. Those unforgivingly knifelike eyes narrowed, and an inexplicable force compelled him to take the mallet with shaking hands.

 

“...F-Forgive me,” he babbled as his mouth began to foam at the corners. A hand slowly descended upon him from above, fingers splayed like the legs of a spider as he could do little more than shrink away as far as he could while his feet remained glued to the spot. “Forgive me, please forgive me—”

 

Scarlet nearly swallowed him whole as the Jorougumo brought their faces close together, one glance from those eyes enough to bend the knee as he slowly crumpled closer and closer towards the ground. 

 

“I do not need you,” the god said to him, a lithe finger tracing a single line down his face. “I do not… love you.”

 

The god simply watched as the man collapsed into a heap, manmade weapons cast aside to free the hands that buried themselves in his hair as he threw his head from side to side. He took his finger away.

 

“I have known you since the beginning, watched as the earth upon which I’ve bled cultivated your very being,” he continued. “I have always provided, and you have denied me and my existence. And so… I deny you.”

 

The man choked out loud at that, burying his head deeper into the snow until he mustered enough insolence to raise his eyes and behold the god once more.

 

“You are… you are my god,” he whispered, trembling hands raising themselves in haphazard prayer. “I didn’t… I didn’t actually want this—” His mouth broke into a fractured smile that was more awe and desperation than anything else as he threw himself at the hem of the Jorougumo’s robes. “I can go back! I can win audience with the ones who have always adored you, my lord. T-They know me, my lord. We can collect a new offering for you, one even better than the last—”

 

Crimson turned to black and the man staggered to his feet, overtaken by madness as he grasped at the other’s front. The Jorougumo had always been beautiful, merciful—there was no way the very god that had watched over him and his forefathers would cast him aside and abandon him here now. 

 

“Please, I will always be faith—”

 

The words died in his mouth, and he slowly looked down to find that the Jorougumo’s hand had disappeared inside of his abdomen.

 

“I deny you,” the god said again, softly. “Become a blight until the very fiber of your spirit unravels.”

 

Aglovale said nothing more as he ripped the liver out of the one who had soiled his hearth. No amount of retribution could equal the weight of all that Djeeta had suffered, and no amount of blood could pay for a single one of her tears.

 

He brought the liver to his mouth and sunk his teeth into the gelatinous flesh, the organ squelching as he ripped it apart and swallowed it bit by bit. A part of him savored the flesh as it slid down his throat, embracing the sheer revulsion that embroiled his stomach as his eyes rolled back—rancid, bitter, and rotten to its core, yet intoxicatingly sweet all the same.

 

Stepping over the corpse whose face was still contorted in a horrible smile, Aglovale turned his attention to a nearby tree, snow hardly crunching beneath his feet as he passed by it.

 

He cast his gaze aside. A woman cowered in the snow behind the trunk with her three young children, a basket lying on its side next to her with all manner of fungi, bark, and seeds scattered about.

 

“Foraging during winter is forbidden.”

 

The woman yelped as if she’d been lashed. She pushed her head deeper into the snow, clumsily imploring her children to do the same while the youngest of the three could only gaze up at him with his big round eyes.

 

“Lord Jorougumo,” she gasped, shrewd enough to know how she should address him, but apparently not enough to honor the promises of her predecessors. “Please… please, I beg you—”

 

She crumpled even further underneath the weight of his unforgiving gaze, unable to escape the silent displeasure of the god no matter how deeply she buried her face into the ground.

 

“O-Our neighbors abandoned us. We lost our only means to get by. Please, we never meant to defy you—”

 

“And yet you have,” he replied coldly, wondering if so much time had passed that he allowed them to grow complacent in their insolence. “Did you believe that you could pick at my body while I slept without recompense?” 

 

The woman yelped again, unable to muster any kind of reply as her children clung to her, silent through the entire ordeal. Aglovale narrowed his eyes.

 

“...Vultures that you are, I’ll place you above the last wretch who crossed me,” he said. “Raise your head.”

 

She did as she was told while her children followed suit, the four of them kneeling still amongst the snow. Aglovale tilted his head, his shadow juxtaposed with the sun rising over the horizon.

 

“You may keep two.”

 

The woman gaped. “Pardon… pardon me, my lord?”

 

“Choose which of your blood to offer me,” he said. “That shall be your recompense. If you cannot choose, then I shall choose for you.”

 

Realization manifested as sheer horror upon her face, her sons just as privy as their mother save for the youngest when one of them grabbed him to hold close.

 

“No, please—!” she cried, throwing herself back down at his feet. “Please, anything but my children, my lord. I will give you anything else, I swear—”

 

“That you may keep two is already a kindness,” he replied, eyes devoid of any warmth or mercy as he watched the woman grovel at the hem of his robes. “Do not test me any further than this, human.”

 

The woman broke down into unintelligible pleas as Aglovale continued to simply watch, counting the seconds until he’d make the choice for her just as he promised. However, just before he reached the end of his patience, one of her sons removed himself from his knees, stepping forward to place himself in front of his mother and cowering siblings.

 

“Take me,” he said.

 

“...First of your brothers,” Aglovale said, his mouth slowly splitting into a cold smile as he brought his face close, testing the sincerity of those defiant eyes. “As expected.” 

 

He took the child by the throat, lifting him effortlessly into the air while his mother screamed, begging through tears for him to spare him, but her child had made his choice, and so he had made his. 

 

Defiance melted away into sheer terror when Aglovale opened his jaws—he couldn’t blame him, brave as he was, he was only a child after all, but he could at least die with the word of his god that his precious family would live on when many others have perished for much less.

 

Aglovale could nearly taste him when he felt a small tug on his sleeve. He paused, lowering his gaze to find that he was no longer standing amidst the snow, but in a field of those familiar white flowers.

 

Djeeta met his eyes, small as she always was within the eaves of his heart.

 

“This isn’t you,” she said to him.

 

“...Do not presume to me what I am or am not,” he replied.

 

“I know you,” Djeeta said, the whole of her eyes shimmering. “And this isn’t you, Aglovale. You’re my friend.”

 

He hesitated. In her eyes, was he committing another betrayal?

 

Before he could arrive at an answer, a shriek wrenched him away from that field and back to the present, the woman regarding him with sheer terror as all the color drained from her face.

 

Aglovale looked down again to find his other hand grasping the blade of a small knife. Some time during his lapse, the smallest child must've charged at him with it, glaring at him while he trembled from head to toe with tears in his eyes. Blood trickled from his fingers and dripped onto the snow.

 

He threw him back at his mother and then dropped the other, watching numbly as she scrambled to gather her children and check that they were still whole with her shaking hands. 

 

Opening his own hand, he stared first at his bleeding palm, then at the fallen basket. While the family moaned and sobbed, clinging to one another, he extended a fist and allowed his blood to fall, filling the vessel with both seed and grain.

 

“...Plant these in whatever earth you still possess,” he told the mother. “Do not step foot here again.”

 

And with that, he disappeared. 

 

Chapter 24

It was one day of spring that saw a young man sitting beneath the shade of a tree, half-penned tomes sprawled about him alongside a mindless assortment born of a sorcerer's whimsy.

 

A gust filled the air with the sound of fluttering paper as the god of the forest touched down before him, one foot after the other in a flourish of ocean blue silk. The man tucked soft brown hair behind his ear without so much as looking up, to which the god clicked his tongue.

 

“Did you intend to pass through here without so much as a greeting for your elder brother, Lamorak?”

 

“You found me quickly enough, didn’t you?” Lamorak returned, finishing the last line on the page before ending it with a decisive tap of his pen. “No point making the detour back home if you already knew I was here.”

 

Perhaps finding that his brother had not changed since he last departed was its own comfort. “And so you’ve returned for what, then?” he asked, inviting himself to take a seat before him amidst the mess. “A quiet place while you indulge in another one of your hobbies?”

 

Lamorak turned his nose up at that. “First of all, it’s not a hobby, Aggy. Second, I’ve taken on the glorious burden of cataloging the libraries of our people.” He flipped a couple pages before holding up the journal so that his brother could properly appreciate the diagram he had meticulously sketched, inked, and labeled. The Jorougumo blinked slowly, tilting his head as he paid the other enough mind to at least study the rather macabre drawing of a cadaver and its innards. “Ours is the knowledge of gods when there are still farsea doctors praying the plague away. It’s dire out there, Aggy.”

 

“And yet they must think that they’re closer to divinity than a heathen such as yourself,” Aglovale replied with a hint of wryness. “How many villages have driven you out for practicing witchcraft since your last letter?”

 

Lamorak heaved a great sigh, leaning back onto his hands. “Okay sure, I know witchcraft, but it wasn’t even witchcraft—not that I’d let any of that nonsense stop me.” Aglovale felt his gaze on himself before he glanced back just in time to catch a glimpse of regret passing over the scarlet eyes they both shared. For years he had cared for him as his big brother, raised and watched over him as best he could, but there were still many secrets enclaved within that heart that even the forest god couldn’t pry free. “...You know, it’d be nothing for you to master, Aggy. Even if everything ends up burning away, the compendium of vessel and remedy our people took generations to compile would live on with you.”

 

Aglovale felt himself sour as he closed his eyes. So this was why he had returned. “I’ll have nothing to do with your conceits, Lamorak.”

 

Lamorak had learned young not to wear his heart on his sleeve, but he knew him too well not to notice the way he bristled. “It’s not, I'm not—medicine has the power to help people no matter where they’re from, and if we could spread this knowledge, then no one else would have to go through the things that we—”

 

“And by whose doing rendered this precious knowledge to ashes to begin with?” Aglovale said harshly as he reopened his eyes. “Who set fire to our home, raided our stores, and slaughtered the last stewards of the mountain, driving away every sane mind to the edge of the sea?”

 

Lamorak snapped his journal shut. “We can’t punish every single generation that comes after us because of what a few people did.”

 

For his own sanity, Aglovale decided to overlook what Lamorak considered a “few”. “The spider let the hearts of our people choose their future, and they chose blood when they devoured our neighbors. I’ve let them choose again, and they’ve chosen to war themselves back to the stone age while they torture themselves to death with superstition. Should I have placed you and Percival in danger to lead them back to the light?”

 

For a moment, Lamorak had nothing to say as his brother’s resentment was left simmering in the air. Aglovale nearly regretted snapping at him, watching as the other regarded his closed journal and all the knowledge it contained with a plaintive look in his eyes.

 

“...I wish I could take you away from here,” Lamorak eventually confessed. “People change from town to town—doorstep to doorstep even—and they change again from day to day. The world is too big for all of it to be as awful as the things we’ve seen, Aggy.”

 

Aglovale committed to tempering his anger, having waited too long to see him again to let another pointless argument come between them. “Perhaps so, but none of it will ever be mine to behold.” He took his own deep breath as he looked away from him and cast his gaze to the furthest reaches of the meadow. “I’ve not said anything about the path you’ve chosen, but accept that I will not have anything to do with it—whether it perishes with our people or not, it is none of my concern.”

 

Lamorak sighed and made a show of raising his arms as he allowed himself to collapse against the base of the tree, always one for dramatics. “Fine, suit yourself. You’ve always been so stubborn, but I can be stubborn too, you know.”

“I do.”

 

“So you’ll be okay with me asking again down the road?”

 

“I know you’ll ask me regardless of what I say.”

 

Lamorak snorted and pat the ground beside him. When Aglovale didn’t move to join him, he seized him by one of his oversized sleeves and pulled him down himself. 

 

To one brother, there was still beauty in the dappled sunlight filtering through the leaves overhead. To the other, it was only one drop in the ocean of what he already knew, and what he would always know. Aglovale closed his eyes again.

 

“...I guess I’m the awful one for leaving you to spend winter alone,” Lamorak said, never one to let a moment of silence stretch too long between them.

 

Aglovale wondered what compelled him to bring that up, the thought of winter so far away against the warmth speckled across his skin. “No matter. Our winters have always been harsh, and there would have been nothing for you to do.”

 

The grass rustled as Lamorak turned his head to study him. “You slept again?”

 

He made an affirmative noise. Of course he had—the demands of the forest only grew harder to ignore by the year, and only when the forest was allowed to rest could it undertake the karmic scars that marred the earth. “Yes. I’m sure the peace and quiet would have driven you insane.”

 

“Really? Or is it because you’d never be able to sleep a wink if I were around?”

 

“You could stay for once and see for yourself,” Aglovale said. “Is the prospect of tormenting your hapless brother not enticing enough or must I throw myself at your feet as well?”

 

“Sorry! The journey never ends for your vagrant sorcerer when what I’m looking for is still somewhere out there,” Lamorak replied, rolling over as he made another show of stretching his limbs. “But I wouldn’t stop you if you really wanted to beg.”

 

He made another dry and noncommittal noise, resigning himself to the sounds of nature until he felt Lamorak’s eyes on him again.

 

“...And what is it now?”

 

Lamorak shuffled himself, sitting halfway up to rest his chin on one of his hands. “Nothing. Just thought you might ask about what I’m searching for.”

 

“How pointless,” he said. “And very much like you to try and stoke my curiosity with no intention of humoring it.”

 

He heard the pout in his voice. “You think you know everything already, don’t you? That’s no fun.”

 

“I do, and it’s not any more fun either,” Aglovale replied. “Keep your secrets. I’ll force that petulant tongue of yours to speak one day.”

 

“Whatever you say, Aggy.” Lamorak collapsed back onto the grass, audibly sighing as he finally decided to settle. “...So remember what I told you about in my last letter? You’ve been reading them, right?”

 

Aglovale let Lamorak pick up where his letters to home had last left off, the young sorcerer launching into another one of his tales from abroad. As he listened to him go on and on about merfolk bladders, he confirmed for himself that like Percival, Lamorak had yet to notice that their clocks had already diverged, and that he couldn’t follow them to wherever their journeys would one day bring them.

 

Lamorak’s legacy would only grow stagnant if he were to leave it here with him, and in time, there would be nobody else, for all that was precious to him was already doomed.

 

Even when Aglovale returned, a layer of the winter air still clinging to his robes with how quickly he cut through the manor to make his way back to her, he found himself at a loss of what he was meant to do as he hovered at her bedside, heart a disobedient thing within his chest. Mortals were fragile and broke so easily. For all that Djeeta was, she was still made of only blood and flesh, and he had abandoned her at her most vulnerable just to chase after insects flitting through the woods.

 

His roused servants had done what they could do, slathering balm and other herbal pastes over her cuts and burns, bringing in iced towels from the outside to place over the worst of her bruises when her body was covered in them. Aglovale watched one of the spirits carefully peel away a now-melted rag from her loosely splinted arm, revealing distended flesh that had turned an even deeper shade of purple since he had last seen it.

 

“...Why the long face?” came a soft rasp as he found Djeeta peering at him through the slit of the only eye she could open. He’d been so focused on the state of her body that he hadn’t even noticed her stir.

 

“You’re awake,” he said, almost moving to comb her hair away before he stopped himself. “I thought you’d be able to rest just a bit longer with the venom I gave you.”

 

“Oh… So that’s what that was,” Djeeta sighed softly, her head sinking deeper in the pillow. “...I was wondering why I was feeling so warm and fuzzy, why it feels like you’ve been right there… all along.”

 

Aglovale felt a heaviness in his chest, a phenomenon she often instilled within him. In his hibernation, he had listened to the way filth had placed their hands on her, choosing the very hearth she had spent many a nights by the fire as the site of their blasphemy. He had listened to her screams, still a prisoner in his own body while the manor could only shake and tremble against the sound of her pain. He’d been unforgivingly impotent then, just as he was now.

 

“Lord Aglovale?” she said, calling him back to the present. He caught the twitch of her better arm as she tried to reach for him, stopped by a combination of her own fatigue and the paralysis he dosed her with.

 

“How are you feeling?” he asked, one half of himself committed to her bedside, the other half an indiscernible cacophony tearing away at his composure. He carefully placed a hand over hers, keeping it where she wouldn’t be tempted to push herself. 

 

Djeeta smiled faintly. “Warm and fuzzy, weren’t you listening?”

 

Aglovale lowered his gaze, gently stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. Venom was still venom and regardless of how pleasant it might’ve felt for her, he could not keep administering it to her for long. “And of the pain?”

 

“...Barely there, thanks to you,” she answered, smiling still before something gave her pause. “You’re still awake, Lord Aglovale.”

 

“That I am.”

 

Aglovale saw the flicker of uncertainty within that sliver of an eye and knew what she was going to ask next.

 

“But you aren’t supposed to be, are you?”

 

“Do not concern yourself with me,” he said. “Have you not done enough of that, you foolish child?”

 

Unfazed, she slowly blinked at him before closing her eye altogether. “…I’ll always be concerning myself with you,” she replied, and then for a moment, she was silent beside the faint rasp of her breathing. When she spoke again, her voice was even softer than before as if she were still mulling over the train of her own thoughts. “I realized… it was you that night, wasn’t it? Not the spirits.”

 

Aglovale paused, his thumb resting atop her knuckles. “Don’t speak of nonsense.”

 

“I burned my hand on the tea,” she continued nonetheless, the corner of her lip twitching like she was recalling a fond memory. “You were pretty mad that day, but you came into my room that same night, gave me medicine, and wrapped it all up. Back then, I was just another insect in your web… but you’ve always taken care of me, Lord Aglovale. 

 

“So even if I asked you the way you just asked me, you still wouldn’t leave me alone, and if I tried, you’d come up with another excuse, wouldn’t you?”

 

“I was not asking,” was all he could retort when he remembered the exact night she spoke of, wondering if the girl from before would have been as amenable to the intrusion as the one smiling softly at him right now. What had changed… and when? “Do you wish for me to leave you then?”

 

“No,” Djeeta said, reopening her eye. “...Please stay, Lord Aglovale. I… I spent all these days wondering what I’d be willing to give up just to hear your voice again. I didn’t know it’d be my arm, but I’m, if I had to—” The note of her own voice cracked before she quickly caught herself, but he was not a fool. “—I’d be glad. I’d be glad if you could stay with me after all.”

 

The study filled with the sound of several books crashing to the ground, Lord Aglovale nearly ripping the cabinetry to pieces as he cleared the shelves with no regard for anything but what he was seeking. He would throw open one collection of encyclopedias, searching them for the information he needed, only to find them as lacking as the last set before he’d sweep them off the table to join the growing pile. 

 

Several more minutes of this after hours and he fell to his knees, the edge of the table shattering into splinters within his grip. It took decades for Lamorak to become the kind of physician and healer that he was. For all that he already possessed, it would only take him a fraction of those years to sequester the same amount of knowledge needed to heal her, but it would still not be enough. Djeeta only had days before her bones would begin to set. Idle away, and he’d condemn her to a life of excruciating pain. Proceed carelessly, and she’d lose her arm altogether.

 

He was not blind to the callouses on the hand of that arm—she had dedicated her entire life to the sword. To her, it was her pride and way of life, her means of moving about the world itself, and for all of his time and wisdom, he could not help her.

 

Aglovale spared the table the rest of his throes as he pressed his fingers to his temples. He had been arrogant, living underneath the veneer of eternity while Lamorak had always been the wiser brother between the two of them.

 

And he’d laugh at him from beyond the grave, but even the shadow that used to haunt his periphery was nowhere to be found. One foot within a daze, he was alone within the study except for the whispers within his core and the forest spirit taking shelter beneath one of the nearby tables.

 

“...Dead gods should remain dead,” he muttered to himself before he raised his head and stood back up. He cast his gaze over at the lone spirit, who stood to attention when it realized the Jorougumo was done ripping the library apart.

 

Because he was lacking, he could neither control nor protect the girl given to him as an offering, but it’d do her no good to drag this tantrum out any further either.

 

“Find me a human doctor,” he said. “I do not care who, and I do not care where.”

 

Tor carefully placed the cup of steaming hot concoction on a wooden surface beside the bed.

 

“This will help the nerves,” he explained to the woman who sat listlessly on it, her frostnipped hands folded atop one another on her lap, “so that you may better find rest tonight.”

 

“I… I’m not insane,” she said, squeezing her hands together.

 

Tor’s expression softened. ”I know you’re not, miss,” he said gently. “You’ve not shown me any reason to question it, but—forgive me for my presumptuousness—I believe it’ll be safer for you and your sons to stay overnight.” 

 

When he had first arrived, what should have been a quiet village was taken by a commotion, the woman sitting before him allegedly struck by psychosis when she emerged from the forest. From what he was able to gather as he bartered his services for a cabin to set up shop, she had claimed that the god of the forest had awoken a month earlier than he was supposed to, and that he was angry. As an outsider, Tor didn’t find this particularly outlandish to hear, but no one believed her, not even those who fed him this information in exchange for his patronage. According to them, and according to the authority of the village, their god slept through winter without exception, for it was a law as absolute as the nature of his own divinity.

 

It wasn’t his place to seek the truth, but he had found it in his own best interest to take the woman and her children into his care if he were to convince the village of his worth as a physician. At the very least, she’d find peace here. He had seen with his own two eyes how quickly derision could evolve into torches and pitchforks, and there’d be no reason for her neighbors to invent ways to silence her if they thought that she was already somebody else’s problem.

 

Tor took the cup himself and gently eased it into the woman’s own hands. “You’ve spent too long in the cold, please drink this while it’s still hot,” he said. “I’ve looked over your sons, and they’re in good health as well.”

 

That seemed to bring her ease, and after a moment of considering the strange herbal liquid she was holding in her hands, she finally lifted the cup to drink.

 

“Witchdoctor,” she said after lowering the cup. “Do you think I’m unwell too?”

 

Tor offered a bemused sort of smile. “I’m not a witchdoctor, nor am I a shaman. Think of me as a purveyor of medicine, or just simply a doctor,” he replied. “As to whether or not I think you’re unwell… No, I find you sound of mind, miss.”

 

“Then, Doctor, how much longer shall my family and I impose upon you?”

 

“Not much longer, but think nothing of it,” Tor told her. “Were you frostbitten and unwell, I would have insisted that you stay longer to honor my oath as a physician. No, you simply need your rest.”

 

“...Thank you,” the woman said after another moment’s consideration, seemingly amenable to his idea. “Doctor, you said you’ve come from beyond the sea?”

 

“Yes, I have.”

 

A strangely plaintive look flickered in her eyes as she hung onto the cup. “You farsea travelers are so… very kind.” She glanced up at him. “Thank you. Don’t let me hold you any longer, and please… take care of yourself during your stay.”

 

Tor could only wonder why it felt like she was pleading with him, but he stashed the thought aside. “I am only doing my duty,” he replied before he made his way back. “Please don’t be afraid to call on me if you or your children need anything else.”

 

With that, Tor excused himself and shut the door behind him. It was only his first day, and between tending to the woman and each of her three sons, he had not had a moment to settle, and the world continued to deprive him of such when a soft knock came from the door.

 

Tor paused. Being new to town, his guess was as good as any other. Deciding that answering would not be too much of a risk at this point in his journey, he made his way over and carefully opened it to reveal a single cloaked stranger waiting for him.

 

Tor felt his eyes before he saw them within the shadow of his hood. Scarlet irises appeared to slowly pry him apart, an eternity passing between them in which his usual words of greeting failed to rise within his throat.

 

Eventually, it was the stranger who spoke to him first, his voice a deep baritone with the power to wash away any pretense. Faced by the stranger, Tor felt a pull within him—a warning or long-buried instinct of sorts that kept his feet anchored in place, that told him a far worse fate awaited him if he tried to run.

 

But what kind of fate awaited him now that’d he feel such a way to begin with?

 

“You are a doctor, yes?”

 

“I am,” Tor found himself answering. The stranger reached up and lowered his hood, revealing cascading strands of lustrous hair and the full brilliance of his gaze as he stared past him to survey the rest of the cabin. Tor felt a quiet unease when those searching eyes lingered just a moment too long on the pair of doors behind which his patients were presently recuperating.

 

“...I have a patient for you,” he said, looking right back at him as ice seemed to prickle the surface of his skin. “Blood, bone, fire, and flesh. Would it be too much for you, Doctor?”

 

A vague question warranted a vague answer, and Tor chose his words carefully. “I’ve worked with ailments of all four during my humble tenure, sir.”

 

The stranger’s face was unreadable, appearing neither pleased or displeased with the answer, and he found himself at a loss. How was he meant to approach that which he couldn’t observe, gleaning nothing but a vague sense of anxiety? The man glanced at the leather bag sitting innocuously in the corner. “These are all your tools of trade then.”

 

“Yes,” he answered before he could discern why he’d ask, the stranger’s voice a lull within itself. It was unlike him to speak without thinking, but his composure was fighting tooth and nail just to keep its head above the water. Whenever the stranger spoke, he was compelled to take in every word, and whatever he asked, he was compelled to answer. 

 

The stranger seemed amused all of a sudden, like he was privy to the quiet realization.

 

“Unwilling as you are to part with your patients, I am beholden to the time of another,” he drawled. “I already know you know as well as I do that they are not in need of the services you say you wish to offer.”

 

This was a test, he realized, and somehow he only just noticed now. “I only intend to fulfill my obligations. That is all,” he managed without asking how he knew, to which the stranger’s mouth split.

 

“…Do you believe it is this village to whom you should be currying favor?”

 

Tor was frozen in place by a force far stronger than his own instincts as the man with the red eyes stepped closer toward him, his footsteps hardly registering to his ears as he crossed into his threshold. He realized then that he had opened the door to something that was far beyond anything human, and it was too late to close it.

 

“...Curious.” Lithe fingers followed the contour of his exposed throat without touching the skin. “Your blood is a cocktail of toxins extracted from all manner of plants and vermin. You are no regular purveyor of medicine, are you now?”

 

Until then, the stranger’s face had been unsettlingly unreadable until Tor caught a glimpse of his own anxiety reflecting from deep within those depths.

 

“I’ve no time to ease you into this with the usual courtesy.” An air of urgency and then a leer in which the stranger ran his tongue along the edge of his teeth. “Here is one such poison you’ve yet to taste.”

 

Djeeta blinked slowly at the ceiling. As Lord Aglovale’s venom grew fainter by the hour, she regained more and more feeling in her body for better or worse. Mostly worse.

 

She felt all the places where her bones had shattered, the tenderness of her countless bruises, the pressure consuming one side of her head where she’d been repeatedly struck, and the needling pain of her burns rubbing against her dressings whenever she breathed.

 

And it was like a dream just lying there trapped in her own body, or rather, a nightmare where she remembered enough to know what landed her here to begin with, but not everything else that filled the in-between. She remembered trudging through snow one moment, then drowning in a dark red cast of firelight the next, thieves uttering the unspeakable while they shattered glass and ripped the tapestry from its frame. She remembered that indignation and sense of impending danger, the fear and helplessness that nearly took over when her world became nothing but agony. She remembered the little forest spirit that had leapt to her aid, and the vague portrait of chaos that followed.

 

Djeeta opened her eyes again and mustered all of her strength just to turn her head. Ignoring the painful reminder that everything inside of her was connected, Djeeta found the same spirit swaddled and nestled in a giant basket of its own, its remaining legs tucked beneath its body while a fellow attendant spooned honey into its mouth. Either Lord Aglovale or the other children must have placed it somewhere she could see it, even if only for her own peace of mind.

 

“I was told your legs would grow back,” Djeeta said. “That’s pretty cool, but you still scared me, you know.”

 

She sighed, her chest slowly falling as she felt a familiar weight land right beside her before she came face-to-face with eight black eyes eternally unblinking. “Too bad I can’t do that too,” she murmured with a wistful smile, stroking its soft violet ribbon as she brushed aside the deep pang within her chest. She couldn’t fold here when Lord Aglovale was already beside himself with worry, all paws on deck tending to her and her wounds.

 

Rustling came from the basket as the injured spirit wiggled free, hobbling over on six legs before it climbed up the side of her bed to join the spider with the purple bow. Its little caretaker made no move to stop it, choosing instead to clean its spoon of any leftover honey while Djeeta quietly admired its resilience, albeit worried nonetheless.

 

Up close she realized it was smaller than the others and that its ribbon was nowhere to be found. Djeeta frowned, wondering if it’d fallen off during the commotion. She wouldn’t be surprised if it had, but surely one of the other spirits would have picked it up by now.

 

“I… I didn’t forget to give you one, did I?” Djeeta asked sheepishly while the pair of spiders before her only tilted their heads, the third still sucking on honey off to the side. After a minute of awkward silence, the little one simply rested one of its paws on her arm, and she finally realized she had never met this particular spirit in her life before that night.

 

“Oh,” was all she could say at first. She did vaguely recall that Aglovale had called them “stray spirits”—why one suddenly materialized to lend her its aid, she didn’t know, but she was grateful all the same. “I’m sorry… I wish I could give you a color of your own, but… I’m in a bit of a pickle.”

 

She sighed again and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to think about things she couldn’t do anymore when she felt like she was one step away from falling back into despair, but every time she tried to distract herself, she found herself thinking about Lord Aglovale’s premature awakening and the unsettling feeling she had about it instead.

 

“...Will he really be okay?” she asked the spirits. She knew they couldn’t answer her with the words she wanted to hear, or maybe that was why she asked them to begin with, too afraid to seek the truth when she had spent so long wishing for the end of winter. 

 

In lieu of an answer, tiny paws slowly ran themselves over her hair, mimicking Lord Aglovale’s own hands in his absence.

Chapter 25

Notes:

Sorry for the long wait for this update, but Happy Yukata-Aglovale-Is-Coming-Announcement!

Somewhere along the way, Tor found himself in the company of something that appeared increasingly more inhuman the more he tried to discern it through the haze of whatever strange substance was shot into his bloodstream. Eyes too vivid, a complexion eerily flawless, and a form that seemed equally weightless as it was immoveable—all of it came together to give shape to an austere scrutiny that bore into him from a place somewhere high above.

 

The tales of spirits held dear to the people of this isolated land had at one point made their way across the oceans, yet none of them could speak to why he had captured the attention of one such spirit as it yanked him around with total disregard for his comfort, handling him with an ease that served to remind him that he had no choice but to go along with whatever the being wanted of him.

 

“I have a human girl,” he said to him, practically dragging him down an unfamiliar hallway toward a closed door at the end of it. “Her arm has been broken, and you’ll be behooved to restore it to its former state.”

 

Tor had seen his fair share of broken limbs pointing in all sorts of directions and treated them accordingly, but it didn’t take a particular genius to realize that it was his own life on the line.

 

“Of course,” he managed, preferring to live.

 

The other let go of him and his legs nearly gave out before he steadied himself on a nearby wall, his extremities still buzzing. He watched the spirit raise a hand to open the door only to pause when his fingertips brushed the frame.

 

“...You’ll address me as Lord Aglovale—” he said after a moment as if he’d just come to a sudden decision, “—the god of this forest. Do not invoke my name carelessly.”

 

That only raised more questions, but the proclaimed god left room to ask none of them when he finally opened the door to reveal an empty room and an empty bed.

 

Tor immediately sensed the shift in the other’s demeanor before he brushed past him so briskly he almost knocked him off balance. He watched the one called Lord Aglovale seize the covers and tear them away, revealing nothing but a slight indent in the bedding where the aforementioned girl might’ve laid moments before.

 

At a loss of what he was supposed to say, Tor spared the god a single glance and caught a glimpse of something he felt he shouldn’t have seen. Whether it was worry or confusion, he didn’t get the chance to follow that train of thought when Lord Aglovale disappeared before his very eyes, the door rattling in its frame.

 

Aglovale found her kneeling just outside the weaving room, hand resting on the half-opened door with a faraway look in her eyes. If she noticed him approaching or sensed the anger curdling in his chest from her abject carelessness, she gave no indication of it until he was standing just behind her. In the middle of the room were the pair of bloodstains from before—dried traces of flesh and brain matter embedded in the cracks were all that remained of the transgressors. His servants had disposed of the bodies outside like he ordered, but scrubbing the room clean was at the bottom of his list of priorities when the manor already had its hands full tending to Djeeta.

 

In that very moment, Lord Aglovale briefly considered setting it all aflame, loom and all, to finally be rid of it.

 

But instead, he moved slowly, reaching past her to shut the door. She must've realized somewhere in there that he did not need to change shape in order to kill.

 

“You’re back.” Her voice was soft and hardly there, muddled by the swollen side of her face.

 

“You’ve no business wandering about in this state, Djeeta,” he replied, making no effort to hide his displeasure.

 

“…Why not? I broke my arm, not my legs.” Djeeta paused, gaze still pointed towards the door he had just closed as she sunk another inch closer towards the ground. Aglovale watched a strand of hair slip from behind her ear to brush against her cheek. “Well… I did break my legs once. A long time ago when I first left my village, I found an older couple in the countryside who lent me a bed to sleep in for the night. In the morning, one of their goats had gotten out and I chased the thing to the top of a nearby mountain. Somewhere along the way, I slipped, fell down that stupid mountain, and shattered my legs.

 

“A doctor from the village told me I wouldn’t be able to walk right again. Obviously she was wrong, but it took me months to heal and I hated staying in that bed from sunup to sundown when I was supposed to be out in the world doing whatever little old me wanted to do.” Her head leaned to the side. “And then when I finally learned to walk on my own again, I wasn’t any wiser than before. I thought I was invincible.”

 

Djeeta gazed down at the arm that hung motionlessly at her side, the limb swollen and black. Aglovale watched her eyelashes flutter to the tremble in her voice. His venom was as good as gone from her system, but still the child insisted on loitering about past her body’s limits, and for what? He could feel the scrape of her bones every time she so much as shifted herself, the tiny spasms within her muscles, and the stuttering of her lungs—listening to her body scream was its own breed of agony, and yet he could do only just that.

 

“I always thought that whatever dumb decision I made, it’d be fine because I’d be the only one paying for it,” she continued, voice wavering more and more with every word. “And it took me this long to realize that wasn’t true at all. ”

 

She finally turned to look at him, worse off than when he last saw her. “Even if I can never hold a sword the same way again, I have to know, so please tell me, Lord Aglovale—what’s going to happen to you now?”

 

There was another side to her raw agony that stripped away the layers of his heart as her gaze bore into his, searching for an answer. “What put this idea in your head that something must happen to me?” he asked as if he wasn’t the one who had left her alone to be eaten alive by this anxiety.

 

She bit her lip, and he immediately regretted the frustration that flooded the corners of her eyes.

 

“Don’t do this, Lord Aglovale.” She was in utter agony, and yet all she could ask about was him no matter how much it hurt just to remain upright—she knew that he knew this of her, and she was willing to use it against him. Aglovale briefly closed his eyes, unable to bear it.

 

After Lamorak’s passing, he had no use for lies, and yet he found himself tempted more than ever to spin one on the spot if it would placate the mortal girl before him, but a part of him knew she would see right through that too.

 

“...I have incurred a debt,” he finally conceded. 

 

Djeeta’s shoulders fell. “What kind of debt?”

 

“I do not know,” he confessed. “I imagine it will make itself known to me in due time.”

 

As he expected, Djeeta was far from satisfied by that. “But you’re top of the food chain! Who could you possibly owe a debt to?”

 

“I owe one to you, do I not?” he asked wryly.

 

Djeeta was beside herself. “You decided that. I wouldn’t have held it against you,” she said.

 

Of course she wouldn’t have, but to her point, Aglovale reckoned that she was kinder than whatever providence loomed over his head. Regardless, what was done was done.

 

Aglovale looked at her and mulled over the worry stitched so plainly into her expression. In turn, he had to learn to be kind, for Djeeta did not know the things he did by virtue of existing for centuries. And then to speak nothing of the spectacular failures he had committed in her presence, it was no wonder he found her faith in him waning.

 

Aglovale raised his hand before he carefully placed it against the back of her head, closing the distance himself as he pressed his forehead to her own, mindful not to brush against her wounds. “I have not broken our contract, Djeeta,” he murmured softly.

 

“You don’t know that.”

 

“Don’t I?”

 

Djeeta shut her eye as he listened to the heaviness punctuating within her heart. “What if it’s something you can’t repay? What if I wake up one day and you’re gone again, that I can’t see you again because you’re here with me right now?”

 

Lord Aglovale rest his gaze on the bridge of her nose. He felt it—that semblance of a wish, and in the back of his mind, foggy memories began to stir. He remembered a heaviness atop his chest, a faraway voice calling for him from beyond a wall of thorns he could scarcely make out the shape of. It was a wish that jostled that nine-eyed god from the Oomukade’s clutches, wasn’t it?

 

He tilted his head forward. Djeeta didn’t do herself any favors agonizing over what had yet to pass. It was so unlike her to lose herself amongst the details, wracked with worry, but he supposed that this was also quite unlike him too.

 

“Allow me to call on you, then,” he told her. “Just as you’ve called on me. I cannot imagine any debt that cannot be repaid between the two of us.”

 

Djeeta immediately reopened her eye. “Won’t you?” she asked him, pleading almost. “Call me as many times as it takes then, I don’t care.”

 

He exhaled softly, amused that she seemed to think that he was doing her a favor. “It is precisely this nature of yours that makes you so tantalizing to the spirits in this forest.”

 

She scowled. “Do you… do you find me tantalizing then, Lord Aglovale?”

 

“I find you unbearable,” he replied, drawing away as his eyes grazed the pinpricks below her neck where he had nicked the skin to envenomate her. “If you are satisfied, then I expect you to behave now lest I chain you to your bed after all.”

 

It was like a fever dream, crossing the oceans to land in a continent he’d never been before and hardly spending a night on solid ground before being quite literally spirited away.

 

One moment, he swore he was a prisoner chained to the arm of his captor, and then the next, said captor was nowhere to be found as he was left to his own devices arranging his usual tools of trade for a missing patient in a dilapidated manor. If Lord Aglovale was who he said he was, then he looked nothing like the old depictions of the god he heard of.

 

But fate decided he had other things to worry about when he finally met his would-be patient for the first time. Older than he first envisioned, she was more a young woman than anything else, although he could understand why Lord Aglovale thought otherwise. 

 

Covered in bruises with a swollen face and a very much broken arm, she had clearly been through hell—and was apparently still there when their eyes met. Tor watched the color drain from her complexion at the sight of him before her body went rigid, fingers twitching before she began to shake instead. Once her chest began to shudder with shallow breaths, Tor moved quickly to try and bring her to her bed, but she refused to go with him.

 

“Djeeta,” Lord Aglovale hissed, but without any of the contempt he’d come to know of him. “He is here by my will. The filth of before will never touch you again.”

 

Tor had seen plenty of grown adults dragged into his practice while trapped in their own bodies by debilitating fear, but to her credit, she was putting forth a valiant effort to break free when he realized that Lord Aglovale was actually holding her back.

 

“They will not return,” he heard him say as the one called Djeeta struggled to shake her head back and forth. “They are gone. Forever.”

 

When he saw that he had somewhat broken through to her with those words, Tor moved slowly and made himself smaller than he already was, eyes trained on the young woman as he brought a hand to his chest.

 

“Lord Aglovale is correct. My name is Tor, a physician,” he said carefully, enunciating every word. “I’m here to help you.”

 

Her breathing began to stabilize, chest falling deeply before filling with air again. “...Aglovale,” she repeated the name so faintly he almost missed it before she began to groan, face contorting. “It hurts.”

 

They had more success this time getting her to lie down before she could stumble and hurt something else. Lord Aglovale didn’t take his eyes off her all the while, allowing the girl’s one good hand to cling to the hem of his sleeve as her heels carved lines into the bedding. He finally addressed him.

 

“Do you not have something for the pain?” It was not a question, but Tor was already pulling out the small ampoule of medicine he always carried on his person, meager portion that it was given the horrible state she was in.

 

“Miss Djeeta, you were in no condition to be wandering around,” he told her as he broke the glass vial and carefully dripped the clear liquid onto her tongue. “Your body is still in a state of shock.”

 

Djeeta visibly winced at the taste. “Gross,” she muttered before seemingly remembering her manners. “Thanks, I mean... Lord Aglovale said the same thing—”

 

As she spoke Tor realized something, and she realized the same as a soft brown eye peered at him through the damp curtain of hair reminiscent of the northern rye fields from back home.

 

“You’re not… from here,” she said, swallowing again to claim the rest of the medicine. Expression burning with questions as she glanced back at Aglovale, Djeeta could only wince more as she sunk deeper into the sheets.

 

Tor checked his timepiece, counting down the seconds until the first minute. From the moment he saw her, he picked up the scent of a medicinal herb used for burns, and another for infection. Djeeta was littered in bruises, most deliberately inflicted by another, and others incidentally from whatever hellish treatment she had endured. She’d been tortured, and deep in the middle of winter where travelers should be scarce to begin with, it was no wonder she reacted the way she did at the sight of a stranger in her bedchambers.

 

A minute passed and her breathing finally steadied as much as he could reasonably expect. Most egregious of all her wounds was the arm Aglovale had mentioned. He reached forth to gingerly pull up the length of her sleeve, only to pause beneath the oppressive gaze burning into his periphery.

 

“Forgive me,” he said, walking a thin rope, “but I must be allowed to examine the patient I am about to treat.”

 

“Treat?” Djeeta croaked as that gaze relented. “My arm? Can you fix my arm?”

 

“Yes,” Tor replied, even though the current state of her limb inspired no confidence in him so far. “That is what I am here for.”

 

“Brought here… you mean.” She peered at him, then at Aglovale before closing her eye altogether and letting go of the sigh she held inside her chest. “...You’re awful, Lord Aglovale. For this, and for letting me talk big like that.”

 

She was inexplicably fearless of the god, speaking so casually toward him when she was farsea herself that Tor couldn’t help but be afraid for her.

 

“I find it unsettling that you would accept defeat so easily,” Lord Aglovale said. “As such, somebody must tend to you when you will not even tend to yourself.”

 

Djeeta rolled her head away in the opposite direction, like she was turning her nose up at him. “...Can you leave us alone for a bit?”

 

Tor was certain she was speaking to him until he felt the air grow noticeably heavier.

 

Aglovale loomed over the bed, his voice just as heavy as the shadow he cast. “Out of the question. Have I not left you alone enough times?”

 

Her chest slowly fell in another sigh, and Tor caught a glimpse of her fingers curling underneath the sheets. “You said it yourself that he—that Tor is here by your will,” she said. “...Please. I’m tired, Lord Aglovale.”

 

Tor thought he’d push back again at the very notion of leaving her alone with an effective stranger, but the god relented to his great surprise and relief, although not without agonizing over it for a moment as a resigned displeasure rippled through the length of his sleeves. “I’ll return by the end of the hour then,” he said, and then Tor felt a sharp prickle crawl along the width of his neck. “You are replaceable, Doctor,” he whispered to him. “Tread carefully.”

 

“Don’t eavesdrop…!” Djeeta called after him. Aglovale made a disgruntled noise of acknowledgement before shutting the doors altogether.

 

When Tor brought himself to look back at her, still not quite sure what to make of what he just witnessed, she was smiling at him. “You can breathe now,” she said. “I’m sorry… and I’m sorry for the way I acted earlier.”

 

“I am positive… that you have been through more than what I can imagine,” he found himself saying, and it was no empty platitude. One moment she was paralyzed by fear, and then the next, she had swallowed it all like it was nothing, speaking to him with a composure he wouldn’t expect from even his less egregiously-maimed patients. “You didn’t have to send Lord Aglovale away if his presence brought you ease.”

 

“I was more worried about you,” she replied. “You look even worse off than me, like you’d pass out if Lord Aglovale so much as glanced in your direction.”

 

Again, Tor wasn’t sure what he was supposed to make of that. She wasn’t wrong, although he had too much work cut out for him to think too deeply about the guillotine hanging over his neck. “I see.”

 

Djeeta watched him lift her sleeve to take in the extent of the damage, not even flinching as he gently palpitated her flesh. “...He told you his name,” she said after a lengthy moment of silence. “Lord Aglovale holds so much anger towards humans, but he found you… and brought you here.”

 

She blinked, then looked embarrassed. “Sorry, you’re trying to concentrate—”

 

“No, I don’t mind,” Tor told her without looking up from his work. If he could get her talking, then maybe she’d have something to take her mind off the pain she certainly still felt. “It would do us both good if you could continue at your own leisure.”

 

She gave him an abbreviated chuckle, and he made a note to check the bruising underneath her clothing as well. “You’re not scary at all, Doc,” she sighed almost wistfully. “It’s been over half a year since I set sail. I never thought I’d meet somebody else who made the same journey I did.”

 

Tor carefully replaced the sleeve. With no infection, there was no need to amputate, but her arm was still closer to a sack of shattered rocks than to any discernable human limb.

 

“The reindeer miss you,” he finally said after a moment.

 

Djeeta blinked again. “Reindeer? What rein—oh! Mister driver.” She laughed again, and it was another dry rasping sound, but she didn’t let that stop her from finding the situation funny. “I guess… I guess if there’s only the two of us, the odds that he was the one who brought you here aren’t so bad at all. He was always willing to help a ‘farsea lass’ when no one else would… and it looks like he was willing to help you too.”

 

And then she sobered up, her face growing so somber he couldn’t help but pause his examination. “...I’d forgotten,” she said. “I’d forgotten about all the nice things the people from this land have done for me just because they could.”

 

Djeeta met his eyes, her gaze a soft and pensive brown, but she wasn’t looking quite at him. “Lord Aglovale hates humans,” she said, grimacing like it hurt for her to say. “I always hoped that one day he’d have a change of heart, that he’d see the good in his own people… But when I thought I was gonna be killed, I thought that maybe he’d been right all along, that there was no hope for any of them… I’m so conceited, aren’t I? One moment I thought I knew better than he did, and then the next, I thought I completely understood him instead.”

 

Djeeta had a particular way of regarding herself, and that went without pointing out the massive understatement of her ordeal, but Tor let her continue until he felt her eye drilling a hole into his forehead.

 

“What about you, Doc?”

 

“What about me?”

 

Djeeta blinked slowly, taking the moment to let the question she had inside her head sink in first. “...Do you think there’s hope for the people who live here?”

 

During his youth as an apprentice, Tor had practiced in the most dilapidated of inner city back alleys. He had offered his services to those from all walks of life, forcefully at times when the situation called for it, and he’d seen with his own eyes the myriad woes born of every facet of human vice. And yet still he was a doctor, one unable to avert his eyes from the lowly wretch drenched in stale beer and horse piss to the reproach of his peers. It had been a challenge to his reputation at the time, but as fate would have it, he’d eventually find himself in the service to a liege providing him with a steady flow of employment and curiosity in equal parts.

 

But even that felt far away when he was in the house of a god who was one whim away from snapping his neck. Still, he could recall the hearty banter of the sled driver and the weathered hands of a mother bent, but unbroken for the sake of her children. They too must’ve done what they could to survive, and yet they made room within their hearts to place their trust in him, a stranger, all the same.

 

“I believe I do,” he finally said to her, and that seemed to bring her ease as he felt the last of the tension fade from her body.

 

“Thank you,” she sighed without asking anything more of him.

 

Each time Tor found himself before the god of the forest, he felt like he was facing yet another trial he needed to overcome in this strange and hellish gauntlet he'd been plunged into. He would liken it to the grueling series of examinations he once took that seemed endless at the time, except there was a slight, but notable adjustment to the stakes.

 

“I found several points of fracture in her arm and wrist,” Tor said, pacing his words to the drum of his heart lest he pass out from the sheer weight of the other’s presence. “I can treat it and manage most of her pain. She’ll be able to live a normal life, but it is unlikely she will regain full use of that limb.”

 

It must’ve been his imagination when Lord Aglovale seemed to double in size, looming over him while his shadow encroached upon the entire length of the hallway. Whatever tenderness he had for the girl, he spared none for him, and Tor could feel every inch of the contempt that Djeeta spoke of eat into his very nerves. 

 

“That is not good enough.”

 

“I am… aware,” Tor managed, his skin growing stickier as the moments passed despite the crispness of the winter air. A horrible sensation crawled across the back of his neck, but he dismissed it as hallucination when he forced himself to meet the god’s contempt-filled eyes. “There is another option, but I require… materials.”

 

Scarlet flashed with impatience, a warning that if he was not going to properly utilize his tongue and explain, then he would rip it out of his mouth right then and there.

 

Tor immediately felt the onset of his own regret. He rather it not come to this—the founder of cryptic medicine, true to his title, discovered several other branches of magic within the field of medicine. Among the countless methods and procedures born from his studies was the taboo, and sarcomancy was one such practice that was an open secret amongst his colleagues.

 

“Rather than mend what remains and hope for the best, I can replace the damaged bone within her arm entirely,” Tor explained, fully realizing what he was intending to sacrifice if the god found this option agreeable. “Usually I would use an alloy and have it shaped by a skilled-enough blacksmith, but…”

 

Lord Aglovale glowered, his fingers twitching at his side as if he himself was fighting the urge to wring the answer out of him. “You already know there is no such thing here, Doctor. Do not ramble.”

 

He knew it was foolish of him to delay the inevitable when he already crossed that line in the sand, but a part of him felt obligated to try anyway as if that alone could make up for what he was about to propose.

 

“In order to restore her arm to the way it was before, I must replace bone with bone,” Tor continued. “Bone… from a human arm.”

 

Lord Aglovale pulled away from him, the excess of his shadow seemingly vanishing beneath the hem of his robes as Tor found himself able to breathe freely.

 

“...That is all?” he asked.

 

He swallowed thickly, unsettled by the disparity between the other’s calm and the guilt curdling inside his gut. “Yes… an intact human arm untouched by decay or desiccation.”

 

Aglovale closed his mouth, gaze extending past him for just a moment as if he were mulling over a single thought.

 

“That will not be an issue,” he finally said.

 

Lord Aglovale led him to the edge of a gorge partially filled with snow, at the bottom of which lay two heaps he immediately recognized as human corpses.

 

“You hesitated,” Lord Aglovale said after a moment, breaking the baleful silence of the winter air. “Why?”

 

Tor pressed his lips together, gazing over the edge. Whatever twisted expression the unfortunate wretches may have worn was partially veiled by a thin layer of frost, but once again, he was no stranger to working with even the most mangled remains. “My impression of you, Lord Aglovale, is that you would have stopped at nothing to procure the limb the procedure would require,” Tor said. “Mortal laws have no hold over you, and that would make any human such as myself uneasy.” Not to mention that it was not exactly customary back home to preserve and store cadavers for this purpose, hence the proscribed nature of the discipline itself.

 

“You are correct, it would have been a small matter to take another tribute from that village for this end,” he said coldly. “Ease yourself then, Doctor, for you’ll not be complicit in any murder tonight.”

 

With that, he slid down the edge of the gorge, leaving a flurry of snow behind him before Tor carefully followed after, slowing to a stop not too far away from the god as they both approached the remains of the violently departed men. Their upper bodies left much to be desired, but there was at least one intact arm he could harvest, kept from decay by the frost.

 

Tor knelt down to open his bag, taking out a saw as he felt Lord Aglovale’s eyes track his every move. Djeeta would surely disapprove, and he held no pride in the fruits his younger self reaped in his curiosity, but he supposed it was this tendency for the unconventional of his that drew his liege to him in the first place. No matter how many livelihoods he saved, transferring bone in this manner from one body to another always had been colored in tragedy, for one must have lost in order for the order to gain. 

 

Tor uttered a silent prayer before he carefully positioned the teeth of his saw, only for the weight of Lord Aglovale’s presence to suddenly fall across his back.

 

“Stop.”

 

Tor frowned, wondering if he had misstepped. “Lord Aglovale…?”

 

He stood in silence for a moment, expression as unreadable as before as Tor wondered if even a god could come to know the meaning of hesitation in his misanthropy.

 

“I promised that this filth would never touch her again,” he said softly. “It matters not that it’s to her benefit this time—my stomach curdles and I feel the bile rising in my throat all the same.”

 

His frown deepened. “Lord Aglovale, there is no other way with what I have at my disposal.”

 

Aglovale smiled, and it was like a knife kissing the edge of his skin without drawing a pinprick of blood. “...I tire of these debts. I suppose if I am to repay them, then I must act now.”

 

He could not even begin to grasp what he was talking about when he watched him reach up inside his sleeve. His expression hardened and for a moment, Tor expected the other to procure some kind of tool or weapon to help them get this over with. That is, until he heard the distinctive popping of joints pulling apart instead.

 

Tor scrambled back to his feet.

 

“Lord Aglovale!” he gasped, asking himself if the spirit had gone mad when he realized what he was intending to do, but Aglovale only laughed in his face, a harsh and dry sound amidst the low groan of his screaming ligaments. He ripped holes into his own flesh from the strength of his grip alone, and then with a guttural roar, tore the limb clean from his shoulder and splattered the stretch of white between them with crimson as blood fountained from the opening in his sleeve.

 

Chest heaving, Aglovale flung the arm at his feet while Tor’s mouth still hung agape, the distinctive sound of bone and sinew ripping apart fresh in his mind.

 

“...See to it that this flesh goes where it needs to be,” he told him before he took another deep breath, blinking slowly like he were simply recollecting himself after a minor undertaking. Tor felt sick as that now-empty sleeve fluttered in the wind. Despite the mind-numbing absurdity, from the moment he realized, Tor could never have doubted. Those scarlet eyes that impaled his very soul had forbade it.

 

“I have done my part. I will not accept any failure on yours, Doctor.”

Chapter 26

Lord Aglovale sat kneeling at the edge of the veranda, oil lamps lit and kept nearby to keep the frost at bay while the children carefully worked on dismantling the weaving room behind him.

 

Somewhere else in the manor, the doctor was already several hours into his work. Aglovale recalled the sight of the man at the gorge, watching as he emptied his stomach contents all over the snow.

 

“Pull yourself together,” he had said with a click of his tongue while the other choked and gasped before throwing up again. “Are you not a doctor?”

 

Tor coughed, steadying himself as he quickly wiped his mouth clean. “Your... Your methods precede my expertise, Lord Aglovale.”

 

In a way, he had almost sympathized. That he considered, even if just for a moment, putting the condemned flesh of the lowest of filth inside of her made his own stomach curdle, but that was a bygone matter.

 

Aglovale heard small footsteps materialize behind him before the young spirit from before hobbled over to his side. Six legs and eight eyes, it glanced up at him before he decided to take a leaf from Djeeta’s book and lifted the creature onto his lap.

 

“Even in winter, my brother’s song has called you here.” The spirit stared unblinkingly into the snow-laden garden as Aglovale experimentally stroked it from its head to rump, calling to mind the different ways Djeeta would shower his servants with attention. He had found them troublesome at first, wondering if they were Lamorak’s idea of a joke when he cast a spell on the manor and turned it into a beacon for what he had considered vermin at the time.

 

“...Or perhaps it was my voice you heeded instead,” Aglovale mused, the creature too occupied with licking the ice crystals stuck to his sleeve to answer him. “For your courage, think of the reward you would like from me.”

 

Scatterbrained child that it was, the creature only began to nibble on the hem of his clothes with not a single thought behind those eyes before he sighed softly and procured a tightly-wound scroll of paper. On his hands and knees, the doctor had mustered enough of his own courage to ask that he see this letter delivered to the patients he had left behind, assuring them of his eventual return. 

 

Aglovale rolled the paper between his fingers, mulling it over before tossing it into the garden for a crow to swoop down and catch before it flew off into the forest. The wretched mother and her three children had nothing to do with him, but he had no reason to deprive the doctor of his peace of mind, especially if he were to place Djeeta beneath his knife.

 

Tor was of steady mind and steady hands… and unfortunately, of steady conscience. The oaths between humans meant very little to him, and it took a threat and a half to remind the man that it was in his own best interest that he saw the very treatment he proposed to completion with or without Djeeta’s input on the matter of his severed arm should he decide to wake her first. 

 

Aglovale closed his eyes. Perhaps he was defying her just as she had defied him when she ventured into the heart of the Oomukade’s lair. Sitting before the cold and lonely stretch of winter, he was a fool to have ever thought that that would have been the extent of her audacity.

 

Aglovale returned to stroking the spirit still resting in his lap, his own heart weighing heavy toward the earth. When he reopened his eyes, Djeeta’s screams still echoed throughout the corridors of his mind.

 

She did not wish to betray him, but was this not its own betrayal? Had she not been prepared to leave him alone in this world when she had promised to be by his side once he awoke?

 

The little spirit grumbled lowly, having had enough of being smacked around by its newfound master’s technique. He relented, giving it a chance to reposition itself. Clearly, Djeeta was much better at this than he.

 

“I should not have taken the oath,” he said softly while his empty sleeve swayed in the winter breeze. “That child would bind me here while freely gambling with the single coin of her life.”

 

Once more, Aglovale found himself at a loss. Unafraid of death, the girl would die to protect him, and he for the life of himself could not begin to understand why. The more he ruminated and thought about it, the more he found himself languishing over it. He was impotent—in her eyes, he was no god, and therefore she could place no faith in him. Even now he had no choice but to leave her life in the hands of another human and his human knowledge—a single limb, otherwise worthless, was a small concession to make in the shadow of his disgrace.

 

Lord Aglovale moved to bury his face in his remaining hand, pausing only when he noticed the braid still tied around his wrist. An ache far more insidious than his abbreviated shoulder took root within his heart, and neither the shade of his brother or that bright-eyed child from the ashbloom field materialized to comfort him. 

 

The forest spirit shivered, taking the opportunity to hop out of his lap after it decided it was done with the chill. Aglovale watched it limp back inside the weaving room where the furnace had been lit to keep the manor warm for the ongoing operation. The iron poker crusted with her charred skin was nowhere to be found, discarded with the rest of the bloodstained floorboards he presumed, as he too rose from his place on the veranda and followed the spirit inside. If only every reminder of her torment could be vanquished as easily.

 

“They are almost done,” he said, the doors to the garden sliding shut behind him as he stepped over the freshly-laid flooring. “Make yourselves scarce.”

 

His servants did as they were commanded, retreating back into the shadows to leave the rooms and corridors empty. Aglovale stood alone, gazing at the ruined tapestry still clinging to the frame of the loom by a thread. Somewhere else, another thread was stretched taut, tying back together the girl’s flesh before it too was finally clipped by the doctor’s shears.

 

“I will leave her in your hands for now,” Tor said when Aglovale caught him just as he was leaving. “In the meantime, I’ll have a splint prepared.”

 

The young man paused, hand still resting on the doorframe as if he remembered something else. When he lifted his head, Aglovale noticed the bags beneath the eyes that lingered on his empty sleeve a moment too long. “The operation went well, but Miss Djeeta still needs time to recover on her own.”

 

“I’d expect nothing less,” Aglovale replied. “I will take her off your hands for now then, Doctor.”

 

He nodded in acknowledgement, and Aglovale passed him by as he allowed himself into the bedchambers that had been repurposed for the sake of Djeeta’s treatment.

 

Djeeta herself lay atop the freshly laundered sheets, every surface swept and purified to the doctor’s standards. The cocktail of medicines he had brewed from the raw ingredients Aglovale had procured for him at his request were astringent to his nose, making the divinity within him hiss and recoil. As Aglovale passed the myriad flasks and apparatuses to find himself at her bedside, he knew more than ever before that if he had tried to approach her injuries with his paltry knowledge, then he would’ve surely condemned her to a lifetime of pain.

 

He realized then that it didn’t matter at all what he’d consider a betrayal. Whatever it could be was so small next to the bruises that littered her skin, the silk bandages glued to her burns, and the evenly-spaced stitches that held her severed skin back together.

 

Guided by the lingering heaviness within, he leaned over her bedside and drew close before carefully pressing his lips to her forehead.

 

“I am sorry,” he murmured. 

 

A part of him had hoped that he wouldn’t wake her, but Djeeta groaned softly from beneath him, her eyelids fluttering before they opened altogether, gaze disoriented and adrift before the sight of him softened it.

 

“‘Morning,” she whispered, barely managing even that. “Were you here… all along?”

 

“I was not,” he answered. “It was the doctor who just finished your operation.”

 

“Operation…?” she asked, a small lump forming between her brow. “Already? I had no idea.”

 

Frowning, Djeeta lifted her afflicted arm, the raised stitches lining the underside giving her pause before her eyes went wide. She immediately sat up, blind to the rest of her injuries as she impulsively started flexing her fingers.

 

“Oh!” she exclaimed, eyes glowing as she opened and closed her fist, swiveling her wrist around. “I can move it! I can move my arm, Lord Aglovale!” She was grinning from ear to ear now. “That doctor's amazing. I thought I’d be out of commission for at least a while—maybe the whole thing wasn’t as bad as I thought it was? That’s embarrassing.”

 

Aglovale watched her beam and glow, the shadow of before banished to the wayside. Their eyes met a second time before Djeeta blinked, slowly lowering her arm as the smile slipped from her face.

 

“Lord Aglovale, is something the matter?” she asked him.

 

He tilted his head, reaching forth to cup her cheek. She grasped his hand with both of her own this time, nearly sinking into the hollow of his palm as her fingertips teased the clasp of his bracelet.

 

“It will all work out, won’t it?” he said. “...That sounds like something you’d tell me.”

 

She beamed, but again her smile faltered like there was something she couldn’t shake. Aglovale could only watch her, unable to bring himself to do anything else. When a frown knit her brows together and she let go of him to reach for the sleeve hanging lifelessly at his side, he couldn’t stop her, not even when she took a handful of that silk and squeezed it.

 

She tilted her head. “You don’t usually wear it like this. Are you cold?”

 

Despite everything, Aglovale could only find himself endeared. “No, I am not.”

 

Her frown deepened as she swished his sleeve back and forth. “Then put your clothes back on properly, or—“ She immediately stopped when she moved to pat him down, only for her hand to meet the side of his torso, his arm nowhere to be found.

 

Djeeta blinked again, still uncomprehending as her fingers crept higher and higher until they reached the place where his limb would meet his shoulder only to find nothing there at all.

 

“Hey. What’s this?” Her eyes darted between his face and his shoulder as she struggled to remember if there was something she missed. “Lord Aglovale, your arm is gone—“

 

“I know,” he said, to which she looked at him with abject incredulousness. 

 

“...What?” she said again like she didn’t hear him quite right, the color draining from her face when his missing arm did not materialize from the ether even as she shook down his sleeve and patted him all the way around to his backside. “Was it while I was sleeping? Why didn’t you wake me? Why didn’t Tor—?” 

 

“It was the price I paid for that doctor to heal you.”

 

Djeeta stared at him like she was waiting for him to walk it back and tell her that this was all in jest, and when he didn’t, she only whispered, “Tor asked for this?”

 

“He had no choice,” he replied. “And neither did you.”

 

Djeeta slowly let go of him, turning her arm once more as her eyes followed the path drawn by her stitches. He wondered what she could feel, if she could feel him, if there was any part of his essence that remained within the flesh Tor wove into her own when he stripped his severed limb to the bone.

 

Djeeta brought her hand to her mouth, and Aglovale also wondered if she too would grow sick just like the doctor had.

 

But she did not, her stomach evidently the more ironclad one between them.

 

“Why?” she croaked.

 

“Is it not obvious?” he asked in turn. “This is my recompense to you, Djeeta. You may keep your arm and all the love you had poured into your swordplay, does that not please you?”

 

“What, 'please'—? Lord Aglovale, your arm is gone,” she said again, like there was something he wasn’t understanding. “I told you I didn’t want any recompense from you. You told me we’d do this together.”

 

“This is an entirely different affair, Djeeta.”

 

She grimaced. “Have you lost your mind? I didn’t want this, you know I couldn’t have wanted this—“

 

“I do know that you are too soft,” he said, touching his remaining hand to the side of her neck. He should not have upset her so soon after her operation, but it was too late and they were here now. “It is only a single limb, one that will grow back. Do you not remember?”

 

She pushed his hand away, but the sting of it didn’t last. “Remember? You never told me that your arms could grow b—“

 

“That I am not human.”

 

Djeeta stopped. But she was still clearly not happy nor convinced.

 

“...Even then, it still hurts, doesn’t it?” she finally said after a moment. 

 

She was right. His shoulder emanated with a persistent throbbing, but pain was such small thing on the scale of his existence that he hardly considered it. “It does not matter, Djeeta.”

 

“It matters to me,” she retorted. Aglovale watched her eyes linger on the hand she had brushed away, a tinge of regret passing over her gaze. “It matters to me more than anything.”

 

“That I might be in pain?”

 

“That you’re suffering, Lord Aglovale.”

 

In a way, it was true. He had not suffered to this extent in centuries ever since he took the girl as his offering. It should have been a small affair to send her away at the first sign of trouble, to look the other way when she fell into the Oomukade’s clutches, or to eat her himself and be done with it all.

 

And yet he did not, could not. If he was suffering, it was not because of a missing limb or two. 

 

Djeeta turned her arm over, tracing her fingers once more over the wound like she were ruminating over the reality that was finally beginning to set in. “...Did I break our oath, Lord Aglovale?” she asked, drawing him out of the well of his thoughts. “Did I… make you do this for me?”

 

So they both thought of the same thing in their own ways. “How I’ve decided to address these debts is on me alone. At least allow me to retain that shred of dignity.” He breathed deeply. “...But the fact remains that I acted knowing the kind of person that you are. Resent me for it if you will.”

 

“I don’t!” she immediately said, straightening herself. “That’s not it, it’s just—it’s just, I’m… I’m sorry.” She shut her eyes, seemingly at a loss with herself. “I’m sorry, Lord Aglovale.”

 

He knew there was more she wanted to say, words trapped in her chest that she couldn’t articulate—she was the one who taught him what it was like after all.

 

When he placed his hand atop her head, she didn’t brush it away like before. Rather, she resigned herself to it instead, guided by the heaviness in her own horrible burden of a heart. “All is well, Djeeta,” he murmured as her head found its place beneath his chin. How easy it was for her body to fit against his own—another phenomenon he was never able to explain. “There is more yet to come, and we cannot linger here for too much longer.”

 

Djeeta was quiet again. Aglovale closed his eyes, breathing in that floral aroma like it was home, even when its warmth was so out of place in a winter like this. After another moment, she finally muttered into his chest, “You promise it’ll grow back?”

 

“You'll see for yourself whether or not I am lying.”

 

She sniffed. “It better be soon.”

 

His lip couldn’t help but twitch at the edge in her voice. “I’ll wager that you’ll be pleasantly surprised in that regard.”

 

Aglovale found the young doctor slumped against the wall, out cold with sticks and planks salvaged from the firewood pile scattered all about him. A small handful of spirits had descended from the rafters, emboldened by their curiosity as one of them gently papped the sleeping doctor’s face before they all scattered at the sight of their master.

 

He stood over the young man, tilting his head as he studied the line of drool trickling from the corner of his mouth with slight distaste.

 

“Wake up, Doctor. This is not the place to be sleeping,” he said, but the other didn’t respond, too entrenched in utter exhaustion to even stir. 

 

Aglovale mustered a sigh, kneeling down to wipe away the saliva with his sleeve to spare him a sliver of his dignity. He had worked tirelessly from sundown to sunup, expending an untold amount of energy to mend the hundreds of tiny incisions he made within Djeeta’s open arm. Aglovale had listened to the rhythm of his scalpel, the bubbling of his medicinal cocktails amidst the wafting aroma of Djeeta’s own blood throughout the manor, but that was the extent of what he knew.

 

Whatever he had done behind those closed doors, Tor had served his purpose well, and once Djeeta completed her recovery, there would be nothing else he would need of the boy.

 

Aglovale licked the edge of his fangs, carefully parting the other’s collar to reveal the tiny pinpricks where he had first envenomated him. He sighed again, easing the rest of the wood onto the floor before he scooped the sleeping man into his arms.

 

Even then, Tor did not wake, intent to sleep the rest of the day away like a child as Aglovale carried him down the hallway.

 

He awoke to the distant twittering of snow wrens, the gray morning light diffusing through a glass window. Tor blinked blearily at the unfamiliar ceiling before he sat up to rub the rest of his sleep from his eyes.

 

He had a strange dream about a lone god and a young woman who was like a fistful of sunshine in the middle of a foreign winter. He remembered taking out his instruments one by one, counting them, cleaning them, decanting the usual solutions to keep someone under, but before all that, he remembered standing face-to-face with that god as he tore his own arm from his body, the sound of his flesh and tendons ripping apart no different from that of tearing paper.

 

His stomach lurched and Tor quickly brought a hand to his mouth, searching the room for any kind of vessel before he realized he had no idea where he was, utterly alone save for himself, a bed, and a fresh change of clothes resting on a wooden stool.

 

He had questions, but Tor changed into them nonetheless to at least get the feeling of grime off of his body. The robe was of exceptional quality as he unfolded it, the garment fluttering almost weightlessly in spite of the heaviness in its drape. He slipped easily into it, the fabric like butter between his fingers as he folded one panel over the other and tied the given sash around his lower waist in the same way he’d observed before. It was a more traditional garb, and while it felt awkward on his lower body, it still enveloped him with a particular silkiness he found difficult to describe.

 

As if on cue, a soft knock sounded from the door. Tor stood there for a moment, vaguely recalling the last time he opened the door for a stranger.

 

He answered it anyway, a slave to propriety who carefully slid it open to find the young woman from his dreams kneeling right before the threshold with a tray laden with plenty enough food for two.

 

“Good morning,” she chirped before her eyes lit up at the sight of him. “Oh wow. You’re wearing that so much better than I did.”

 

Before he could say anything, Djeeta reached in and shoved the door wide open as he caught a glimpse of the raised stitches that lined the underside of her arm—stitches he had sewn himself.

 

“You have an appetite by now, right? Lord Aglovale told me you weren’t feeling well,” Djeeta continued as she wiggled the tray into his room before hoisting herself through the doorway in a similar manner. Leaning over to pat the side opposite of her, Djeeta glanced up at him expectantly. 

 

“...Thank you,” Tor said as he knelt down at her behest, forgetting how to operate like a normal human being. She reached out to him with a steaming hot towel, still beaming from ear to ear. He gingerly took it and awkwardly turned himself to the side to wipe his face down while he felt Djeeta’s eyes staring at him all the while.

 

Then it hit him.

 

“Miss Djeeta.” he began pointedly. “You should not be moving your arm about so freely!”

 

Djeeta quickly shushed him, raising a finger to her lips with the arm in question. “Hey, not so loud or Lord Aglovale will yell at me too.”

 

Tor was incredulous, wondering if he was dealing with a grown woman or a young child. The bridge of his nose begged to be pinched. “My apologies, this was my responsibility. I meant to put your arm in a splint, but for some reason, I—”

 

“Oh, no worries,” Djeeta interrupted, missing the hint. “I know you must’ve used all your energy during the operation. You did a good job! The redness is already going down, see?” She turned her arm over to show him, but he could only frown when he saw that she was right. Had he even bothered with healing the incision? He was on his last legs by then after working throughout the night, but he couldn’t quite remember—sarcomancy took a great toll on the body, and he was no sorcerer or magician, not to mention that lesser operations involved entire teams while he had been left to juggle every responsibility on his own.

 

“Anyways, I had a splint, but I took it off because it was getting way too itchy,” she continued, waving her arm about until he couldn’t help but reach out and place a hand on her wrist.

 

“Please, Miss Djeeta. While I'm relieved to see you so lively, you will wear me thin at this rate.”

 

“Oh, sorry,” she said, pausing for a bit. “Do you think we can eat now?”

 

“With your other hand, please.”

 

Djeeta did as she was told this time, and he took the following moment to watch her fumble with the utensils before a piece of steamed fish found its way into her mouth. Relieved, Tor moved to eat as well, digging through the sautéed bits of ginger and scallions to pierce into his side of the filet. The meat was hot, flaky, and absolutely succulent, but as delicious as his senses told him it was, Tor found that he could hardly swallow, a heavy discomfort making its way into the pit of his stomach. When he glanced back at Djeeta to watch her happily pecking away at her rice, the heaviness grew tight.

 

Djeeta raised her eyes and met his gaze, her smile softening around the edges until she was looking at him like he was an old friend. “I already know,” she told him, chopsticks resting on her bottom lip. “Lord Aglovale told me what he had done, what he had made you do.”

 

There was no beating around the bush. Tor set his bowl and utensils down, nails digging into the woven texture of the flooring. “I went against my oath as a physician, and not only did I act without your best interest in mind, but I imposed a taboo art upon your body.”

 

Djeeta tilted her head. “I won’t go through any horrible, life-changing side effects from this ‘taboo art’, will I?”

 

“I—no, I do not expect this happening, but—”

 

“Then there’s no harm done, not to me,” Djeeta said, offering another soft smile. “I was the one who put you in this situation, Tor. Not on purpose, but—” She lowered her gaze as she carefully peeled away the fish skin with surprising dexterity. “—if only I’d been more content to eat fish and rice for the rest of winter, neither you or Lord Aglovale would’ve had to suffer.”

 

There was an intrinsic gentleness in the way she spoke his name—it was soft and brief, a whisper of grace intertwined with the syllable as the heaviness in his stomach grew just the bit more bearable.

 

“I am only the physician who treated you, Miss Djeeta,” Tor said. “And so I am ignorant, but you will have to forgive me. Lord Aglovale made a choice, and I only find myself where I must be, and it is wherever that I am needed. How you came to be injured is of no concern to me.”

 

Somehow, she looked amused. “He did say something like that too.”

 

“…I think Lord Aglovale is someone who is precious to you,” he replied. “And you, him. It’s only natural that you feel this deeply about how your circumstances have unfolded.”

 

When Djeeta flushed pink to match her robes, eyes fixated on the food between them, Tor realized he had spoken without thinking.

 

“I-It’s not complicated,” she blurted. “No one wants to see the people they care about hurt.”

 

Tor thought it was fortunate that Djeeta wasn’t at the gorge that day to see the spirit mutilate himself in ways that would make even devils shudder. When she flustered and fumbled her next bite of rice, he understood more why Aglovale had forbade him from rousing her.

 

He had spared them both a burden of choice. Tor did not know if that could be called kindness, but in the end, he was still alive and Djeeta got what she wanted without harboring any inkling of resentment toward the doctor who had imposed this on her. Gingerly taking his utensils back up, he helped another portion of rice into Djeeta’s own bowl.

 

Tor revisited the makeshift operating room. Djeeta had told him he was free to wander about the manor even though it felt odd to do so when every step and every peek into an empty room felt like an intrusion in its own right. Prepared for a pigsty given his apparent delirium last time he was conscious, he found the sheets neatly folded and his instruments cleaned, polished, and arranged in their proper order instead. Running his fingers along the edge of the table as a frown formed on his face, Tor wondered who was responsible before he rest his hand on the worn tome lying atop his workspace.

 

“So you’ve taken your teachings from that,” came a voice that nearly sent him flying out of his skin. He stayed rooted where he was as Lord Aglovale himself stepped into the light, no more worse for wear as his sleeve drifted serenely behind him. “Be wary. It was written by a madman driven by one too many a lofty dream.”

 

Tor took the book, thumbing the corner of the cover. “I've derived my knowledge from more contemporary sources. This serves more as a… talisman of sorts,” he said. “I did not realize you were familiar with the reading, Lord Aglovale.”

 

“A talisman,” he snorted. “Regardless, its contents are of little worth to me now—I am only the god of the land in which your people and your people’s neighbors find the root of their knowledge.”

 

Tor bowed his head. “Then I offer my gratitude to you, Lord Aglovale. There is not one farsea kingdom that does not owe themselves to the countless advancements and philosophies that were born from these very pages.”

 

Aglovale gazed at the book, his expression unreadable as his eyes lingered on the cover. “I had nothing to do with it,“ he retorted. “The one to whom you owe your thanks has long departed from this world.”

 

“That… is only natural,” Tor said as he placed the reprint of a two centuries-old book back onto the table.

 

Aglovale’s eyes followed it to where it rest before they tore themselves away altogether to look back at him again. “Djeeta appeared lively this morning.”

 

Tor swallowed thickly, the better part of him wishing that they could remain on the subject of the book. “Yes… She is healing quickly. Quicker than I imagined.”

 

“You believe so too.” Aglovale paused, and he wondered if he was listening to the crescendo of his heartbeat. “You thought she would require more time, but at this rate, she will not need you for another operation, will she?”

 

“That appears to be the case.” He was a fool. He had seen this coming, so why had he not acted while he still could?

 

He felt something cold bloom within the pit of his stomach, something like despair. What could he have done? What could he have done that was not at the young woman’s own expense?

 

“I see,” Aglovale said with an air of finality.

 

Tor braced himself when that dark blue silk fluttered, only to find that the god of the forest had fallen to one knee, his head bowed so deeply that his face was hidden. He was at a loss for words, quite literally as nothing came to mind no matter how much he opened and closed his mouth.

 

“It is you to whom I owe gratitude,” Aglovale said without lifting his head. “It was by your hand alone that her spirit has been put at ease.”

 

Tor finally found his voice. “Please raise your head, Lord Aglovale. I am only a physician—”

 

“I am not done,” he said, his voice alone like a blow to his chest. “Not only have you accomplished what I could not, but you’ve carried the dreams and knowledge of my brother into this day and age.”

 

It was one blow after another when he made the connection. “The sorcerer, Lusor, is your—?”

 

Aglovale stood back up, silencing him. “As you've seen already, I am not keen on allowing these debts to fester any longer than they must. Tell me what you wish for in return.”

 

Head still reeling, he couldn’t help but wonder if this too was another trial that was being thrust upon him. “Lord Aglovale, I am humbled, but I am only doing my duty as a—”

 

“Now is not the time for modesty, human,” Aglovale said with a flash in his eyes, putting an end to that. “You had a particular reason for coming to this land, did you not? There is no other explanation.”

 

That was enough to bring him back to earth. Between Djeeta’s injuries and Lord Aglovale’s unorthodox way of doing essentially anything while his own life hung in the balance, he had nearly forgotten why he had crossed the ocean to begin with.

 

Tor cleared his throat. “I serve a liege back home whose child has been sick since birth. Any treatment we can currently muster can only manage his symptoms, and so I am searching for a more permanent cure,” he said.

 

“A cure,” Aglovale repeated thoughtfully. “Very well then. Tell me more about this child and his illness.”

Chapter 27

Tor watched Aglovale rotate the small wooden cube in his hands, thumb rubbing against the shallow carvings that adorned each face. “Another talisman? I did not take you for the superstitious type,” the spirit said, mildly amused.

 

“It’s a piece from a children’s game. We would sometimes play together during his better days.” Tor paused, briefly asking himself if he was saying too much. “When he learned that I would be departing for a long journey, he gave it to me to keep.”

 

“Softhearted child,” Aglovale remarked. “With no one to play with, he’d have no use for it anyway.”

 

The cube rolled to the center of his palm. Malaise and night terrors—Tor knew those two symptoms shed very little light on the mystery of his illness, and Lord Aglovale wasn’t afraid to point that out before he asked for something of the child’s instead. Taken aback, Tor could only oblige.

 

“Curious,” he drawled, hungrily almost. “Tell me, Doctor—are you a man of faith too?”

 

The irony of the inquiry wasn’t lost on him. “I find it easier to believe in what I can observe, Lord Aglovale.”

 

He clicked his tongue. “That pragmatism of yours has worked plenty enough in my favor. Unfortunately, however, it falls short here.”

 

Before he could ask what he meant by that, the wooden cube trembled in his hand. It had to have been a trick or an illusion, but the predatory glint in Lord Aglovale’s eyes was all but unmistakable.

 

“Wretched thing,” he said. “You’ll happily torment a child’s dreams, but won’t spare me even a single greeting.”

 

The air grew prickly as the hairs on his arms stood on end, and then it was like a scene out of a nightmare when thick and inky tendrils violently exploded from the cube.

 

Tor stumbled back as black ichor fountained from the hollow of Aglovale’s palm. The spirit remained where he stood even as the air around them churned like a brewing storm, eyes glowing with a wild scarlet as he dared the writhing creature to defy him. Black thorns sprouted between his lips in invitation, hungry and gleaming.

 

And then he closed his fist and silenced the thrashing chaos, squashing the mass of tendrils with the ease of crushing an insect. The lingering tar dried up and crumbled into a fine dust before disappearing altogether, and all that was left of the ghastly manifestation was the wooden cube still clutched within Aglovale’s grip, as innocuous as it was before the tentacles appeared.

 

“Not even a morsel worth devouring,” Aglovale sighed as he reopened his hand and rolled it between his fingers. “Its true body is still beyond the sea, latched onto that child—a distance too great for him to cross I presume.”

 

When their eyes met, Tor wasn’t quite so sure anymore that the god was above devouring him too. “Yes, the journey would be too much for his constitution.”

 

“And yet it was a journey you made yourself… based on what?”

 

He tossed the game piece back to him. Tor caught it despite himself, not entirely convinced that it wouldn't explode into another mass of tentacles. “How did you know this particular object was possessed, Lord Aglovale?”

 

The other swept his robes of any lingering dust, his empty sleeve swinging back and forth. “I merely checked. Any cherished possession of the child's would have served the same purpose. It is fortunate that you had this one on your person.”

 

Tor briefly squeezed the cube, its sanded corners digging into the flesh of his palm. He found that rather problematic—if the witches and diviners they had summoned in their desperation couldn’t even do what Lord Aglovale was able to with a single glance, then what hope did he have as a mere physician?

 

“Naturally not everyone is as dedicated to their craft as you are,” he said, playing that trick on his thoughts again before he suddenly realized what Aglovale had meant by falling short.

 

“I must reconsider my approach.”

 

“Reconsider what?” Lord Aglovale glanced at him, the hungry glow from before not quite gone from his eyes. “Did you think that we were finished here?”

 

Tor frowned. “Was I mistaken? The spirit has to be present for it to be dispelled, and I cannot bring it here.”

 

“Yes, that is a mild inconvenience,” Aglovale replied. “But I’ll not have an insect humiliate me, so I’ll make an exception for you, human. This body is not long for this world anyway.”

 

Aglovale’s fingers brushed along the edge of his workstation before they suddenly plucked a small glass vial from the clutter. Tor then watched as the god reached into his mouth and pried loose one of the black thorns protruding from his gums. Licking the fresh blood seeping into the cracks of his lips, he nonchalantly slipped the fang into the vial and corked it shut.

 

He tossed it, and Tor caught that too.

 

“That is a piece of my authority,” he explained. “Use it to compel the creature to appear and my venom will vanquish it.”

 

There were no more reasons left to keep the doctor at the manor. Letter or no letter, it wouldn’t be much longer until someone tied his sudden disappearance to the forest, and it was clear that simply living a quiet life far removed from the village wasn’t enough to protect his peace.

 

Aglovale watched from the branches of an evergreen as Djeeta stood amidst the late winter snow to see Tor off as he adjusted a saddle fastened to one of the reindeer the god had beckoned from the forest. He could hear their conversation from where he was, but it wasn’t so much their words that held captive his attention than it was the deep and rosy glow that stained Djeeta’s cheeks, her lips pulled in a smile he hadn’t gotten to enjoy since hibernation. She sniffled, and the heaviness returned.

 

The young spirit from before had braved the winter once more to follow him, adorned by a familiar shade of pink. The creature glanced between him and the pair below as it swept a loose stick over the edge with its foot. Aglovale watched said stick nail Djeeta squarely on the forehead before it bounced off into the snow.

 

“Ow! What the—Lord Aglovale?” She scowled when she made him out from the cover of the trees. “What was that for?”

 

With no more merit left in watching quietly, he alighted upon the ground.

 

“Dilly dally any longer and you’ll be sniffling all throughout the night,” he said before he swept his gaze around. “As for you—you’ll be behooved to return to that village quickly.”

 

Tor bowed his head—sense and humility that Djeeta herself could stand to learn a thing or two about. Even then, he could hardly bring himself to look at the human man a moment longer, instead wishing that he was deep in the forest where he could sooner forget about him. Where this sudden impatience sprung from, he didn’t know. “I was praying that I might see you one last time before I depart, Lord Aglovale.”

 

What a stupid thing to pray for, he thought as he watched Tor rummage around in his bag before he pulled out that familiar tome. The doctor then bowed at the waist, offering it to him.

 

Aglovale did not take it. “What is the meaning of this?”

 

“I transgressed upon your land to ingratiate myself with your people. This is my offering.”

 

“An offering,” he repeated. “This book is your raison d’etre.”

 

He felt his silent stutter of surprise. “Yes, but my years are short, and what we find precious may better last in the hands of a god.”

 

There was a cheekiness to the otherwise straight-laced young man, but what other manner was there for his brother’s words to haunt him now? Despite his murmuring reservations, Aglovale took it with the one hand he had left, tracing with his eyes the embossed letters that spelled a name he once scorned.

 

“…You will live on and serve many more lives during your journey,” Aglovale said to him after a moment. “The reach of your actions will stretch further than what you can ever imagine, the gratitude of those you’ve aided everlasting. That is the reward of your own ‘selfishness’.”

 

For some reason, Tor seemed grateful. “Thank you, Lord Aglovale.”

 

Djeeta was watching him, glowing all the while. He felt her eyes on his face as he wondered if she played some part in this too. Through the leather, he felt the weight of Tor’s own journey thus far, and within its pages, the lingering whispers of Lamorak’s own wishes.

 

It was late in the night when Djeeta found herself wandering through the halls of the manor. Without Tor to keep her company during mealtimes, she felt the spirits’ absence even more as they were either too sleepy or too busy to stick around. She couldn’t blame them—the winter must’ve been harsh on their little bodies, and while it was quiet, the difference between now and then when Lord Aglovale was still sleeping was like night and day.

 

Even so, she felt his absence too. The weaving room was dark when she passed by the hallway leading up to it, the glow of the furnace and the comfort of watching Lord Aglovale work at the loom suddenly struck from the world. The thieves were gone, but they had taken something irreplaceable, and what had been a source of warm memories only filled her stomach with a heavy nausea as she stared into that darkness.

 

And so she moved on, wondering where the other now spent his evenings.

 

Eventually her search brought her to another corner of the manor where she never had reason to visit before. A faint glow beckoned her forward until she stood before a shut door, considering her options once before knocking and making her way inside altogether.

 

Djeeta entered a small room, the air warm and humid as her eyes drew themselves to the layers of familiar robes hanging on a rack in the corner. Relieved, she crossed the room and slid open the next door only to be greeted by a wall of steam that immediately made her own robes stick to her like a second skin.

 

Lord Aglovale sat with his back to the entrance, chest-deep in an oversized tub embedded into the floor. The water was so hot that it was practically frothing, a geyser of perpetual steam as Djeeta wafted what she could away from her face so that she could better see and breathe.

 

“I do not recall ever barging into your bathing chambers while you washed yourself.”

 

“Sorry! I was wondering where you went.” She paused, eyeing the water. “Isn’t it too hot?”

 

Lord Aglovale’s head rolled back, the muscles in his shoulders rippling as he sank deeper into the water. “It softens the skin, makes it more amenable to…” He trailed off without finishing, instead choosing to rest the back of his head against the rim of the sunken tub to spare her a glance. His skin was flushed and glistening, eyes glowing with a matching fervor, but Djeeta’s own eyes were too busy staring at the nub where his right arm used to be, flaps of skin sewn together by silk to cap the empty socket. “The doctor prescribed you rest. It is not just your body that you must tend to, Djeeta.”

 

He was right, but even so, she couldn’t stop herself from making her way over and kneeling by the edge of the bath. She could feel the heat and moisture rolling off the surface of his body when Aglovale turned to face her all the way, the middle portion of his hair turning a deep bronze when it slid into the water.

 

He didn’t have to wait for an excuse of hers when he tilted his head. “Do you feel unwell? Are the rest of your injuries bothering you?”

 

“I’m fine,” Djeeta replied, mustering a smile. “You don’t have to worry about me, Lord Aglovale.”

 

“Then what is it that you wish to tell me this late in the night?”

 

Djeeta paused again. She didn’t think there was anything at all when she left to find him, but now that he asked, she realized that there were plenty of unspoken thoughts crowding the space of her throat. She lowered her gaze, turning the arm in her lap slowly as her eyes traced the raised stitches that lined the underside.

 

“I never thanked you for what you did,” she said. “So thank you, Lord Aglovale. You’re always looking after me.”

 

Aglovale shut his eyes, a strand of hair sliding out from behind his ear in his quiet sigh. “I won’t argue. I’ll accept your gratitude if it’ll bring you ease.”

 

“Thanks,” she said again, the weight sliding off of her shoulders as Aglovale reopened his eyes to peer at her.

 

“You were brought here against your will to begin with, Djeeta,” he said. “And you’ve suffered greatly for it. Did you not wish to follow that man back to your home?”

 

She blinked, wondering where that came from. “My home’s not one place, Lord Aglovale…” She frowned, searching his face for the meaning behind the sudden question. “And besides, it’d be kind of awkward popping back into the village that shipped me off to die.”

 

Aglovale seemed mildly amused despite himself. “If you wished for it, there would have been a way.”

 

“Maybe,” she conceded. “But it’s not my wish.”

 

“Your kind is meant to mingle with one another during your day to day lives,” he said. “And yet come spring it will be nearly a year since you were brought to my domain.”

 

“That’s not even something I think about, I—where is this coming from?”

 

He tilted his head the other way. “You were quite happy to fraternize with that human,” he said. “You spoke freely… laughed freely. He’s mortal just like you, so it’s only natural that you would be drawn to his company so much more easily.”

 

Djeeta stared at him, not quite knowing where to start when he was looking at her with the utmost seriousness on his face.

 

“Lord Aglovale, were you… jealous?”

 

His expression immediately turned to stone which was all the answer she needed.

 

“I’ve no reason to be jealous,” he said curtly.

 

Yeah, right. She pursed her lips together as she dipped her gaze toward the braid of hair she had given him. “Of course you don't, but… it’s not about reason, is it?” She reached out, easing his hand into her own. Aglovale cooperated while Djeeta wondered if he realized that he was pouting. “Did you forget what I said back then, Lord Aglovale? We give these bracelets to the ones we want to spend our time with the most, nobody else.”

 

“Yes—I am not jealous.”

 

“Not at all, right?”

 

“As I’ve said.” 

 

Djeeta only grinned.

 

Huffing, he chose to follow her gaze instead of arguing as she thumbed the woven pattern of her hair. Aglovale’s hand was warm and heavy in her grasp, his pulse beating gently against the hollow of her palm. “Well either way, this is where I want to be,” she continued. “This is where I want to stay.”

 

She thought she said it plenty of times before, but maybe words weren’t enough as she looked back up at him.

 

“To stay,” he repeated, turning his wrist over to expose the clasp. He seemed to be considering something as a moment of silence passed between them, and then without another word, he lifted his wrist to his mouth and carefully undid the clasp with his teeth.

 

He pressed the braid into her palm. Djeeta stared at it, wondering if he was actually mad at her.

 

“Will you keep this for me until I can wear it again?”

 

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

 

Aglovale took his hand back, pressing it to where his heart lay. “My divinity has determined that this body is no longer of use to me. I will be discarding it for a new one… and in the process, I will finally be granting your wish.”

 

Djeeta still didn’t understand as she squeezed the bracelet in her hands, easing herself closer to him as if that would bring her any more clarity. “I don’t get it. You’re getting a new body? What will happen to this one?”

 

“It will disappear,” he replied. “One form consumes the other, so on and so forth. It’s only natural, but…” He trailed off, his fingers sliding downward before he pulled them away, gaze resting within the palm of his own hand.

 

“It is this body upon which you bestowed your tenderness, and now it will all be gone.”

 

She took his arm, bringing herself closer as she looked him deep in the eye. “I’ll still be here, won’t I? I’ll bestow your new one with whatever you want me to bestow. And then I’ll do it again and again.”

 

His gaze softened as the flush beneath his skin crept into the scarlet of his eyes. “Of course,” he said softly before he too brought himself closer and pressed his lips to her own.

 

Hot water sloshed over the edge of the bath as Aglovale rose further from its depths to lean into her, his weight closing in and giving his tongue the leverage to push past and slide into her mouth. Djeeta let out a muffled sound of surprise at the sudden burst of warmth, but Aglovale didn’t wait for her to regain her bearings as he pushed her flush against the ground next.

 

There were few things that Lord Aglovale was shy about, and this was definitely not one of them when he didn’t hesitate for a moment to claim her promise like he claimed her mouth. He took her, and she took him, tongue and all as she felt the edge of his teeth graze her lips and gums. The steam found its way inside her head and the heat did nothing to help while her clothes wrapped tightly around her limbs, uncomfortably wet and sticky and infuriatingly enough, in the way. She growled impatiently, wiggling back and forth to try and work herself out of the drenched silk like a moth fighting its way out of its cocoon. 

 

They parted and she swallowed her first mouthful of air in a hot minute, gazing up at him to see what he’d do next. She wondered if she looked any different than before as his hungry eyes grazed the sight of her bare chest, skin rendered flush and supple from the steam. Djeeta ate into him too, lifting her hands to feel the softness of his chest for herself, her fingers tracing the slope of his waist before she realized that she was saying goodbye.

 

Aglovale watched her for a moment, allowing her to do what she wished as she explored his body. He had always been beautiful, but in the light of the bath, framed by flowing gold and adorned by glistening droplets, he was resplendent. No longer keen on waiting, he then lowered himself back down and lathed his tongue along her jugular, hot and eager to bring her back to him. Djeeta gasped softly in turn, her nails briefly biting into his skin before she quickly let go, but Aglovale didn’t let that deter him as he took her throat into his mouth and teased her pulse with the edge of his fangs.

 

She blinked, and he paused, sensing her hesitation. “Lord Aglovale… you’re missing one.”

 

“Oh?” he drawled. “You noticed?”

 

She eyed his mouth and sure enough, he had one less fang than before. “Yeah, now you’ve got a little snaggletoo—“ He dipped his head back down and bit into her without waiting for her to finish, shutting her up. She welcomed it, burying her fingers in his hair. Fangs or not, his mouth was everything against her pulse, so full of intent as he returned to work purring and relishing the way she throbbed against his tongue. He devoured her with everything he had but his teeth, careful not to break skin and draw her blood. A part of her wished he would. Was it the heat? She couldn’t think—Lord Aglovale’s tongue was doing too much as each stroke made other parts of her tremble.

 

And then he suddenly stopped, pulling his lips away from her throat as she peered up at him with thinly veiled disappointment and confusion.

 

“...This was foolish,” he muttered, eyes dark with unfulfilled hunger, and before Djeeta could ask what he meant by that, he keeled over, supported only by his elbow.

 

Djeeta immediately sobered up. She meant to pull him onto her lap to take the weight off his arm, expecting him to resist, but to her concern and surprise, Lord Aglovale obliged, his body collapsing with just the slightest give. “I should not… have…” He stuttered, like there was something else trying to push its way out of his throat. Djeeta quickly draped her arm over the stretch of his back, holding him close.

 

“What’s wrong, Lord Aglovale?”

 

“It’s happening now… the exuviation.” He chuckled dryly, trying and failing to push himself back up before collapsing again. “There is no need to stay for this. I… I will come seek you after.”

 

She instinctively clung onto him, otherwise helpless as she watched his breathing grow heavier and heavier. “Will… Will my being here make it worse?”

 

“Worse? No… never worse… but if you stay, then you will close your eyes when I ask. Promise me—”

 

“I’m not afraid! I’ve already seen it before, Lord Aglovale—”

 

“It’s different,” he said, voice growing tighter with each passing second. “I cannot control it—I… it is both a great agony… and a great pleasure.”

 

Djeeta flinched when she felt something lurch beneath her touch. There was something there, something moving beneath his skin as his muscles began to flutter and convulse in ways that were anything but natural.

 

“Please—” he gasped softly, “—for my own sake, Djeeta.”

 

The touch of desperation in his voice would’ve been nothing short of inconceivable before tonight as Djeeta felt her chest tighten.

 

“I promise,” she whispered.

 

She felt his gratitude in the way his shoulders melted into her lap, saliva dripping down her inner thigh as Lord Aglovale fought for every breath he took. But even that respite didn’t last long when he planted his hand into the ground, his spine rolling beneath her as she watched the muscles in his back shake and contract. 

 

She had seen him change before, but Lord Aglovale was right—this was different. He had meant to chase her away back then, but here, there was no intention and no control, nothing but excruciating necessity and that frightened her more than anything else. Heart pounding in her ears with every gasp and every stuttering breath, Djeeta felt like she was at his bedside again, helplessly watching as the centipede’s venom ate him alive, except somehow, Lord Aglovale looked like he was in far greater agony than before.

 

He took in a rattling breath. “Will you leave me now?”

 

She furiously shook her head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

 

He tried to laugh. “Stubborn… so, so stubborn.” He hissed. “Close your eyes then,” he told her, fingers touching themselves to her face like he meant to close them himself. “Now.”

 

She immediately shut her eyes tight. His hand flew to her side, nails burying into the softness of her waist before everything went slack and he turned into a deadweight in her lap. But the convulsions didn’t stop. That something was still there, and she felt it. It was alive, churning and rolling and struggling to escape the confines of her embrace as Lord Aglovale’s own body began to swell.

 

And then she felt it before she heard it—the ripping of flesh. Djeeta sat frozen as a warm liquid seeped between her fingers and down her arms. She realized then that the body she held was no longer breathing, but pulsating like one giant organ. It throbbed, the space between her arms growing wider and wider with each agonizing beat as if that something was pushing its way out through his back. She couldn’t do anything but keep her eyes closed, a part of her paralyzed at the thought of what might happen if she broke her promise, and so there she knelt, shuddering only when something needle-sharp brushed against her cheek, gentle and ephemeral when it vanished from her senses altogether.

 

Lord Aglovale began to pull away too, but it wasn’t him, or rather, it didn’t feel like him. She remembered what he told her earlier, but it still took all of her strength to finally let him slip into the unknowable, the warmth that had always been familiar to her leaving her fingers for the last time. Struck by the feeling that she had done something wrong, she bit her tongue and closed her fists, but she wasn’t left much time to mourn when a sickening crunch broke the short-lived silence.

 

She opened her mouth, but only a soft whimper left her lips. She swallowed and tried again, reaching into the emptiness with her voice. “Lord… Aglovale?”

 

There was no answer. She waited, eyes still closed, but even then, there was still no answer.

 

She slowly reopened her eyes then, carefully blinking away the blurriness only to find that there was no one there before her, at least, not until she lifted her gaze and found herself face-to-face with the monstrous spider from before.

 

Lord Aglovale’s other form nearly spanned each corner of the room, his lower body partially submerged in the bathwater. Just like in her dreams, his breath fell over her in waves—hot and heavy like a breeze pulled from the heart of summer. Nine copies of herself stared back at her through the reflection in his eyes as she slowly lifted a hand and reached toward him with her heart beating wildly in her chest. She couldn’t think of anything else but how long and sharp his fangs were in this form, his limbs colossal enough to reach well past her and touch the opposite wall. 

 

Her fingers hovered just an inch away from his muzzle, but she couldn’t keep herself still. He was right there, so why couldn’t she reach him? Nothing had changed. She’d caught glimpses of his reflection enough times before, and yet she was shaking now, her strength oozing out of her only to be replaced by lead as she struggled to close the distance.

 

“Djeeta,” finally spoke the pure baritone of Lord Aglovale’s voice, wrenching her out of her stupor.

 

She sprung forward, throwing her arms around his head as she buried her hands and face into the thickness of his fur. It was him. Of course it’d always been him. She nuzzled the side of his face, drinking in the warmth she’d been missing all along as the smell of home—the smell of cedar and crushed pine wrapped all around her senses.

 

“Lord Aglovale,” she whispered, rubbing her face even deeper into his fur. “Lord Aglovale, Lord Aglovale—”

 

“You’ll rub your own skin off at this rate, child.” Djeeta’s toes dragged along the tile as Lord Aglovale tried and failed to dislodge her from his neck. “…Child.”

 

“I thought you died! For real this time!”

 

“Why? I told you what would happen.”

 

She tried to scowl at him but his massive jaws and massive fangs were in the way. Curiosity getting the better of her, she quickly regained her footing as she felt her way through the fur that covered his mouth to find several more fangs hidden inside his maw. She blinked, angling her head for a better look, but the dim lighting made it practically impossible to see anything meaningful.

 

Even then, the iridescence of his outer fangs still caught her eye after she realized this was the first chance she ever got to really look at him, a whole world of color buried deep within the obsidian. Up close, they were beautiful, as deadly as she knew they could be. Djeeta cupped his jaw next, testing the weight of his head before she stood on the tips of her toes to press her lips just below the opening of where his mouth should've been.

 

“...No, that’s not quite right,” she hummed when she pulled away, frowning to herself. “...Lord Aglovale?”

 

He met her with silence just like before, but Djeeta felt the beat of his own heart as she gently thumbed the sides of his jaw through his fur. She drew closer once more, parting her lips before he finally gave in and opened his mouth.

 

Lord Aglovale’s tongue was hot and thick as it slid out from between those black thorns and into her awaiting lips. The girth was unlike anything she’d experienced before as she struggled to take him in, but she still wanted it, and she wanted it all as Aglovale answered her prayers and pushed even deeper into her, lighting her aflame.

 

“You voracious thing.” His voice reverberated through her very being, penetrating her core as she moaned around him inside her mouth, protesting. It wasn’t fair that he could talk to her and she couldn’t talk back, but maybe that was by design.

 

There should’ve been a wrongness in the way Djeeta opened herself up to take in more of him. Maybe there was, and whatever visceral horror of before turned into something else the moment she felt his softness enter her, hot and slick and powerful. She felt lightheaded, borderline insane as they kissed, but she could only keep chasing that high as she fought and struggled to pull themselves even closer together while Lord Aglovale’s tongue pushed impossibly deep into her throat.

 

And just as she was about to surrender herself to that high, he pulled out. Djeeta gasped for air, her head spinning in circles before she was met with a reflection of herself so scandalous that she turned an even deeper shade of scarlet. A thread of saliva still connected them by the lips and tongue before Aglovale closed his mouth altogether, and even her own sense of shame was barely enough to keep her from shoving her head back inside his maw for another round. 

 

Her neediness wasn’t lost on him.

 

“Oh? Did you want me to devour you that badly?”

 

“I’m… thinking about it,” she returned, settling for burying her face back into his fur instead of further outrageousness. Lord Aglovale’s voice and drawl were as steady and measured as before, even while he teased her, but his body painted another picture as it heaved deeply and slowly with every breath. Before long, he proved her worries right when his legs could no longer support his weight and he gradually crumpled toward the ground as Djeeta dropped back to her knees to help cushion his fall.

 

Lord Aglovale’s upper body was heavy and massive as she pulled whatever she could of him back onto her lap, paying no mind to the water that had sloshed out of the tub and flooded the room. She was practically naked anyways, and Lord Aglovale was warm as she draped her arms all around his head to keep him close.

 

“You are a strange creature, Djeeta,” he sighed. “You were strange from the start.”

 

She took a deep breath of her own, relieved that he still had the strength to muster a quip or two. If she’d known how agonizing this would’ve been for him, she never would've wished for it even if it was inevitable. 

 

“Says you.”

 

Resting her head against his own, she turned to gently stroking his fur. It was soft as she combed through it, her fingernails gently raking against the armor that lay beneath. It was leathery in some places, hard like lacquer in others. Even the softness of his pelt had a strange quality to it, each strand of fur possessing a sort of stiffness that reminded her of a feather’s shaft.

 

Either she was imagining it or Lord Aglovale was melting into her with each passing moment, fangs folding in on either side of her lap. Regardless, he wasn’t asking her to stop, and so she continued, fingers tracing absentminded shapes as she ran her hands back and forth.

 

“...I thought for a moment that your heart would burst, and here it is now, lulling me to rest instead,” he mused after a while. His voice rumbled, feeding directly into her thoughts in the way he seemed to prefer when he couldn’t otherwise speak. “I’ve never allowed anybody else to see me like this, not even my brothers.”

 

“Not even your brothers?” she asked him, surprised to hear that there were things he had kept from even them.

 

“Yes… I turned them away no matter how much they begged from the other side of the door.”

 

Djeeta lowered her gaze. “Why?”

 

For a moment, Aglovale was quiet. “...It is not just agony. It is pleasure—dark, rapturous, and all-consuming—just another perverse ritual that the Jorougumo imposed upon me. How could I let them see? The brother who lived in their hearts was human and I could not bring myself to challenge that memory.”

 

Djeeta felt a tightness settle in her chest. “But it must’ve been lonely.”

 

“Lonely…” he echoed softly. “Yes, perhaps it was lonely…” He fell silent as he sank deeper into her lap, resigning himself to the hands that continued to stroke his fur.

 

Djeeta wished her arms were longer, long enough to wrap all the way around him to bring him to a place where he didn’t have to think about any of those things. Maybe his solitude was something she would never be able to entirely understand, but she wanted to try. Maybe it was hubris to think that she could. 

 

But it was also hubris to steal from the Oomukade, hubris to kill it. There was still so much she didn’t understand, but Lord Aglovale was a place of solace for her, and she only hoped that she could become the same for him. 

 

Djeeta closed her eyes and let the night drape all around her as she listened to her heartbeat fall in line with his own. Even in the wake of her yearning, winter seemed far away with him so close, the nightmares of yesterday fading with each passing moment. 

 

“Your heart beats gently… so, so gently…” Aglovale murmured. “Even in my throes, I could still feel how tenderly you held me. 

 

“Djeeta, will you not let go even now?”

 

She shook her head into his fur. “I won’t,” she said. “I never will.”

 

He grew heavier. “I cannot hold you in this form."

 

“It’s okay.”

 

She pressed a kiss between two of his many eyes—one kiss of many more to come.

 

“…Thank you for granting my wish, Lord Aglovale,” she whispered, choosing not to forget this time.

 

He had nothing left to say to her, but as she cradled his exhausted form in her arms, she found that perhaps this alone was answer enough for both of them.

 

Chapter 28

Spring arrived on the back of rolling thunderstorms.

 

Djeeta paused in mid-stride, wooden sword extended before her in a straight line as she gazed out the window pelted by torrential rain.

 

“Finished your drills?”

 

Aglovale rose from the armchair he’d been lounging on after the two of them had spent the better part of the morning clearing out another oversized room. In another corner lay the parts of his loom—a project for another day he had told her when she first asked about it. His hair trailed weightlessly behind him as he joined her near the window, following her gaze to take in the gray. The day he emerged for breakfast wearing those familiar indigo robes four limbs short with not a speck of fur to be found on his person seemed to have come out of the blue after he spent the last dredges of winter growing himself a new body. Djeeta never thought she would’ve been able to tell the difference, but when she first took those newly-shaped hands into her own, she could feel how much softer the underside of his palms were compared to before. If she had thought him glowing, then he was practically radiant now, but with these changes came an understanding as to why he’d been so wistful that night. The sight of her braid clasped around his wrist did plenty to dash away the heaviness of it though.

 

“No,” she answered him. “I was just wondering if Tor made it safely back home.”

 

“He has,” Lord Aglovale said. “He would’ve known to leave before the snow melted lest his wheels get stuck in the mud.”

 

Djeeta glanced back at the storm as she felt the roots of the manor groan softly while the walls creaked and swayed. “I guess if he hadn’t, he’d be stuck here just a bit longer, huh?” She wondered if she’d ever see the doctor again—she wanted to thank him properly. He was the reason she could stand where she was with her dignity intact, swinging around a practice sword Aglovale had procured for her from an old tree after all. The manor groaned again, louder this time.

 

“Are you worried?” he asked her just as the sky flashed with lightning, thunder following in its wake as the floor beneath their feet trembled. Djeeta tried not to think about how close they were to the sky, but that was just one more thing Lord Aglovale picked up from her as she felt his fingers brush the side of her cheek. “Even the storm couldn’t topple the mountain, and the Jorougumo had conquered them both.”

 

Aglovale traced the length of her arm before he rested his touch just above her grip on the hilt. “The rain that falls now will shape the rest of the year until the cycle starts anew,” he continued. “But regardless of what’s to come, these hands will conquer even greater monsters.”

 

Djeeta yelped as he suddenly flipped her onto her back, her sword clattering off into the corner until he brought it back again with a thread. “Not like that, however,” he said, leaning over her while she blew her hair out of her face.

 

“That wasn’t fair! You caught me off guard!”

 

Aglovale cocked his head. “You allowed the enemy to get close. Weren’t you the one who put me up to this to begin with?”

 

It was true. Life at the manor was cushy when she wasn’t fighting for her life. While swinging around the memento Aglovale’s brother left behind was better than nothing, her technique continued to suffer when the broken blade was more a bludgeon with a pointy end than a sword. She’d gotten soft—there was no denying that, and that was where Lord Aglovale was supposed to come in.

 

“Get up,” he said, tossing the sword back to her while she had the inkling feeling that he was somehow enjoying himself more than he let on. “You have your work cut out for you, and don’t forget it’s to the range after this.”

 

Djeeta was afraid she had somehow awoken the spartan side to Lord Aglovale when he put her through drill after drill, but thankfully enough, he had returned to his usual self by the late evening while the storm continued to howl outside.

 

Even then, a part of her felt strange calling this the “usual” as the other slowly massaged her fingers by the lamplight, long hair tucked behind his ear. “You’ve been exerting too much pressure on these joints,” he said, smoothing out the red indents left behind by a bowstring. “You’ll have to adjust your grip next time.”

 

“I thought I was getting better,” she sighed. “Sorry for the trouble, Lord Aglovale.”

 

“What trouble? You’ve spent countless hours tending to me,” he replied. “The children told me that you hardly slept during the worst of it.”

 

Don’t be ridiculous, Djeeta imagined him saying with a touch of fondness in her heart, her eyes wandering until they found the book Tor had given to Lord Aglovale before he left. She had often caught the other reading it late into the night during the hours he would usually spend at the loom, leisurely leafing through its pages until breakfast. Just when she thought he’d finish reading it, she’d find him at the very beginning once more, repeating this over and over even as winter melted into spring.

 

“What’s it about?” she had asked him one day.

 

“A compendium of mortal ailments and how to treat them, as well as a glossary of medicine, sorcery, and written record of extinct herbs,” he had answered. “To think my brother Lamorak was capable of authoring such dry material.”

 

Yet dry as he claimed it to be, Lord Aglovale spent most of his nights reading it all the same.

 

Djeeta watched him rub a translucent ointment to soften the calluses forming on the pads of her fingers before he gently folded her hand back closed and invited himself to rest his head on her lap. This had become routine for them, and she knew what to do as she combed through his hair with her freshly-pampered hands, fingernails gently raking along his scalp in the same way she had brushed his armor through his fur. 

 

Aglovale slowly closed his eyes through the howls of the storm, glass panes rattling in their frames as a fresh wave of rain fell over the earth.

 

Djeeta gazed down at him, wondering if he was still worn out from the exuviation. “You can’t go back to sleep, can you, Lord Aglovale?”

 

“...Gods sleep when they are dead,” he said softly. “I may only rest my eyes, that’s all.”

 

She gently pinched the ends of his bangs together, brushing them out of his face as her eyes, for the countless time since they first met, traced the path from the bridge of his nose to the edge of his brow, and finally down the slope of his cheeks to rest on his slightly-parted lips. He looked as peaceful as the days he spent in hibernation.

 

“The rain will end by morning,” he murmured. “Take advantage of the day while you can, Djeeta.”

 

She blinked. “You can predict the weather?”

 

“Eventually you get a sense for these kinds of matters over the years,” Aglovale said, eyes still closed. “Regardless, the storm knows better than to overstay its welcome.”

 

Djeeta gazed back out the window even though there wasn’t much to see. When the storm god and the Jorougumo clashed, it was the Jorougumo who emerged victorious. She remembered the stories Aglovale had told her during the nights she stayed past her bedtime, curled up on the hearth while he sat nearby. To the ancient people of back then, the forest god’s thread was a lifeline that anchored them to the earth, and so they flourished, no longer fearing the day they’d be washed out to sea.

 

A large part of her wanted to poke Aglovale for more of his stories, but she couldn’t bring herself to interrupt his peace, even if he insisted that he was merely resting his eyes. She wondered if there were monsters that he had vanquished, if he had ever met another god aside from the first Jorougumo. When Lord Aglovale guided her arms and fixed her stance during this morning’s drills, she wondered if he was as well-versed in swordplay as Percival. When did he learn? How long did he train for? Did he stop because his threads were sharper than any blade forged from steel?

 

Her hands gradually slowed to a stop as she counted her questions like they were sheep. The midnight oil continued to burn, and she began to nod off.

 

“...Be silent.”

 

Djeeta startled back awake, briefly asking herself if she had just been dreaming in that moment when—

 

“I said be silent—” Lord Aglovale’s eye shot open, and her breath caught in her throat when she saw that his pupil had split into four.

 

He immediately sat up, hand brought to his face. For a moment, he only sat there without offering a word of explanation. When he finally lowered his hand to meet her gaze, she found that his eyes had returned to normal, the nine-eyed god’s visage nowhere to be seen.

 

“I’ve kept you up long enough, Djeeta,” he said as if nothing strange had happened at all. “Come, I’ll take you to bed.”

 

She frowned. “Wait a minute—what was that about?” she asked. “Who were you talking to just now?”

 

He tilted his head as she tried and failed to glean an answer from his expression. “Nobody and nothing to concern yourself with,” he replied, slowly rising to his feet as he took the lamp with him. “I am still breaking this vessel in, so these misfires are bound to happen.”

 

Djeeta reluctantly followed after him, finding it hard to believe that was all there was to it. “Will you be okay?”

 

“Yes, it’ll pass.” He extended his hand, making true on his promise to escort her back to her room, but Djeeta found that she’d rather him not let go at all as they made their way through the hall. “I’ve not yet lost my mind that this will be the usual.”

 

“But who did you think you were talking to? It wasn’t me, was it?”

 

Aglovale chuckled. “No. I suppose I was talking to myself. Both my body and thoughts have yet to settle, and neither have given me a moment’s rest.”

 

They stopped outside her room and the door slid open with a flick of his wrist.

 

“...Your hands have given me something else to block the noise out with, Djeeta,” he told her. “It’s a shame I cannot have them to myself for the rest of the night.”

 

“I wouldn’t mind,” she said a bit too eagerly. “Your hair’s soft, Lord Aglovale, and you keep me warm—”

 

He looked amused, the tension of before gone from his features. “Sleep. You’ve watched over me long enough.”

 

She sulked, giving him pause. “You don’t want to stay?”

 

He tilted his head again, and for a moment, it seemed like he was fighting with himself trying to decide what he wanted. Djeeta blinked innocently, going as far as batting her lashes, but it was his will that won out in the end.

 

“There are holes I need to patch, materials I must gather,” he said. “I cannot always leave the roof in the hands of my attendants lest the storm carry them away.”

 

Djeeta briefly pictured the smallest of the spirits and the two new legs it worked so hard to recover getting sucked up by a tornado. That was fair enough.

 

Another idea occurred to her and she opened her mouth, but Aglovale was quicker. “No, you will not be helping me with this—my offering needs her rest.”

 

She huffed. “Oh, now I’m your offering, when it’s convenient,” she retorted—if Aglovale was going to stuff her back into bed, then she can play the role she wanted as he gradually herded her into her room.

 

He laughed again. “Another misfire of the tongue I’m afraid.”

 

There was no winning with him, she thought with a sigh. Either way, tomorrow would be a new day, and she was sure he’d have a new lesson for her to learn then. On her tiptoes, she planted a quick kiss on his cheek, making sure that he knew what kind of mood he put her in.

 

“Good night, Lord Aglovale.”

 

The lantern flickered as a low wail brushed against her bedroom window. “Sleep well, Djeeta.”

 

Djeeta peered at the morning sun shining just above the horizon as she stepped into the garden, taking care to avoid the mud. Lord Aglovale was right about the weather and if it weren’t for the broken branches littering the garden, she’d find it hard to believe that a storm had ever passed through to begin with. But just like the storm, Lord Aglovale himself was nowhere to be found while the forest spirits continued with the morning’s chores.

 

She climbed the side of the manor and peeked into his bedchambers, finding it empty. The room where they had spent the evening together was empty too when she passed by it on the way outside, and when she rounded the corner, all she found were the spirits hard at work gathering sticks and pulling weeds as they took turns breaking up the earth to plant the seedlings from the greenhouse.

 

“Where has Lord Aglovale gone?” she asked one of the spiders that walked by, hauling away a pile of garden debris. It looked up at her with its big round eyes, looked in a certain direction towards the forest, and then continued on its way, apparently unconcerned with its master’s whereabouts.

 

“Well, he could’ve at least left a note,” she said a bit defensively before she trudged off, but not without climbing the stack of crates lining the outside of the makeshift archery range Aglovale had set up for her before the storm rolled in. She peeked over the edge of the roof, spotting a brand new patch of clay tiles before she sighed to herself and climbed back down.

 

There must’ve been several things a god of the land needed to do between the seasons, Djeeta thought to herself as she opened the storehouse and contemplated taking out her bow for practice. Her eyes swept over the wooden sword and the remains of Percival’s companion resting side by side on a nearby table before she got to work dressing herself with the tools and supplies she used to carry on herself as a wayfaring traveler. It was another habit she lost while she was under Lord Aglovale’s care, and just one more thing she had to get used to again as she made her way toward the forest where the spirit had pointed earlier.

 

There must’ve been several things, but she couldn’t shake the murmuring disquiet in her chest. The usually peaceful stream surged with water from both the storm and snowmelt, swallowing up the pebbled shore as it rushed alongside her. Djeeta walked along the edge of it, kicking a rock as she thought about where to find the other. Maybe she was getting all worked up for nothing, but either way, Lord Aglovale had wanted her to take in the sunshine, and so here she was.

 

However, she wasn’t left to ruminate over “nothing” for long when something fell from the trees and smacked her square in the forehead. Looking down, she caught a glimpse of a centipede’s snapping jaws before it fell down the collar of her robes and disappeared.

 

Djeeta screamed.

 

Flailing about like she was on fire, she ripped her sash off and let her robes fly loose, shaking the sides until the centipede flew out and plopped right into the water. Djeeta watched slack-jawed as the current then carried the small creature further downstream, its body writhing pathetically.

 

Something within her snapped, and the regret was instantaneous.

 

“Oh… Oh, okay, fine!” She wasn’t sure what exactly it was when she broke into a sprint, her undergarments exposed to the wind as her robes flapped behind her. She quickly scaled a boulder in a single stride, leapt into a pocket of slow-moving water, and waited for the centipede to get sucked in by the flow before she scooped it up with a bare hand.

 

Don’t bite me, don’t bite me, don’t bite me, she thought through gritted teeth as she climbed back out of the stream with the creature in tow.

 

Half-naked and half-wet, Djeeta waddled over to the edge of the forest to try and gently shake the centipede off of her, but it had wrapped tightly around her hand, its pointed legs clinging to her skin like its life depended on it. Thinking twice about prying it off while the old scar on her hand prickled uncomfortably, Djeeta reluctantly gave in and instead chose a sunny spot on the rocks to plop herself down on, resting her hand flat so that the sun could reach the creature too. All of that just to rescue the repulsive little thing, but as she watched the tiniest tremors run throughout the centipede’s body, she found that she didn’t quite regret it either.

 

“Cold… so, so cold…”

 

Djeeta blinked, her head swiveling on her shoulders as she looked for the source of the voice. When she found that there was no one there, she glanced back at the stream, wondering if she was hearing things again. The water was cold, now that she had a moment to think about what just happened. It was freezing actually, and of course it was—the melting snowcaps fed the several creeks and streams that ran throughout Lord Aglovale’s forest after all, so what was there to be so surprised about?

 

Eventually the centipede stopped shaking as it soaked in more and more of the sun’s warmth. Morbidly fascinated by all the miniscule joints that made up its body, Djeeta placed her chin on top of a knee to study the creature still wrapped around her hand. Its antennae bobbed slowly—two coiled strands made up of tiny segments that tapered toward the ends. With black eyes and scarlet legs and scarlet fangs that were bulbous and swollen at the base, the centipede looked like a miniature version of the Oomukade, and Djeeta had to swallow an instinctual shudder at the resemblance.

 

As if sensing her discomfort, the centipede loosened its grip and slowly unwound itself from her hand before it raised its head and turned its beady little eyes toward her.

 

“Thank you.”

 

Djeeta stared. She looked behind herself one more time before turning back to face the centipede. Maybe she really was going crazy.

 

Clearing her throat and feeling ridiculous just for even trying, she asked, “You can… talk?”

 

The centipede tilted its tiny little head, and she was sure she’d gone crazy for real.

 

“I wanted my thoughts to reach you… and you accepted them.” It slowly opened and closed its jaw as it took in her incredulity. “Have I offended you, Lord Human?”

 

She gawked. “Lord—? No, don’t call me that. My name’s Djeeta.” 

 

“Djeeta…” It wrung its fangs together as it mulled over her name. “I’ll give you my name too. I am the Mukade.”

 

“...Oh.”

 

It shook its head. “No, just the Mukade. My brothers and sisters and mother—we are all the Mukade, and nothing more than that.” It carefully crawled down the length of her arm, its undulating legs traveling over her skin before it bridged the gap between her hand and her knee and settled upon her leg. “In a hundred more years, maybe I can become the Oomukade, but until then… until then, I am small, and to be small… is to be eaten.”

 

“I won’t eat you,” Djeeta said to the centipede, somehow compelled to reassure it.

 

It wiggled its antennae. “No… You saved my life, but I do not understand—” it paused, its lower body coiling into a circle as it continued to look into her eyes with its own. “—Stranger yet… I sense Lord Oomukade’s venom inside you, and the blessed flower too, and not only that…” It pointed its jaws toward the hand it had parted with. “I feel Lord Jorougumo as well, but there is no hunger within you, not like in other humans. Your scent is warm and sweet instead… like the tender blooms of spring.”

 

She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to make of that, but at the very least, she felt like she could count on the creature not to bite her like the centipede from the kitchen had. She tilted her head then, studying it further as she wondered if it even had anything to do with the centipedes that served the Oomukade.

 

“If you can feel Lord Jorougumo, do you think you can tell me where he is?”

 

The centipede shuddered, its antennae drooping as it lowered its head. “In the eyes of God, we are vermin. Lord Jorougumo despises us, nor is he kind like you, Djeeta… He would surely eat me.”

 

“I wouldn’t let that happen,” she said. “But is it normal to be this scared of the god of the forest? You live here too, you know.”

 

“I am small,” the centipede said again. “But it is not just the Jorougumo. Humans too… They trample us underfoot, steal the venom from our fangs, and roast scores of us over their fires. But you are not like that, Djeeta.”

 

“I’m not so sure about that…” She thought of the rabbits she trapped, the fish she’d help haul out of the river, and the wild chickens she hunted all throughout the seasons. In a way, the centipede was right—to be small was to be eaten… but not always. Because she was small too, and Lord Aglovale had chosen to not—…

 

Her thoughts trailing off, Djeeta extended a finger toward the centipede. It inspected the tip of it with its antennae and forelimbs before it accepted her invitation and climbed back onto her hand, its jaws gently grazing the old scar of her bite.

 

“You wish to know where the Jorougumo is?”

 

She nodded. “Yes, I’m looking for him.”

 

The Mukade turned its head. “…Past the deepest part of these woods, he stands by the silent tree. He waits, but we small and simple creatures cannot grasp that which he waits for.”

 

She frowned as she gathered up her sash from the bank of the stream before she crossed the threshold and reentered the forest. The centipede shuddered again, squeezing her hand as if to get her attention before it started reaching for a nearby bush.

 

Djeeta extended her hand and allowed the creature to climb on top of it. “I won’t go with you… The Jorougumo will surely devour me,” it said. “Have I disappointed you, Djeeta? Have I failed?”

 

“What? No, of course not!” She flapped her hand about. “You’ve told me where to look for him and that’s all I need to know, so… thank you.”

 

“...Then this is goodbye,” the centipede replied. “I will remember you, the human named Djeeta. In one hundred years, I hope you will remember me too.”

 

With that, the Mukade turned on its heels and disappeared into the underbrush, leaving nothing behind of their strange meeting except for the memory of its voice.

 

Retracing their steps from before winter to find her way back to the great tree where Lord Aglovale had performed his autumn rites, Djeeta wondered if he knew that she was looking for him. Unlike before, she didn’t have time to admire the scenery—the trip on foot would take the better part of the day, and she wasn’t keen on making any sort of journey back to the manor in the dark in case she missed him.

 

Of course she could have waited for him to reappear at the manor, but that wasn’t what he promised her. 

 

A cold breeze blew through the trees as she breathed in the heaviness of wet earth. A part of her didn’t mind, her legs were free to take her wherever she wished, and today, she was walking the path the centipede pointed out to her. Her journey took her past the budding ginkgo trees and the narrow creek that filled the ditch to the brim, and before long, she found herself at the foot of the dark forest where humans scarcely ventured according to Lord Aglovale.

 

She took a deep breath and looked one last time toward the sky. A gray cloud passed over the sun, casting her in shadow as she crossed into the tangled heart of the forest.

 

In wake of the storm, the gnarled branches were even more unsettling than before when she had walked alongside Lord Aglovale, but even then, she wasn’t afraid. Had she gotten braver? Bolder? Maybe crossing paths with the Mukade shifted her perspective as the glowing medusozoa floated past her, whispering faintly in the darkness. She kept her eyes straight and steady just as Lord Aglovale had taught her, her feet walking over damp ground as the wet foliage sank into her senses. Eventually she crossed the dark forest just as she had crossed the ginkgo path, landing herself at the foot of a familiar grove.

 

Here, the grass and flowers appeared untouched by the seasons as if winter had never passed through to begin with. Up ahead, she saw that familiar figure dressed in blue standing beside the shallow pool as her heart swelled within her chest at the sight of him. She was right to trust the centipede after all. 

 

“There you are.”

 

As she walked toward him, time seemed to pass slowly no matter her stride. It felt like an eternity before she finally found herself at the foot of what the Mukade had called the silent tree, and only then did Aglovale turn to face her, the sway in his hair the only sign of living movement amongst the inexplicable stillness of the grove.

 

“You’ve done well to come here, Djeeta,” he said to her.

 

She frowned, stepping over a gnarled root. “You make it sound like you wanted me to come,” she said. “What are you doing here to begin with, Lord Aglovale?”

 

He blinked slowly, expression as still as their surroundings. “I did not mean to inconvenience you,” he said. “I would have brought you here myself, but I needed more time to prepare. No matter… I was right to believe that you would have followed me wherever I went regardless.”

 

Before she could ask what he meant by any of that, Aglovale snapped his fingers and Djeeta yelped as a silken rope wrapped around her and strung her up on a branch by her wrists. Her toes danced upon the ground as she struggled to find her footing again, glancing frantically at Aglovale for help until she realized that he was merely watching her.

 

“Lord… Aglovale?” Her confusion quickly turned into annoyance. “Hey, let me down! I’m not in the mood—”

 

His expression remained unchanging. “There’s no time. The Jorougumo’s threads have finally failed and that levee will break, washing everything away,” he said. “The storm will resurrect and the cycle of calamity will start anew. Even then, the Jorougumo will remain eternal, but the one named Aglovale will…” He didn’t finish, but his silence did nothing to keep her heart from dropping into the pit of her stomach.

 

“What… what are you saying?” She fought against her bindings to no avail as she swung helplessly around instead. “What are you saying, Lord Aglovale!”

 

“I believe you’ve known, perhaps even before I did,” he said, eyes growing soft. “When the nights you spent at my bedside were besieged by nightmares, I could only listen, trapped within my own sleep and unable to soothe you. You were always so much sharper than I realized.” The wistfulness in his voice vanished as he remembered what he had meant to say. “The rites have broken, but this one remains as the last bastion of my will. The storm will not reach you here, Djeeta.” 

 

She stared at him, unable to look anywhere else as her heartbeat flooded her ears. Everything was moving too fast, too suddenly—just moments before she thought they’d be returning to the manor together and Lord Aglovale would continue his lessons from yesterday. Perhaps she’d ask him to join her for dinner and they’d have grilled fish with hot tea and sprouts from the garden. Perhaps they would have spent the night putting back together the loom before she finally mustered the courage to ask him to teach her how to use it. Perhaps they’d end their day with his head in her lap just like before, and he’d let her spend the night in his arms this time.

 

Evidently, he had different plans.

 

Aglovale closed his eyes, depriving her of even that. “I… I am fortunate. I do not know what I would have done if I could not confirm for myself that there was someone beyond the sea that knew who and where you were.”

 

Her blood ran cold. “Tor?” she asked, praying that he'd laugh at her for putting something forth so ridiculous, but he didn't.

 

He reopened his eyes instead. “Who else? You told me yourself that you had no one to look for you.” He sighed. “I am well aware that I am taking full advantage of that doctor’s gratitude, but what other choice do I have than to have someone else come here and take you away? You never would have left of your own accord no matter what I said, Djeeta.”

 

He was talking, and he was saying so much, but she still couldn’t understand.

 

”But we can figure this out together,” she tried, feeling like she was swinging at air. “Whatever it is, it’ll be okay, Lord Aglovale. So please, just let me go—“

 

“...Djeeta,” he said, letting her name roll softly off his tongue. “The judgement rendered upon me by all that has come before has made itself known, and it is my debt to pay alone.”

 

Debt. A debt. So that was what this was all about, and yet...?

 

“...You—” Her voice betrayed her. “You said you’d call on me. You said we’d do this together—”

 

“I lied.”

 

Djeeta stared at him, feeling the pieces of her heart crumble and fall between the space of her lungs. Everything was wrong, and because everything was wrong, she realized deep within that it had never been “nothing”. She slowly shook her head as a single tear trickled down her face, denying it. “Our oath… We made an oath,” she whispered, grasping at straws. “You promised you would never try and throw your life away again—”

 

“You broke that oath first when you refused to betray me that night,” Aglovale said softly. “But it was not just you, nor was it your fault. I realized that in order to deceive you, I had to deceive the forest and my own servants as well.

 

“This is it, Djeeta.”

 

There was no getting through to him, she realized as the dam broke and the rest of her tears spilled down her face. He waved his hand, not to wipe them, but to give the rope enough slack that she fell to her knees beside the pool. “My people will cease to be, and without their prayers, I will follow, but before then, I will end the cycle of annihilation once more,” he told her as the realization that he had lied to her was still sinking in. “Until that man returns for you, the pool is safe to drink from, and I have ordered the beasts of the forest to feed you.”

 

Aglovale lowered his gaze, slowly reaching toward the remains of his brother’s sword strapped to her side before he thought better of it. “...Take Percival with you. I never should have kept him here to begin with… not when it’s across the sea where his memory still lives.”

 

“Lord Aglovale,” she sobbed, her hands flopping uselessly as if all the strength had been sucked out of her body. “Lord Aglovale, please don’t. Please don’t do this, this isn’t real, it isn’t—”

 

She felt his eyes on her as she cried before she finally mustered enough strength to look back up and force his gaze to meet hers. She saw her anguish reflected back tenfold as Lord Aglovale could only stand there. Maybe she was right. Maybe none of this was real and they could return home to fair skies. He moved as if to reach for her one last time, but he thought better of that too, choosing to take a step back instead.

 

“...This concludes the appraisal,” he said. “You are no longer of worth to me as an offering.”

 

She could only watch as all that she had come to know turned on its head as Lord Aglovale untied the braid from his wrist and placed it upon the grass before her.

 

“Farewell, child.”

 

Djeeta threw herself after him just as he vanished in a flurry of silk only for the rope to send her crashing back against the ground.

 

“Liar!” she screamed, rolling onto her side as her tears and spit bled into the earth beneath her. “Liar, liar, liar—!”

 

Her howls filled the stillness of the grove, piercing enough to rival the storm rolling in where she could no longer reach, but even then, Lord Aglovale never returned to answer them.

Chapter 29

Aglovale gripped his chest as he dragged himself further and further away from the echoes of Djeeta’s screams. Each step felt like another betrayal—toward himself or toward her, there was no longer any meaning in the distinction.

 

Horrible pain ripping through his core, invisible talons dug themselves into his heart as those incessant whispers grew louder where Djeeta’s voice grew fainter. There was already a good amount of distance between them, but he still couldn’t shake himself of the raw hurt that flooded those eyes. He would never see her again, and that memory would be the last thing he would ever have of her.

 

And yet he still couldn’t understand what this agony was born of. Was his divinity imposing another violence upon him? Was this a part of the karmic retribution from the gods of before, or something else entirely? He had made his choice, but his heart continued to rebel against him while his lungs struggled to hold onto the air he breathed in—absurd, yet ultimately meaningless. There was no turning back. Any apology he uttered would be an injustice, for there would be nothing he could ever do in his power to make up for the fact that he had lied.

 

But at least… at least she would live, and she would remember him. It wasn’t so long ago that he couldn’t care less, that he found it preferable if she forgot all about the life he had given her at the manor, but he had become even more selfish since then as he found the smallest glimmer of solace in the possibility that he would stay in her memory forever… even if she hated him, and even if it tormented her.

 

It would be one last curse to her from the Jorougumo—a name he had grown into all too well.

 

Thick stormclouds flooded the sky, blotting out the sun as a veil of darkness fell over not only the entirety of the forest, but the mountains and rivers as well. The soil beneath his feet began to swell and within that moment, the ground split open and out gushed a horrid miasma like pus out of an infected wound. Fangs, claws, and writhing limbs dripping with black tar materialized, reaching for him before he sliced them into pieces with his silk.

 

From behind lunged a malformed beast dripping with that same taint, its own eyeballs rotting out of their sockets, teeth falling out of its gaping mouth, only for fresh replacements to sprout anew from its flesh before they too began to rot. Aglovale whirled around, decapitating the monster with a sharp pull of the thread before more of its kind emerged from the darkness between the trees like a pack of wolves.

 

Aglovale made quick work of the beasts before they had a chance to react, but there was no sign of reprieve as more fleshy amalgamations clawed their way up from beneath the forest floor, screaming for both vengeance and the forest god’s blood.

 

“Sending nameless deities after me to wear me out, are you now?” he asked, leaving behind himself a trail of carnage as he ripped through rotting flesh and bone alike. There was no doubt within his mind that the storm would ache to swallow his people as well, but if it was his failures that broke its bonds, then sewing the dam back together would at least buy them more time. “Send them then—we’ll dance together in hell.”

 

Aglovale wasn’t coming back.

 

Djeeta lay on her back, chest rising and falling as Percival’s sword lay not too far. She had tried and failed to use the blade to saw through Aglovale’s silk, but the edge only slipped uselessly against the woven threads. The silk was forgiving on her wrists, but otherwise indestructible as she tugged and stabbed and chewed on it with nothing to show for it but sore teeth and bruises where she had tripped and fell. She felt like an idiot for trying—of course it wouldn’t have worked or else Aglovale wouldn’t have let her keep the damn thing.

 

She let out another scream, her voice hoarse and guttural as she cursed the blue sky. Had it all been a waste then? After all they had overcome, he threw it away as he trampled the promises they made together and left her like it was nothing. How self-absorbed did he have to be to say his piece without even listening to what she had to say? Did he think he was being kind? Who was he to decide what was good for her?

 

Djeeta rolled over, beating her fists into the ground. The bits of soil and grass she sent flying everywhere seemed in its own right a rebellion against the picturesqueness of the grove. It was all she could do anyway, no matter how angry she was.

 

“You’re watching me, aren’t you!?” she shouted toward the forest, rising to her knees. “You’ve always been watching me, I know it! You were the one who sent me after the flower—!”

 

Nothing answered her but silence, not even a breeze, but Djeeta wasn’t done as she clenched her fists so tightly that they began to bleed. “Aglovale is going to—” she choked. She couldn’t say it as she thought of that terrible look of finality in his eyes. If she said it, then maybe that meant it was real, but what else was she supposed to do? “Aglovale is going to… he’s going to…”

 

She crumbled into herself, banging her head against the ground as fresh tears spilled down her face. “Help…” she cried, voice cracking down the middle. “Somebody, please help me…”

 

Here in the grove, there were no more journal pages to light the way, no records and no memoirs to answer her pleas. Not even the spirits of the manor could hear her cries and even if they did, what could they do? Aglovale had abandoned her.

 

She was one more breath away from despair before she heard it—a tiny crackle that sounded like thunder against the oppressive silence. She immediately raised her head to find a small flame burning gently in the grass before her, Percival’s memento the source.

 

Her confusion only lasted a moment, and it was more the fear that she might extinguish the little flame if she moved without thinking. Djeeta slowly raised her hands toward the warmth, the crimson flames reflecting from deep within her own eyes as a strange reassurance washed over her. Hopelessness that threatened to swallow her just moments before turned to ashes, the fire drying her tears.

 

“...Bailing me out just one more time, huh?” she asked hoarsely before she reached out to touch the scarlet jewel set within the crossguard. The gentle flame turned into an inferno, but she didn’t startle or panic like last time, instead letting the fire engulf her with its tendrils as it steadily burned away the silk that bound her to the tree.

 

And then just like that, the flames disappeared with hardly a goodbye. Djeeta didn’t waste any time scrambling to her feet as she tied the sword back to her waist, gathering her quiver and the arrows that slid out during the struggle.

 

But the flames were gone for only a few moments before she felt another presence step into the clearing. She stood still, looking behind her toward the forest to find a lone stag standing tall at the foot of the invisible path. It gazed upon her with its black eyes, antlered head held high as Djeeta wondered if she was imagining things again.

 

It looked familiar, but she couldn’t believe it—it would’ve been too much of a coincidence and the forest was full of deer just like it, yet she couldn’t completely shake the suspicion that they had met before. 

 

Djeeta took one step as if in question, and the animal flicked it ears, but otherwise remained in the same spot. Even as she continued walking toward it, it refused to flee, instead choosing to watch her with a sort of resigned calmness in its posture.

 

“...Will you help me?” she asked, somehow recalling the little centipede from before. Maybe this was a sign to abandon her skepticism. “The god of the forest is in trouble.”

 

The stag blinked slowly as if it understood her question. Another moment passed between them, then it lowered its head and bent its knees.

 

Djeeta didn’t need to be told twice as she climbed onto its back, the muskiness of the deer’s pelt somehow an old comfort to her senses as it straightened itself and regained its footing. 

 

She couldn’t help but wonder why the old Staghorn would return here of all places when she had done nothing to earn its trust, but she was seated upon its back all the same. The rest was a blur as it darted back into the thicket, darkness swallowing the light of the silent grove as they delved deeper into the woods together.

 

Djeeta smelled the storm before she heard it, windblades cutting through even the thickest parts of the forest as the sky roared with thunder overhead. Even the medusozoa were in disarray, swimming erratically through the air.

 

“God is coming.”

 

“...Haven’t you grown tired of our little games?”

 

“God is coming.”

 

“Where will you go now, child?”

 

She shielded her face from the spirits’ threadlike tentacles before the pair of them broke out of the forest, only for a sudden gust to nearly blast her off of the deer’s back. Rain pelted them both like hail, the deer struggling to regain its footing as the ground trembled and groaned beneath its hooves. Only when she buried her fingers into its fur did it settle back down before she threw her gaze up at the pouring sky, taking in the storm that Aglovale spoke of.

 

Lightning flashed, revealing the silhouette of a colossal shadow moving above the clouds. It circled the entirety of the forest almost leisurely until Djeeta lost sight of it when darkness engulfed the skies again. A thunderous roar then followed, but Djeeta refused to give into the encroaching dread.

 

“The village, take me to the village—” Djeeta told the stag. Every part of her wanted to find Aglovale first, but if the ground had yet to flood, then maybe the levee was still holding and if the levee was still holding, then she could get the villagers to higher ground. “Hurry!”

 

The stag leapt forward, cutting through the crosswind like a force of its own, and they both disappeared into the outer forest as the rain continued to pour.

 

Aglovale glanced down at where his right hand used to be, blood spurting out of his severed wrist as it mixed with the torrential downpour to form a river. His actual hand lay in pieces by his feet, sliced apart by his own silk after he had managed to thread together the dam moments before it burst. It was only a temporary solution, but all he could bargain for at this point was time anyhow.

 

Bone pushed itself out from the stump, sprouting like the branch of a tree before newly-birthed flesh wrapped around it and molded itself into the shape of a hand—a hand that had never known or would ever know Djeeta’s touch. The incessant ache returned like the plague that it was, but he only closed his fingers, breaking the joints in as he stepped over the remains of the miserable creatures that had gotten in his way.

 

His last exuviation being so recent was both a blessing and a curse with this form of his being so fragile. Regardless, a fresh instar meant sacrificing a handful of extremities was nothing to lose sleep over. But if Djeeta were here, she’d still be beside herself fussing over things that didn’t matter. Against his wishes, a memory of that summer day when he first brought her to the dam came back to him as he passed over the very spot where she had taken his hand for the first time, using her own sleeve to dab his wounds.

 

How many severed limbs would it take for him to forget her touch altogether? 

 

Faint laughter emanated from within as he took a deep breath and turned his head toward the sky. He only wished for silence as the spider’s whispers raked its claws against the inside of his skull, carving out a hole through which a horrid longing that wasn’t his own pushed itself inside. The great shadow continued to circle the forest.

 

“Old friend.” His lips moved slowly around the whispers. “Are you searching for your grave?”

 

Lightning flashed and thunder clapped as if to answer him. Somewhere else, he felt the great river churn with the storm’s blood. Another presence was rising from deep below the riverbed, answering the call as he felt every cell within his own body vibrate with that same primordial longing.

 

The peaceful days at the manor already felt so far away. He hardly recognized the man sitting beside that child in his mind’s eye as they talked about nothing while the seasons passed and the furnace crackled. Before she landed on his doorstep, he never would have described those days as “peaceful”, but they were, even when her arrival brought with it a whirlwind of troubles. The Ootsubame’s spirit crowed, pulling his nine eyes back into the world of gray.

 

The one named Aglovale had never crossed paths with the swallow until now, the ancient storm just another legend his mother would indulge him with while he laid his head in her lap as a young boy. But the whispers grew louder as the wind howled, that which mortals called “divinity” flowing through his veins as he turned to leave for that destined battleground.

 

From the stag’s back, Djeeta watched as the sea of clouds began to split down its middle. The people of the sea and their legends claimed that their god took the form of a bird, but what began to descend on the earth looked like anything but.

 

It was a colossal mass of swirling darkness that was bigger than both the Jorougumo and Oomukade combined, its shadow nearly large enough to eclipse the mountain. On either side flapped two planular forms that vaguely resembled wings, and within its core, Djeeta saw a ball of flickering white light—was it lightning?

 

The trees that flanked their path were nearly bent backwards as a terrible wind swept across the forest. The stag stumbled again to regain its footing before it bowed its head to force its way through the howling storm as Djeeta held on for dear life, unable to tear her eyes away from the sky while a sharp ringing took root within her ears.

 

Then she felt it—a lapse in the terror wrought by the shadow. It only lasted an instant before an invisible blade from the cover of the trees cut through both rain and wind alike to cleave off one of the Ootsubame’s wings.

 

The storm god howled, or perhaps it was only the wind itself, but the single blow was enough to send it retreating back above the clouds. Djeeta blinked, daring to let go long enough to wipe the rain out of her eyes before she broke away from her awe and glanced at the riverbed that lead to the village. For all the rain that had fallen so far, the river remained dry enough—did that mean Lord Aglovale was able to stop the dam from crumbling? Was he still out there, fighting alone against that nightmare?

 

She didn’t have time to question anything else when her ride broke past the threshold of the village. It seemed like it’d been years since she last stepped foot here, years since she was just another wide-eyed traveler hobbling off the ship and wondering what the people here had in store for the one who had answered their call. Swinging herself off of the stag’s back, Djeeta hit the cobblestone running, banging on the nearest doors and screaming that they needed to get out of the village before moving on when no one answered. The alleyways were flooded but otherwise empty, as were the streets. Thankfully no one was stupid enough to be loitering around in this weather, but she needed to find who was in charge, and quick.

 

Djeeta didn’t stop for breath even when she reached the center of town. Up ahead was the monastery, and as her eyes climbed the outer fixtures carved in the shape of twisted branches in homage to the forest god, something clicked.

 

She broke into a sprint and kicked open the doors, splitting the wooden bolt that kept them shut to find where the villagers had disappeared off to.

 

Wind swept through the nave of the building as several onlookers regarded her with both confusion and terror. Families clung to one another, adults and children alike shoved in every corner of the grand hall. Petrified eyes followed the disheveled young woman dripping mud and water like she was some kind of feral animal, but she didn’t have eyes for them. 

 

Past the benches was the old man who had lied through his teeth and betrayed her. Crowded toward the back of the hall were the faces she recognized as those complicit, but she brushed it all away.

 

“You… After all this time, you’re alive?”

 

Like the others, the chieftain regarded her with his mouth agape. She must’ve looked terrible, but at least he recognized her.

 

“A flood is coming, and everything will be destroyed,” Djeeta said, ignoring the question and projecting her voice throughout the heart of the monastery. “All of you have to leave this place now.”

 

Silence fell over the huddled congregation. Djeeta waited with mounting impatience, ready to shout this time before someone else finally spoke up from beside the chieftain.

 

“Don’t be absurd.” the man said with a sneer, dressed in a priest’s garb. “We are still in the golden age of our god, and yet you barge in here and blaspheme his protection? Under his eye, there can be no floods!”

 

Right, that’s the thing isn’t it? Djeeta thought through clenched teeth as hushed whispers fell over the people, the villagers, desperate for any shred of comfort, nodding at the priest’s words. 

 

“This storm is different!” she snapped back. “Everything’s gone wrong and the dam might be holding, but it can’t hold for any longer! If you don’t leave right now, then the flood will drag you back out to sea just like your ancestors—!”

 

The man opened his mouth to argue, but the chieftain raised his hand to silence him.

 

“You’re correct… this storm is different, farsea traveler,” the old man rasped over the muffled howls from outside. “But what I wish to know is… why are you still alive?”

 

Djeeta couldn’t believe her ears. The entire village could be minutes away from going under, and this ratchety old man was concerned about that?

 

Gray eyes narrowed as the other must’ve took her stunned silence for an admission of guilt. “You are the real anomaly here. Is this not your doing?”

 

She was incredulous. “What are—?”

 

“That’s right! This is happening because of you, isn’t it?” A woman stood up from the masses, clutching the worn hem of her clothing while her eyes burned with accusation. “If the offering is still alive, then this is punishment, this must be punishment from our Lord—”

 

Loud murmurs rippled through the crowd while Djeeta watched in horror as the villagers continued nodding to themselves as if they had come to some kind of realization. She never thought it’d be easy convincing anyone, much less an entire town, to abandon their home and everything they knew, but she didn’t realize how quickly things could go wrong either. Someone threw an empty can at her, another a leather pouch, and then followed a barrage of random objects, but the jeers didn’t stay jeers for long when a man broke free to grab her by the arm and drag her toward the altar.

 

She elbowed him off of her with ease, but more appeared to take his place, hands making a grab for her as she realized that they were intending to rectify this “mistake”.

 

“You did this!”

 

“Get her!”

 

“Bring her up, hurry, hurry—!”

 

“You should be dead!”

 

Djeeta pushed and shoved, struggling to keep her head above the mob as she locked eyes with the chieftain. “Get off! You’ve got it all wrong—” Another elbow, and then a punch just to get a body off of her. “If you kill me, nothing will change!”

 

“What other reason is there!” someone demanded to the wave of jeers as Djeeta bit down on a hand that lunged for her throat. With one hand glued to her sword’s hilt to keep it from being stolen, she felt her footing begin to slip as she scrambled to find a way to get through to even just one of them. “If Lord Jorougumo accepted his tribute, then none of this would be happening!”

 

“Lord Aglovale is fighting for your lives—!” Djeeta snarled, silencing them all a second time. “He is out there, by himself, holding up the dam and fighting off that monster so you all don’t get blown away, and yet you’re here, losing your minds because you think killing one person is your answer?”

 

The villagers suddenly pulled away and formed a small circle around her. Only when she saw the old man descend from the foot of the altar, white as a ghost, did she realize why.

 

“That name… How do you know that name…?” His voice trembled, eyes wide, but he was alone. Everybody else was just as confused as she was by the sudden shift in energy within the room.

 

Djeeta swallowed, pursing her lips together as she turned to face him straight on. “I am here… because of Lord Aglovale. I am here for him, for all of you.” She felt her eyes soften. They were frightened, and truth was, so was she, but these were the same people that somebody like Tor had placed his faith in, and so she couldn’t falter. “Please, I can explain later, but you have to believe me.”

 

The old man’s eyes studied her from head to toe. Djeeta followed them to find herself still covered in mud, a broken twig falling out of the mess that was her hair. But filthy as she was, the silken robe that Lord Aglovale had gifted her remained pristine, shimmering even in the shadow cast by the storm. She tore her eyes away from the blossoms stitched into her sleeve by his own hand to gaze back at the chieftain with fresh determination.

 

“What did Lord Jorougumo tell you?” he asked her, the implication bringing another wave of hushed silence over his people. 

 

“...He told me that a flood was coming, and that without you, he would disappear,” she replied. “But he’s still out there, buying every single one of you time to escape with his own blood.”

 

“The tribute is lying,” the same priest from before snarled. “Our god is immortal, have you forgotten? There is no flood or storm that can overcome him.”

 

Djeeta shot him a glare sharp enough to cut, to which he cowered at before doubling down with stubborn petulance. The townspeople again started to murmur amongst themselves—they wanted to believe that they had nothing to fear with their god protecting them, but the young woman was dressed in the Jorougumo’s regalia, was she not? Could she not be speaking the truth?

 

“Lord Jorougumo… needs us?” a timid voice spoke up from the masses. “But what can we do for him?”

 

Djeeta turned toward them, her gaze sweeping around the room as she tried to think of what they could do. She scoured her memories—in Lord Aglovale’s own words, what shaped a god? “...Your prayers,” she finally answered after a moment. “Don’t pray just for yourself, but for each other. None of you will make it out of here alone—none of you can make it out of here alone, but I know that Lord Aglovale will listen to your wishes as long as they’re born from the love of your neighbors.”

 

Djeeta let her words sink in. It wasn’t like Aglovale told her all of that himself so maybe she improvised a bit, or maybe it was simply faith. She glanced at the chieftain who seemed to be taking it in just like the others, and then at the priest who was flustered to the point of his ears turning scarlet.

 

“Don’t lis—!” He was quickly hushed by his fellow townspeople, someone from the crowd grabbing him by the back of his collar to pull him back down. No one else spoke up after that.

 

“Is there a place for your people to evacuate to?” she asked. Amongst the villagers were the elderly and small children. Even just walking upstream would be far from straightforward, especially in this storm.

 

“...Uphill toward the valleys are the ruins of the old kingdom,” the chieftain said. “Part of the castle is still standing, so we may shelter there, but if the storm topples even that then I’m afraid there is no other place for us to go.” The old man grimaced. “Traveler—no, Djeeta—must we truly abandon our home? Is this truly what Lord Jorougumo wishes of us?”

 

“He wishes for you to live,” she said. “Anything can be rebuilt as long as you’re alive, so please… please be strong.”

 

The other finally resigned himself to what she was saying, the rest of his people following in his footsteps. Djeeta didn’t waste time, immediately stepping forward to help up as many people as she could reach, ensuring that whoever had difficulty walking on their own had somebody to hold onto. She, alongside a handful of others who had stepped up to help her, quickly herded everyone back outside through the doors of the monastery.

 

As Djeeta broke through the last of the crowd, lightning flashed along the horizon. Villagers, momentarily forgetting what they were supposed to be doing, watched the sky with their mouths agape as the stormclouds began to coalesce into a whirlpool swirling overhead. Djeeta felt it again, her heart nearly stopping as she shouted, “Go! Move! There’s no time—!”

 

Sure enough, the storm god broke through the gray once again, talons sprouting from the swirling darkness that made up its body as it swooped down and ripped up a portion of the forest by its roots. Djeeta hissed as a sharp pain shot through the bones of her right arm, but she didn’t waste another moment dwelling on it as she herded the people as quickly as she could out of town.

 

A distant crack deeper than the clap of thunder cut through the howling wind and stopped her in her tracks as the people continued climbing their way uphill. She knew that sound as the memory of Lord Aglovale closing the dam came back to her. Whirling around, she realized that everything that she was afraid of was taking shape as she caught sight of the treeline shaking in the distance, telltale tremors running beneath her feet. Heart beating out of control, she hurriedly pulled as many people as she could up the path while she climbed back down, making sure that there wasn’t anyone left behind. 

 

The levees were already flooding, water flowing into the streets from beyond the grove as she saw the stag that brought her here racing over the cobblestone with two scrawny children clinging to its saddle for dear life. Djeeta cursed, sliding lower down as a low groaning began to sound from where she knew the levees were.

 

Floodwaters up to its knees, the stag was forced to wade the rest of the way, the children on its back too frightened to even cry as muddy water lapped at its underbelly. It seemed like eternity by the time they reached the base of the hill, Djeeta leaping down just as another loud crack sounded from the levee.

 

Utter silence followed.

 

And then the ground began to shake. Just past the edge of town, she saw a great wave sweep in from around the bend, crushing the trees in its path before it crashed into the outermost buildings and swallowed them whole. Front hooves scrambled over mud and rock as the stag struggled to find a grip before the water could reach it, grappling with the extra weight on its back. 

 

Teetering on the edge, she grabbed the deer by its antlers and with a roar, dragged the animal onto the hill an instant before the ground it was standing on was swallowed up by rushing floodwaters. The homes left behind only lasted a minute longer before they too caved into the flood, generations of peoples’ livelihoods swept away into the forest. All that could still be seen was the belltower of the monastery with the rest buried beneath muddied waters filled to the brim with wreckage of their town.

 

“I’ve got you, I’ve got you, don’t worry, I’ve got you—” The children looked even worse up close, their legs caked with mud, skin pale and gaunt while they were dressed in nothing but rags. Grimacing, Djeeta cast her gaze out toward what remained of the village as the water continued to rise, praying that there were no more forgotten children.

 

“Let’s get you up, come on—” She gave the stag’s rump a firm slap, encouraging it to climb further along to join the people who could only watch helplessly as the remains of their homes were carried away like broken twigs floating down a stream. A woman sobbed as she was lead further away over the hill, others watching Djeeta catch her breath with their hands covering their mouths, thinking for a moment that they had lost her to the floodwater.

 

The Ootsubame crowed, its shadowy wings nearly eclipsing the sky before it perched on top of the mountain, dislodging chunks of rock that were as big as the very houses its flood had destroyed. Djeeta winced as her hand throbbed with another kind of pain. Not once did the old god look their way, yet the storm had taken everything from these people without a single thought or sliver of consideration for their suffering.

 

She looked over her shoulder, watching as the townspeople leaned over the edge to pull the frightened children from the stag’s back, the wild animal’s affinity for the young woman dressed in the Jorougumo’s silk cementing their confidence in her even amidst their grief.

 

Respite didn’t last long, however, when the sky rumbled again.

 

Another blow from the forest ripped off one of the Ootsubame’s wings once more, but the storm god didn’t flee this time as its fleshless body began to twist and convulse before another took its place. Lightning dotted the horizon as thunder swept over the land like the roar of triumphant laughter, and Djeeta made up her mind.

 

Someone called for her. “Traveler, hurry—the ruins are still a ways away from here.”

 

She shook her head, gently brushing off the stragglers’ concerns. “Go on ahead, there’s still something else that I can do.” She placed her hand back over the hilt of her sword as she gave them one last look, this time with a smile. “Keep Lord Aglovale in your hearts. No one needs to die today.”

Chapter 30

The Ootsubame’s talons broke through the surface of the lake, tearing through the water as if desperately searching for something, but its claws came up empty as it beat its wings.

 

Aglovale watched from the shore of the great lake that was formed by their ancient battle. The storm whipped his hair about, the silk lines woven throughout the entire body of the forest swallowed up by the swelling river that was determined to deprive the Jorougumo of his eyes.

 

“It’s not there,” he told the shadow of a god. “A thousand years was plenty enough time for your bones to turn to dust.”

 

The swallow was no longer the size of a mountain, having been whittled down to a more manageable size with each wing he cleaved off. However, his silk was no longer cutting as deep as before, nor were his blows landing as heavy. 

 

“And you…” he addressed the rising waters that cloaked his land, the murmuring spirit of a second god resounding from the deep. “Your body is your rebellion.”

 

Both turned their hateful eyes on him, Aglovale quickly leaping from the ground to escape the river god’s all-devouring maw. The Ootsubame split the sky with its indignant shriek, mourning the loss of its vessel. Even gods had no choice but to bow to the passage of time, their bodies and their spirits destined to coalesce at that singular destination.

 

He too was no exception, but there was one more thing he needed to do. The ancient longing within him demanded it.

 

Aglovale wrapped the storm incarnate in another line of silk, the swirling stormclouds fighting against the thread before he hurled it into the side of the mountain. The momentum suspended him within the air before the Uzumaki lashed out at him with one of its many tentacles, nearly taking off one of his own limbs before he caught the lash of the whip with his other hand. The gelatinous appendage quivered with both fear and realization when the river god tried to take its arm back, but Aglovale held on.

 

“You’ve no authority here, child,” he said lowly, the scarlet of his eyes piercing even the darkest depths of the river’s core. “Begone.”

 

The weight of his divinity severed the line of the Uzumaki’s own magic, and its body was like a spool of thread running across the floor as it became undone and collapsed within itself. The waters that had swallowed his forest began to slowly recede, but his troubles were far from over when the Ootsubame dislodged itself from the side of the mountain, crowned by a halo of swirling miasma as the full weight of its grudge sank its fangs into him.

 

Aglovale hit the rocky shore of the lake, his body carving a gash upon the earth before he found his footing, but the Ootsubame was upon him again, the lash of the storm itself sending him flying into the forest this time as trees toppled from the force of the blow.

 

He could change, and perhaps his threads would be more obedient then, but he would no longer be the one named Aglovale. He felt his lungs collapse as he collided with the base of the mountain, boulders crashing into the ground around him. But what did that matter? The one named Aglovale was destined to vanish by storm’s end anyway. But he had a reason, didn’t he? A reason for clinging onto this form.

 

What reason was that again?

 

The Ootsubame crash landed as Aglovale bound it to the earth, inhaling deeply to reinflate his lungs, but the old god broke through those threads as well as it continued its rampage, uprooting ancient trees in its takeoff. From above rained the storm god’s wrath, from below, revenants bubbled up and sank their teeth and claws into whatever part of him they could reach, their rot-infested tongues digging into his wounds before he banished them all back to hell with a sweep of his arm.

 

But his silk had become brittle. Aglovale grit his teeth together—their battle could rage on for days and nights, but there would be no forest or mountain or people to rule over by the end of it.

 

A giant fissure opened up, splitting through the base of the mountain while the Ootsubame continued shrieking overhead. More ghosts of long-decayed gods fountained out of the cracks, their hands ripping at his sleeves while the earth groaned and bellowed and opened its jaws as it too ached to swallow a god. Aglovale sliced the wretched monsters to pieces, only for more to sprout from the ichor of the fallen. He scowled. He was facing an eon’s worth of karma—the fallout of the divine burden that the Jorougumo had inherited, and these fallen deities had centuries to nurture their hatred of the silk that imprisoned them.

 

He abandoned them, and the swallow caught him in its claws, the two joining together in a battle of fangs and talons as they ripped into each other. The spider’s maw split from his flesh and sank its fangs into the swirling spirit of the storm god, to which it howled before it hurled him against the rocky cliff overlooking the lake. Mud and rocks showered the water below, and before he could find his footing again, the Ootsubame buried one set of talons into his chest, and the other into his eyes and mouth.

 

Pain was a bygone thing as the storm god slowly gouged out the forest god’s eyes, one curved nail piercing through the roof of his mouth to lock his skull in a vice. Blood bubbled from around his tongue as he felt the claws in his chest crush his ribs, gouge his lungs, and squeeze his heart, the Ootsubame pinning him to the cliffside with no way for him to escape.

 

He had known that his mortal guise would never last, but he didn’t think it would end with him gargling pathetically around the claw slotted inside his mouth as he choked on his own blood. He felt the Jorougumo’s agonized thrashing within him, but the Ootsubame left him no quarter as very slowly, it began to pull.

 

A low groan resounded from deep within his flesh, all the weight and pressure of the storm god’s grip falling on the bridge of his neck as he felt his vertebrae slowly detach from one another. It was trying to rip his head off, he realized, and he couldn’t help but feel a tinge of twisted amusement at the Ootsubame’s enduring taste for savagery.

 

He felt the fear thrumming within the lines of his silk as hundreds upon thousands of threads quickly wove themselves into his flesh. The Ootsubame pulled, his neck gradually splitting open before the silk pulled it back shut only for it to rip open again. The claws buried inside him refused to relent, and his flesh continued to heal and tear over and over as his blood painted a crimson river from the earth to the sky.

 

Amidst this stalemate, Aglovale felt something else creep into the gaping hole that was his chest, tendrils formed from the Ootsubame’s miasma seeping past his shredded lungs to probe his most secluded core. Even in his complete and utter blindness, he could visualize those tendrils wrapping around the glimmering heart of his divinity, white light spilling out from his torso as the Ootsubame began to dig it out of him.

 

“Wretched spider,” the storm god finally addressed him, its voice a deep thrum that shook the spirit. “Yield this, and allow me to grant you eternal peace.”

 

Even when he had no eyes left to see, the light of his own divinity was blinding as it was pulled further and further out from his core.

 

“You and I both know there is no peace that awaits creatures like us,” he replied. “I will join you in hell one day, but today is not that day.”

 

He was running out of silk as his neck continued to tear, the Ootsubame casting him in its shadow.

 

“This mortal guise is nothing more than a robe you wear, and this robe can so easily be discarded,” the storm god said before it turned its eyes and looked not at the Jorougumo, but at him. “The one named Aglovale… is there not a place that you wish to be?”

 

That gave him pause, the storm of his agony fading from his senses as he stood within that sea of white light. A place. What place was that again?

 

Aglovale instinctively looked down at his hands, turning them over as his eyes followed the path of his veins. Something in the distance caught his eye, and when he looked back up, he felt a great pit open from deep within his chest.

 

Long red hair swayed gently in an invisible breeze, a visage smiling softly at him from across the distance. Free of pain and fear, his mother was just as he remembered her beyond her last moments, glowing with warmth and crowned by an aura that brought back to him years of those most precious memories. 

 

And from his memory, his eyes made out the shape of his father and brothers. Percival glowed with the same warmth as their mother, an enduring flame in the darkness, while Lamorak… Lamorak gazed upon him with the utmost clarity in his eyes, not a single touch of regret or resentment in his smile.

 

“…A trick,” Aglovale managed to say. The longing within him was more unbearable than the feeling of talons digging inside his skull, but even then he couldn’t spare himself and tear his gaze away.

 

A small bird alighted upon a nearby branch, its perch bobbing gently beneath its weight as it flicked its notched tail.

 

“I will shoulder all of your sins,” it told him. “I am a god who will supersede the Jorougumo, and so I shall free you.”

 

The spider had deceived the swallow, and so now the swallow intended to deceive him in turn. He knew in his heart of hearts what this was, but still he wanted to bask in this moment of stillness and run his fingers over the grooves of that promised comfort. He wanted to count the seconds and take in their faces for just a little longer, searching for the truth in what his eyes were showing him. But he had been here many times before, and he was not so foolish as to give into daydreams.

 

But it was a pleasant dream nonetheless.

 

He turned his eyes on the interloper. “Do you believe you are the first to try and sway me through temptation?”

 

“Maybe not, but I am the first god,” it replied. “And what use does a god have for lies?”  

 

Those words were familiar, Aglovale thought with a mirthless smile. “I cannot go where they have gone,” he said. “Had I not accepted this long ago, then I would have long given into despair.”

 

He let their smiling faces fade from the corner of his eyes, the open arms of his mother going empty as she too disappeared.

 

The little bird tilted its head, regarding him with its beady eyes. “...Die then, Lord Jorougumo,” it twittered.

 

Aglovale was thrust back into a world of pain, raw agony washing over him as his silk finally met its end. With nothing to tie his flesh back together, he felt the sinew in his neck pull and snap, his veins and arteries straining against the Ootsubame’s grip as his head was inches away from being torn off altogether. Divinity screaming as the writhing tendrils slowly consumed it, Aglovale buried his fingers into the Ootsubame’s body as another fissure opened up beneath them.

 

One was meant to take the other’s place by the battle’s end, but perhaps this land had no use for any god at all.

 

Before he could follow through with that thought, however, he felt a thrum in the air, a break in the rhythm of the clash between deities. The Ootsubame violently wrenched its talons out of his skull as it let out an agonized scream, upper body struggling with something he couldn’t make out without his silk until new eyes pushed themselves out from deep within his sockets.

 

He rapidly blinked the blood and gore out of his eyes to find Djeeta straddling the Ootsubame by its head, having plunged Percival’s sword into its eye while the god thrashed around trying to throw her off. She was dressed in clothes that weren’t from him, the silvery pink robe he had spun for her flapping in the wind like a flag from her waist. 

 

Words failed him. How was she here? How did she escape? The crimson flash of the broken blade caught his eye, and Aglovale felt the first notes of rage bubble from within his chest.

 

How dare you defy me, Percival—

 

“Pull yourself together, Lord Aglovale—!” Djeeta screamed at him from the Ootsubame’s head as she wrenched out the sword and stabbed the shrieking god with it again. Black blood squirted out and fell into the fissure below, the earth groaning for more as parts of the lake began to flow into its open maw.

 

With no silk left, Aglovale had no choice but to use his hands and pry the Ootsubame’s talons out of his chest. Pulling the last claw free, he immediately buried one hand into the rocky face of the cliff while he held onto the storm god with the other to keep it from taking to the sky with Djeeta still clinging to its head. Meanwhile, Djeeta had anchored herself in place with her thighs, freeing her robe from her waist as she reached into the open air with her right arm.

 

He couldn’t even begin to grasp what she was trying to do until he simply felt it, her fingertips catching the end of one of the threads that still led back to him. Aglovale was dumbfounded. How could she see it, much less touch the end of it? How could she wield it with the same dexterity as his own as she guided the silk to her streaming robe? Only when she touched the end of one thread to another did Aglovale realize what she was doing, the clarity that hit him wrenching a harsh laugh from deep within his chest.

 

It was strange. It took him several days and nights to spin the silk that made up the robe he had adorned her with. Hundreds of hours of labor and love—was it love? He didn’t know—and a fraction of a second to undo it all as Djeeta finally let go and hit the face of the cliff. The peach blossoms unraveled at that very moment, casting the Ootsubame in a net of shining silk before he spun his wrist and wrapped the god in a cocoon it could not escape.

 

“No—!” it shrieked as it fell toward the earth, thrashing against its bindings to no avail. “Not again, not this cursed robe again! Wretched spider! You wretched—!”

 

Aglovale wondered if it was a coincidence as he felt something surge from within him, the murmurs of his people flowing through his veins as he weaved from thin air the seal to the Ootsubame’s second prison. The storm god howled the last of its curses, not a single shred of its resentful miasma escaping his silk as he cast it into the yawning fissure below.

 

“Go quietly, god of storms.”

 

The revenants of times bygone emerged from the crag and embraced the fallen god, their howls and screams becoming one before fading altogether as they dragged the Ootsubame back into the void deep below the earth.

 

And then all was still. Darkness gave into darkness, the first beams of sunlight piercing through the cracks in the sky as Aglovale plucked Djeeta from the cliffside and made his way back down to shore.

 

Water lapped at their ankles when Djeeta finally found her feet on solid ground. Aglovale stood before her, dyed crimson by his own blood from head to toe. For a moment, they only stared at one another as the stormclouds above began to disperse, light from the setting sun scattering across the surface of the lake.

 

The Ootsubame was gone, and he was alive. Djeeta took one step closer, and then another, unsure if he might disappear again.

 

And then she punched him in the face.

 

Aglovale turned his head, probably to keep her from breaking her hand. That only made her angrier as she punched him again with her other fist, only for him to do the exact same.

 

“You left me,” she said, her voice swelling with fury until she was practically screaming at him. “You left me, you left me, you left me—!”

 

She grabbed the collar of his robes with one hand, beating his chest with the other—stabbing giant monsters in the face was one thing, but this was like punching a wall. Djeeta swallowed thickly. She hated how solid he was, and she hated how quick she was to tear up—if she cried, then what was she but the child that he thought she was? “You trusted someone you met once more than you trusted me,” she choked out. “What if—” What if Tor never came? What if his ship sank at sea, and she’d be left forgotten in the grove forever, never knowing what became of either of them?

 

If she hadn’t come, then it would’ve been him. It would’ve been him, not the Ootsubame, who would’ve been dragged into that hole and buried alive. The storm god was gone, yes, but how close had he been to losing his head before she showed up? And didn’t it hurt? Having all his fleshy bits scooped out of him like pudding? Why was he so determined to take the worst possible path? Things didn’t have to be this painful. Why didn’t he understand that? Why didn’t he trust her?

 

The full weight of his betrayal finally hit her. Why didn’t he trust her?

 

Aglovale finally spoke. “Djeeta—”

 

“No!” She threw his arm off of her, taking a step back. “You don’t get to say my name and turn your cheek and pretend that you care. You don’t get to tell yourself that you did this for me, that any of this was for my own good!”

 

Aglovale lowered his gaze as if he had the gall to be ashamed. Djeeta stared at him, chest heaving, and when he was apparently sure that she wasn’t about to say anything else, he spoke again.

 

“What do you wish of me?”

 

Djeeta felt the tears well in her eyes. “…I don’t know,” she said as they streamed down her face, her spirit sagging with defeat. He wasn’t worth the effort anymore to keep them in. She didn’t care. She just didn’t care. “I wanted you to trust me. I thought—I thought you did.”

 

She wanted him to keep his promise. She wanted to be somebody who could stand by his side and overcome whatever the world threw at them. Djeeta’s shoulders fell as she watched her tears disappear into the waves beneath her. But that wasn’t his fault, was it? After her mistakes forced him to break out of his hibernation, was it really such a strange thing for him to think that she’d only get in his way? If she was the one who broke their promise first, then could she really blame him? But what should she have done instead?

 

Aglovale finally closed the distance between them, prepared to bear the brunt of her fists again, but Djeeta didn’t have the energy to even toss him off when he took her into his arms. “It is not your fault,” he said as she took a deep, shuddering breath, woefully frustrated and embarrassed that he could read her mind even now. “There was nothing you could have done to change my mind back then.”

 

He held her tightly, her tears leaching into his silk and blotting away the dried blood.

 

“...I’m sorry, Djeeta,” he murmured more gently. “I was willing to say whatever it took, even if it caused you great pain. I thought I could accept your anger as long as I had my way, but it appears… it appears that I cannot bear even that. I’m sorry.”

 

She shut her eyes. Couldn’t he have gotten angry? Couldn’t he have made a grab for her so that she could punch him again instead of whatever this was? It was so hard fighting him otherwise when she was so tired. She had just climbed a mountain after hacking through hordes of monsters, jumped off a cliff, and stabbed a god a few times after all.

 

“...Apologize to me for the rest of your life then,” she mumbled into his shoulder. “But… But you have to make it count. You have to promise me that you’ll live, that you won’t throw your life away like this ever again—”

 

“Very well—”

 

“—I’m not done.” She broke free and grabbed him again by his collar, pulling him down so that she could look him in the eye. “I want you to get this through your head, Lord Aglovale. Don’t forget that if you break this promise ever again, that I’ll follow you to wherever you’ve run just like what I’ve done here today, and there won’t be anything you can do to stop me unless you kill me first.” Not once did she stammer or look away—he needed to know that she meant it, that she would have jumped after him if he had fallen in that hole. “That is what I wish.”

 

Aglovale held her gaze as she let her demands sink into him, the infallible god of the forest finding himself at a loss of what to say to the one who’s yet to bend to divine will.

 

“...Very well,” he said again after a moment. “It is not such a small thing to quell your anger, is it?”

 

Djeeta still didn’t look away. She couldn’t read minds the way he could, but that didn’t stop her from trying as she searched for any sliver of deceit or uncertainty in those scarlet depths. Aglovale didn’t pull away, letting her do whatever she needed to do to satisfy the preconditions of their promise. After a while, she finally sighed, slowly letting him go and giving him space as the water lapped at the back of her heels.

 

“The storm’s over now, isn’t it?” She took the moment to take the rest of him in. Blood stained his hair and skin, covering his face like a mask. His chest was whole again and she had to be grateful for that, but even as he stood before her in one piece, she couldn’t forget the sound of the Ootsubame painting the side of the cliff with his guts. “Was that really so hard, Lord Aglovale?”

 

The corner of his lips twitched despite himself as he offered a hand to her. She was still mad, but that was a given—if he was going to stay by her side this time, then she needed to give him something to beg for after all. Sighing again to herself, Djeeta raised her own hand, poised to take it, only to find that a thin and translucent tentacle had coiled around her arm.

 

“Hello,” rung a bell.

 

Before either of them could react, colossal jaws closed all around her, clamping down as they dragged her into the water.

 

Djeeta fought against the invisible tentacles dragging her deeper into the depths of the lake. The further she was pulled from the surface, the colder the water got, needles from the icemelt stabbing into every inch of her skin.

 

Where was Aglovale? Was he okay? Or did the Uzumaki catch them both with their guard down? Djeeta cursed her carelessness as she flailed about, her fingers passing uselessly through the watery appendages—she knew there were two gods, so why did she think for even a moment that everything was over?

 

The river god’s grip dragged her through the water before it flipped her around and forced her to take in the yawning bowels of the lake. Only when the great expanse threatened to swallow her whole did she hear it.

 

It was a voice, crying softly in the emptiness. Djeeta stilled in order to listen better, wondering whose voice it could even be in a place like this. Forgetting that she was in the middle of fighting for her life, she used her arms to part the water and swam deeper toward the source of it, the tentacles loosening their hold without letting go altogether.

 

It was the voice of a child, she realized as the crying grew louder. Scanning the stretch of emptiness for its owner, Djeeta spotted the tiniest flicker of pale blue light. Against her better judgement, she kicked her feet and kept swimming until the small light was floating right before her. Up close, she could finally make out its words.

 

“I don’t want to be eaten.”

 

She reached for the ember with both hands as the pressure of the lake closed in on her.

 

“I don’t want to die.”

 

Bubbles trickled from her mouth as she carefully scooped the light into her hands. For a moment, she merely held it, not quite sure what to do next until curiosity got the better of her. Cracking her hands open just a sliver, she peered inside to make out the shape of a little tadpole wriggling in the hollow of her palm, its glowing skin so translucent that she could see its spiral innards and the little heart beating inside its chest. 

 

It was a tiny thing, the whole of its body smaller than her thumb. Blinking slowly, Djeeta brought the river god closer to her chest as she wondered how such a little creature could summon such devastating floods.

 

“There, there,” she murmured. “Don’t cry.”

 

It whimpered softly. “I don’t want to die.”

 

“You won’t die,” Djeeta said to the tadpole. “It’s over now, there’s no one coming for you.”

 

The crying didn’t stop as it wiggled helplessly in her palm.

 

“If the spider catches me, he’ll eat me again. ”

 

She tilted her head. “That spider is gone, ” she said. “Lord Aglovale might be scary, but he won’t eat you—he’s a kind god at heart. I promise.”

 

The tadpole stopped wiggling, its tiny mouth opening and closing as even tinier tears escaped its eyes and floated into the nothingness above.

 

“How do you know?”

 

Djeeta mustered a smile as best she could, the only shred of warmth that existed within the depths of the lake. “He didn’t eat me, and I was his offering.”

 

The tadpole held her gaze as she cupped its tiny glass form. For what seemed like eternity, the two of them floated in place, suspended in total darkness before the river god’s body resigned itself to her grasp and vanished from her hands altogether, taking with it its throes of destruction.

 

Now, she was alone.

 

The tentacles disappeared alongside the Uzumaki, releasing Djeeta into the void as she remembered where she was and that she needed air. In total silence and total darkness, there was no way for her to tell which way was up as panic spread within her like wildfire. She kicked her feet, clawed with her hands, struggling in the belly of utter stillness while her lungs felt like seconds away from exploding.

 

She’d been here before, hadn’t she? Back then, she heard voices in the river without knowing who they belonged to, but she had forgotten all about them the moment Aglovale had dragged her back to shore.

 

He was so angry back then, and now that she knew him a little better, she realized that he was somebody who rarely got angry at all. 

 

The last bubble inside her mouth broke as she felt a stabbing pain flood her lungs and skull, the cold finally leaching all the way into her bones. This was ridiculous. Everything was heavy and she was already so exhausted. She couldn’t bring herself to fight anymore, but maybe that was alright because Aglovale would find her again and drag her out a second time, and she could ask him all about the voices from the river.

 

Eyelids growing even heavier than the rest of her, Djeeta somehow found the strength to turn her eyes toward the faint light shining overhead. She shouldn’t have tried to hurt him, she realized. She was mad, but that wasn’t really an excuse, was it? 

 

Djeeta closed her eyes as she felt the sun reach her face. The lake didn’t feel so cold anymore as she took a deep breath and filled her lungs with something that felt like warmth. The storm was gone and they survived the worst of it—all that awaited them now was simply rest, and she would have plenty of time to apologize to him then.

 

But that wouldn’t do, she thought. She was sorry now, she thought.

She was sorry.

Notes:

Hello! We're drawing nearer to the conclusion of the story, and I wanted to take the moment to thank everyone for joining me on this nearly three-year-long journey. I wouldn't have made it this far if it wasn't for the support you've all shown me for what started out as a weird little brainworm. I mean, bugs and spiders, right?

To commemorate the end, I plan to write more about the worldbuilding of this AU, details I couldn't fit in the narrative, as well as the writing process itself. If there's anything you want me to talk about or trivia you want to know, I'd be over the moon if you let me know in the comments or through any social media channels that you recognize me on. If that's something you're interested in, then no rush, since we still have a few chapters to get through on top of the epilogue!

Again, thank you for the support! Here's to many more years of AgloDjeet \o/

Chapter 31

Somewhere in the forest was a clearing, and within that clearing stood a young tree, its slender branches cast in silver by the moon hanging overhead. 

 

The winding path that led the way through the leaves was a path hardly tread, for the spirits and beasts that called the forest their home preferred the refuge offered to them by the darkness. Any creature that crossed into the glade would have its layers peeled away, its inner workings exposed to prying eyes before it would regain its senses and retreat back into the safety of obscurity.

 

But one creature, a child, possessed no such sense to begin with as it staggered into the open. It possessed little of anything really, save for the luxurious cloth that adorned its youthful form, the pelts draped across its shoulders soft and fluffy, for they had been conditioned by the finest animal fats in deference to the storm. 

 

Somewhere else in the forest, the voices of grown men shouted into the night.

 

The child stumbled, its swollen and bloodied feet carrying it to the base of the tree. For others, the clearing was a place that stripped away all pretense, but for the child, it was a place that offered only peace.

 

Desperate to bring its journey to its final end, it fell to its knees and careened to the side until its head found its place nestled amongst the roots. Dark red liquid oozed from an open wound while its tiny chest rose and fell, equally tiny lungs taking in as much of the night air as it could as the voices of angry and fearful men grew fainter in the distance.

 

The breeze blew once more and the child lifted its scarlet eyes.

 

Incidentally, it was not alone. Strung between the silver branches was a spider’s web, and within its center perched a lone orbweaver. The dew suspended amongst its silk sparkled in the moonlight, twinkling and twinkling still against the canvas of the night sky. Cracked lips moved slowly in its feverish stupor, but no words left that mouth.

 

And so time passed between them just like that, the child lying where it had fallen. When the wind blew, the web would sway, and dewdrops would drip into that parched mouth. Another day would pass, and when it wasn’t drifting in and out of consciousness, the child would watch the spider collect its silk and rebuild its web, imagining the conversations that they could have if only one of them could speak. 

 

Eventually the wound would stop bleeding, but respite, if it could be called respite, didn’t last long when a foul smell took hold instead. As its body was taken by fever, the child found clarity in delirium. It would not meet its end at the altar, but alone beneath the tree. Somewhere else, there would be another to take its place, and the cycle of misery would continue.

 

Perhaps it never should have run.

 

Eyes drained of color to feed the angry rashes that spread across its skin, the child held the spider’s gaze. The dew that fell into its parted mouth merely collected in the crevices of its teeth now as the blood that had soaked into the ground painted the shape of a shallow pool. Flies swarmed its eyes and mouth while pustules burst, oozing infection. Its breathing had turned rocky and shallow as fever would ravage its insides, and this would continue all throughout the day and into the night until finally, blessedly, the child took its very last breath.

 

And so the spider watched the days go by alone once again, spinning the tapestry that hung above the corpse like a floating shroud. Eventually the elements would come to wear away the outer layers of the flesh, skin sloughing off and disintegrating into the earth while the buzzing of flies swallowed the stillness of the glade. Generations of their kind would colonize the tiny body that festered beneath the spider’s watchful eyes, their offspring, plump with rotten flesh, emerging only to burrow back into the earth to pupate.

 

More time passed, and the young flies would be born in waves. Scores of them would find themselves trapped within the spider’s web, the others dispersing back into the forest until their own corpses would return to the earth and take with them a sliver of a fading wish.

 

And all that would be left would be bones in that lonely glade, the scarlet a long gone memory held by nobody but the spider in its silent tree.

 

“It’s my game again.”

 

A young girl sat politely in the grass, the soft red hair that fell past her shoulders bobbing slightly when she raised her eyes. She watched as a colossal limb extended from the darkness of the forest, the length of it terminating into a pair of ebon claws as it gingerly nudged one of the game pieces arranged between them to ascertain that it was indeed her game.

 

“...I will have you yet, princess,” a voice rumbled from the shadows. “You cannot run forever.”

 

The girl tilted her head. In her veins flowed the blood of royalty, and everything from the way she held herself to the way she spoke embodied its very essence. Young as she was, grace and dignity embroidered her every move, her gentle voice devoid of fear as a courage that grown men would come to envy burned in her heart. If anything, she seemed almost amused.

 

“I have already played for the lives of your would-be offerings, not just my own,” she said, well beyond her years in both words and demeanor. “Last year, this year, and then the next—haven’t you grown tired of our little games?”

 

The giant claw slowly retreated as nine distinct eyes regarded the young princess with a strange look. “Why do you defy me at every turn, Herzeloyde?” the voice asked. “Is your own life not enough?”

 

“You’re being a bit of a poor sport, my lord,” the one named Herzeloyde said, pausing only briefly as if to consider whether or not she was the only one who had enjoyed these bouts of theirs. “...But the brides you take are somebody’s daughter, somebody’s sister. The solace they offer you lasts not but a year, but for those they were born to, their grief is forever… Why must you take them?”

 

“Son or daughter, it matters not to me,” the god of the forest replied. “Ask your priests why they offer me only wives.”

 

A smile had somehow found its way to her lips before she lowered her gaze and began rearranging the pieces back to their starting positions. “You’re misunderstanding.” She looked back up at the god when she was done. “I don’t think that you should be taking any offering at all, my lord.”

 

At first, she was met by only silence. Herzeloyde waited patiently for her god to speak, her hands folded neatly atop the silk of her lap while the seconds ticked by.

 

“I refuse to believe that I’ve been outwitted by a child so brazenly… stupid,” he finally said. “Have you deceived me? If you have deceived me, then I should devour you where you sit, princess.”

 

“There is no deception here, my lord.” She smiled again as she looked off to her side and gazed past the horizon where the trees were sparse. “I won’t be your bride, so one day I’ll be queen instead. When that day comes, the lives of the people will rest upon me, and there will be no need for the god of the forest to share that burden.”

 

The ground shook as the other stepped toward the threshold that sat between them. “Brat. It was only just yesterday that you spoke your first words, and today you make a demand of a god,” he said, towering over her. “Frame your arrogance as virtue all that you wish—why should I abide by it? You cannot just append whatever provisions you wish after you’ve already won.”

 

The princess held his gaze. “That’s true, you don’t have to listen to me at all,” she conceded. “In that case, our business is done and you’ll never see me again since the matter of my life is already settled, right?”

 

That gave the monstrous god a moment of pause.

 

The young girl didn’t move an inch from where she was seated as she watched the forest god settle back down. He extended another claw, nudging one of the pieces she had placed right in front of him.

 

“...One more game then,” he said. “I will grant your wish if you win. Otherwise, I’ll put an end to this foolishness.”

 

Years would pass, and the forest would never be quieter than it was now.

 

The god of the forest peered down at the princess who stood before him, no longer the young girl of that midsummer day. Her hair and eyes were the same scarlet he remembered, but her skin was sullen and her eyes sunken from those sleepless nights she spent in that stone castle. He had mistaken her naivety for conviction back then, and as she clasped her hands together, reeking of desperation, he realized that there was very little that set her apart from the rest of the flock.

 

“Famine is on our doorstep,” she said to him. She had grown well enough into her crown, exuding an air of dignity even in her exhaustion, but the forest god saw all, and he would not be so easily fooled this time.

 

“One of many more to come,” he remarked. He knew what she was here for, but unbeknownst to her, his days were numbered, his mind fading faster. Whether he withered away tomorrow or ten years from now, it made no difference to him when his life was measured by the century.

 

The other pursed her lips together. “Should you have taken tribute after all?”

 

“Who’s to say,” the god replied almost sarcastically. He could leave it at that and let the woman languish over the uncertainty, but he supposed he still possessed a modicum of compassion for the little girl of back then. “Disease and famine are as inevitable as the changing of seasons regardless.”

 

But with or without his so-called compassion, all that was alive needed to eat before anything else. It didn’t matter how clever she was or how well she played all those years ago, a human could not change the course of nature when even gods were ruled by karma.

 

“...Take me,” she said, placing a hand over her heart. “Take my life and return it to the earth if it will save my people.”

 

The Jorougumo raised a claw, the tip of it pressing just beneath one of her eyes, but what the former princess lacked in vigor, she made up for in courage when she refused to look away from the nine eyes bearing down on her.

 

“It will not,” he said coldly, visibly irked that she had the audacity to believe that a tribute three decades overdue would be enough to defy fate. Annoyed as he was however, he couldn’t help but feel the smallest sliver of intrigue as he instinctively searched those beautifully scarlet depths. In her desperation, she laid her heart bare, and from her heart, he gleaned what was more precious than the lives of her people.

 

“...Your children, however,” the Jorougumo said, forgetting for a moment his own impending mortality as he drank in the way her courage stuttered. It was invigorating to say the least—not once during their games had he seen her falter.

 

“My… children?”

 

“The price of your atonement.” His jaw slowly parted, a long tongue sliding out from between his many thorns. “If that is what you truly wish for.”

 

She stepped away, his claw having left a shallow mark on her cheek. “You cannot,” she said, the confusion in her eyes disappearing as quickly as it had appeared when the flames of defiance took its place. “They are mine and you will not have them, my lord.”

 

He withdrew his claw, mildly fascinated that it did not take her even a minute to reject him given what was at stake. “You scorn me.” He clicked his tongue. “Three lives in exchange for countless more—is this not selfishness on your part?”

 

“It’s the principle,” she replied, veins popping from the back of her hands. “Even if it would not be my own, I did not become queen so that we could return to our archaic ways.”

 

He was amused that she would speak to him of principles. “Then your people will starve, and they will devour both you and your children.”

 

She gathered her robes in her hands, and the forest god found that rage suited the color scarlet more than any breed of wit or compassion. “I will find another way. There will be no more sacrifices, I—thank you for the reminder, my lord.” She bowed her head, gaze still burning. “Farewell.”

 

The Jorougumo watched her turn. For all of her brilliance, she was still just another human, and one who was unable to grasp the shape of her own folly at that. 

 

“Farewell then, Herzeloyde. We will never see each other again.”

 

She bowed again before she disappeared from his sight, a gesture he would never come to understand even years later.

 

Fallen twigs and leaves crunched underfoot as a single torch cut through the veil of the night. A boy walked a path familiar to nobody but himself, stopping only when he reached the mouth of a cavern deep in the heart of the forest. He was young, not yet at the cusp of adulthood, but he carried himself without fear even as invisible voices mocked him softly from between the trees.

 

Taking the moment to gather himself, the boy stepped into the yawning cavern, firelight dancing across the stone walls where he turned to mount the torch. He felt a tremor rumble beneath his heels as a presence stirred from deeper within.

 

“You’ve been eating well,” came a voice that penetrated him to the bone as the smell of wet earth filled his nostrils. “Your face has filled out nicely.”

 

“...Only by your generosity, my lord,” the boy replied without emotion.

 

If the voice was displeased with his lack of enthusiasm, then it did not show it when a chuckle resounded throughout the cave. “Good,” it drawled, beckoning him closer yet.

 

The boy shed his clogs and stepped barefoot toward the darkness, lifting his gaze as an arching limb materialized from the shadows. He neither flinched nor blinked when a sharp talon stroked the side of his cheek, a mockery of tenderness as he felt the monster’s breath wrap around him.

 

“You know what to do next, don’t you?”

 

The boy said nothing, face unreadable as he began to undo the worn sash that kept his robes together. He felt those ravenous eyes track his every move, the talon resting against his neck pressing into his skin with shuddering anticipation. His gaze dipped.

 

“No,” the voice said. “You will look at me.”

 

The boy did as he was told, lifting his chin back up. His outer layers fell to his feet, giant fangs gleaming hungrily in the half darkness as he continued to slowly strip just like he had done many nights before.

 

“That’s it,” he purred. “That is the right color. Just like Herzeloyde’s.”

 

The humiliation had reached his eyes, scarlet burning with caged fury at the mention of his own mother’s name. It was one thing to mock him, but to invoke her memory and drag it through the mud of his lechery… He could hardly bear it. He could hardly bear it, but he bore it nonetheless, choosing instead to think of his brothers sleeping the night away, none the wiser with their bellies full. It eased the tension within him at least, and before long, he stood naked before the forest god’s appetite, watching as more limbs sprouted from the darkness to wrap all around his underdeveloped form.

 

“Aglovale, my lovely Aglovale…” the spider whispered into his ear as the promise of agony pressed against him. “You’ll be beautiful forever.”

 

A lone windchime rang outside as a man who appeared no older than his thirties leaned out the window to clean the soffits of their cobwebs.

 

Behind him was somebody else who watched him work, a withered husk of a man who was barely a person beneath the layers of blankets. Menial tasks like this were usually relegated to the spirits that dwelled within these halls, but neither of them questioned the lord of the manor and his inclinations whenever he went to tend to his younger brother.

 

“Aggy…” he whispered as the other pulled himself back inside. “Aggy, I’m sorry. I don’t… I don’t know why I hurt you.”

 

The other turned around to meet his gaze. “You cannot hurt me, Lamorak.”

 

Instead of arguing, a withered hand pushed itself out from underneath the covers, beckoning the other to come closer. Aglovale didn’t hesitate to oblige, lowering himself to his knees.

 

Eyes dull with cataracts climbed the length of his golden hair before they reached his temples, finding that his skin was pristine like it always was. He mustered his strength to raise his hand, and Aglovale, having been through this before, lowered his head so that he could reach him.

 

Lamorak pressed his palm to the side of his face, taking in a rattling breath. He had hurled the teapot at his own brother’s head, snapping out of it only when he saw the bright red blood dripping onto the floor. The spirits had scrambled to clean up the mess, but he knew what he did and nothing could console him, not even Aglovale taking his hand away to show him that the gash he knew he saw had disappeared completely.

 

“Are you angry with me?”

 

“I’m not angry with you.” Aglovale had never been this patient with him when they were children, but they hadn’t been children for a very long time now, and he supposed that each of them had changed in their own ways growing up. He just never thought he’d keep changing and turn into a shell of what he once was. “I suppose the more obstinate side of you needed that outlet.”

 

“That’s awful,” he moaned. “Don’t say something like that.”

 

“No? I was only making a joke.”

 

His jokes were always terrible and apparently they never got better. Eye drifting to the ceiling, Lamorak’s hand returned to his side as the other straightened.

 

“You’re angry, aren’t you? Because… I left.”

 

“I am not angry with you, Lamorak,” Aglovale said again.

 

Lamorak tried to smile, but in his old age, it was like the muscles in his face no longer knew how to listen to him. The rest of his body wasn’t any better off when he was hardly more than bones and paper-thin skin.

 

“Liar,” he mustered. “Aggy you liar. I spent so many decades away from home. I left you all by yourself.”

 

Aglovale reached out, carefully brushing through his silver hair—one of the many little things he did for him to keep him orderly. “Peace and quiet were not so bad, and it was not just you.”

 

He tried to crack a smile again. “At least Percy accomplished something. Stomping out entire wars and brokering peace between nations bigger than our own… of course he was good at it.” Lamorak took a deep breath. “They’ve put his name down in so many books, Aggy. He might as well have been a king out there across the sea.”

 

Aglovale stroked his hair. He knew he missed him. He missed him too. If only he could see for himself the kinds of things their brother had done, but instead he was trapped here, surrounded by memories of the worst days of their lives.

 

“Sorry, Aggy.” His breath rattled. “I tried. I really tried.”

 

“I know.”

 

Now that he started, he couldn’t stop. “I thought I could find a cure. I thought I could help you. When I realized I couldn’t, I… I tried all sorts of things to extend my life so that you wouldn’t be alone… But now all I do is hurt you.”

 

Aglovale continued stroking his hair, eyes downturned as Lamorak felt his own eyes begin to sting.

 

“If I’d known—if I’d known that it was impossible, then I never would have left you,” he cried. “I should’ve come back sooner. I’m sorry, I’m sorry—“

 

Aglovale wiped his tears as they trickled out. “But you came back,” he murmured. “You’re here now.”

 

Lamorak clung to his sleeve, tears soaking into the silk. The spider’s hold would never be broken, but Aglovale was still his brother.

 

He would always be his brother.

 

Djeeta woke up to a blue sky, her heart throbbing with the vague sense that she had done something wrong, that she saw something she shouldn’t have, but the more she tried to figure out why she felt that way, the more she felt it slip through her fingers. 

 

And then she realized where she was, or rather, where she wasn’t, hastily sitting up to find herself in the middle of the forest. Crimson leaves covering the ground as far as the eye could see, there was no lake, no pebbled shore, and more importantly, there was no sign that it had ever rained at all.

 

She was dumbstruck. Did a god or spirit teleport her to a different part of the world where the seasons had changed, or was she still just dreaming? Moving to get up, she was determined to find Lord Aglovale at the very least until she heard something crunch behind her.

 

She whirled around, coming face-to-face with a young child glaring at her—a boy, she guessed by his looks, and he looked awful. There were dark circles beneath his eyes, his sunken cheeks and spindly arms telling her that he hadn’t been eating well for at least a while now. The worn robes wrapped around his body were several sizes too big, held in place by a rope that he must’ve scavenged from a trash pile while his youthful complexion was littered with red sores, tiny scars marring both his hands and face.

 

“Who are you?”

 

She couldn’t answer him. This couldn’t be real, but she felt the contrary run deep in her bones. Meeting the scarlet of his eyes, Djeeta put two and two together even when what came out of it didn’t make sense either.

 

“Lord… Aglovale?”

 

She didn’t think he would startle from just a simple question, but he did, eyes flashing with fear before anger took its place. “Who are you?” he demanded again. “Who sent you?”

 

Djeeta only stared at him. She was definitely trapped in another dream, this time as more than a floating pair of eyes, but what struck her more violently than the guilt of her voyeurism was the fact that he was starving and filthy and nothing like the Aglovale she had come to know, but before she could shake the answer out of him, a small tremor rumbled from beneath her feet.

 

The boy must’ve felt it too when his head snapped to the side.

 

“...You cannot be here.”

 

He turned back around and grabbed her by the hand, pulling her into a sprint without so much as a warning. The trees flew by them as they ran, their heels kicking up piles of leaves as he lead her through the forest. When the boy leapt over a fallen log, she leapt too.

 

“You cannot be here,” he told her again. “He cannot know that you’re here.”

 

“Who’s—who’s him?” Djeeta was just one step behind him, but he showed no signs of slowing down.

 

The child didn’t answer her and she still couldn’t get it through her head that any of this could be real. And yet the air she inhaled into her lungs told her otherwise, as did the feel of solid ground when she hit the earth with her feet.

 

“Where are we going?” Djeeta tried again.

 

“Away,” he answered this time, but that told her nothing. Only after several minutes of running did they finally slow to a stop, Djeeta bending over to catch her breath.

 

However, before she could ask him another one of her questions, a voice echoed softly within her head.

 

“Djeeta.”  

 

She stiffened, standing back up just in time to catch a single glowing wisp floating by her.

 

“Djeeta, please.”

 

The lone medusozoa paid her no mind as it drifted away into the trees. A handful more of its kind materialized from thin air, their voices climbing over one another as she took a hesitant step forward.

 

“Have I not sacrificed enough?”

 

“Have I not done enough?”

 

“To you… To you I give everything.”

 

“Don’t,” the boy said, his scarlet eyes burning, but Djeeta wasn’t listening to him. Before he could react, she broke into a sprint of her own, racing through the trees as she was guided by nothing but the great pit of longing that had opened up within her.

 

“Don’t go.”

 

Djeeta only stopped when she reached the forest’s edge, stepping into the sunlight to find the blue expanse of a great lake. Mountains loomed overhead, but all she had eyes for were the two figures huddled together in the distance, one holding the other in his arms as waves lapped at that pebbled shore.

 

“Don’t leave me.”  

 

She lifted a foot, but before she could take another step, a hand snatched her wrist.

 

“You cannot go,” the boy said to her, breeze from the delta combing through his straw-colored hair. “He lies.”

 

“But I—” She looked back at the pair, her eyes shimmering like the surface of the lake. The girl in his arms looked so small, her sopping blonde hair plastered to her head while her own eyes remained closed. Who was she? Something told her she wasn’t meant to know. “I have to—”

 

The boy looked even smaller as he silently pleaded with her, his ire and suspicion from before nowhere to be found. She didn’t want to leave him either. She didn’t want to leave him, but everything hurt so much. Looking between him and the one who knelt before the lake, her heart threatened to burst out of her chest as that voice continued to call for her.

 

“Come back.”

 

She couldn't do it.

 

“I’m… I’m sorry.”

 

Djeeta pulled her wrist free, tearing herself away from the boy and the forest as all fell into darkness.

 

She opened her eyes.

 

Djeeta was back at the manor, lying in bed with her duvet tucked neatly around her. Sitting herself up, she looked toward the window where birds were twittering outside. Cherry petals floated leisurely through the air as they collected along the edge of the windowsill, butterflies dancing circles around each other in courtship. It was hard to believe that anything bad could ever happen, but the ache inside her heart made itself right at home regardless.

 

There was somebody she wanted to see.

 

The hallway was empty when she slid open the door to her room, the manor quiet except for the sounds of nature. Spring was in full bloom, but Djeeta felt like she was still walking inside of a dream as her feet followed a path she had tread countless times before. She found the one she was looking for resting on his haunches in front of the usual hearth, his head turned away from the door as a breeze blew in from the garden.

 

His silky hair was as lustrous as she remembered, his skin glowing with not a drop of blood on his person. With the sun shining in through the atrium, it was hard to believe that a storm had ever passed through at all.

 

But Aglovale turned to look at her, and the sight of his battered body crucified to the side of the mountain came back fresh. Determined not to let the opportunity pass her by again, she closed the distance between them and threw her arms around his shoulders.

 

He smelled different as she held him, like the earth, but she probably smelled different too after wading through stretches of muddy water while every bug in the forest and their mother scrambled over her trying to escape the floods. It didn’t matter, really. He was here and he was whole, but to her exasperation, she realized that they’d been through this before.

 

“You can’t keep doing this to me, Lord Aglovale,” she muttered, pulling away just so she could take his face into her hands and turn it from side to side. He had two eyes to look at her, his face in one piece. It was almost scary to see how well he had healed up, but if nothing was bothering him, then maybe she could finally rest easy too.

 

“You would come for me regardless,” Aglovale replied as he allowed her to do what she wished. “This persistence of yours… stirs old memories within me.”

 

He smiled softly while she frowned, his eyes dark with the light of the outdoors pouring in from behind. She didn’t notice at first because she’d been so relieved to see him, but in the corner stood the loom, his unfinished tapestry stretched across its frame with the shuttles stashed nearby. She didn’t know why she found it odd. Where else did a loom belong if not here?

 

“You must be hungry,” Aglovale said, drawing her eyes back to him. He gestured toward the table at a tray laden with hot food. Grilled fish over a bed of rice with seaweed soup and pickled vegetables—it was a staple of the manor and a meal that had been served to her several times. She wasn’t sure how she missed it too.

 

“I… I must be half-asleep.”

 

“So it seems,” he said with a touch of amusement as he watched her take up the chopsticks. She had to admit that it was a little strange to have him just watch. Lord Aglovale didn’t often eat in front of her to begin with, but he’d at least have a pot of tea to pour from so she didn’t feel feel so out of place with her meal.

 

“Aren’t you hungry too?” she asked him.

 

“Always.”

 

“What are you doing then? Here—” Carving out a chunk of fish loin, she picked the bones out of it before offering it to him, but Aglovale didn’t move to take it, apparently perfectly content to leave her hanging until he almost made her drop her food.

 

“Stay with me forever, Djeeta.”

 

She stared at him, chopsticks slipping. “What?”

 

“Stay with me forever,” he said again, resting a cheek against his knuckles. “If you’ll offer me this, then offer me everything that you have.”

 

She lowered her hands, forgetting for a moment what she was doing. Something inside of her head itched, like she was trying to recall a passing memory, but all she could remember was the flowering crimson of late autumn, a river of gold cutting through the fallen leaves.

 

“He lies.”

 

Birdsong from outside drew her eyes toward the garden. Spring was in full bloom. Spring was in full bloom. Nothing bad could ever happen here.

 

“Lord Aglovale, I—” She let go of the utensils altogether without taking a single bite. Something was wrong. “Lord Aglovale, I need to wake up first.”

 

She stood back up and hurried to the door without waiting for him to answer, sliding it open to step through and—

 

She was in the weaving room again, the other staring out toward the garden just like how she first found him. In the corner, the surface of the tapestry fluttered innocuously in the breeze.

 

“Perhaps this would be better to your liking,” he said when he turned to look at her again, gesturing toward the bowl of noodles on the table with the food from before nowhere to be seen.

 

She remembered now. She remembered the boy and everything that came before.

 

They were at the lake, and she had drowned, yet Aglovale was sitting right in front of her, acting like nothing was wrong while her spirit was screaming at her to get away. She took a step back, her heel slamming into the bottom of the door. The pain was real, but this wasn’t the manor she had come to know, and the more she stared at him, the more her realization sank into her.

 

The one who sat before her was not Lord Aglovale.

 

“Who are you?”

 

Those lips pulled into a placating smile. “You’ve endured so much already, Djeeta,” he said, his voice like velvet. “Come eat.”

 

“Don’t,” she snarled. “I asked you who you are.”

 

He paused, head tilting slowly at the hostility.

 

“...Strange.” The hem of Lord Aglovale’s robes brushed along the ground as he slowly rose to his feet. “I wagered that you would eventually realize, but not this quickly.”

 

Djeeta watched in horror as the other raised his hands and slid his fingers into his own eye sockets, probing around inside. “Two eyes, two arms, two legs… What did I forget?” He pulled them back out, slowly licking his lips as if to check that he had those too. It was like Lord Aglovale’s body had become a plaything, a doll that wasn’t alive as those hands stroked the barrel of his neck with an intimacy that was too familiar, too comfortable.

 

“No, I couldn’t have forgotten. This body is mine.”

 

He took a step toward her and then he was upon her, silk robes billowing all around him as the very walls of the manor rattled in their joists. Djeeta’s breath stuttered in her throat as those eyes threatened to swallow her whole—everything about him from his face to his stride, all the way down to the cadence of his voice evoked all that she knew of Lord Aglovale, and yet what flooded her lungs wasn’t awe for his beauty, but pure, unadulterated terror.

 

“Djeeta,” he sighed softly, letting her name roll off the tongue. “Lovely Djeeta… We meet at long last.”

Chapter 32

“I dreamed of you. When your voice reached me in my slumber, I could only wonder what our meeting might be like. And here you are—small enough to fit in the palm of my hand.”

 

The imposter took her face into his hands as dread seeped into her like poison. Djeeta couldn’t move, her limbs refusing to budge as if they’d been nailed to the door.

 

“I don’t know who you are,” she managed.

 

“Don’t you?” he said. “No matter—there are many other games for us to play.”

 

The verdant light bouncing off of the floors and ceiling began to shift and ripple like the surface of a reflective pool, ephemeral tendrils climbing over the plains of his silk. They disappeared, reappeared, coiling and disappearing again like the glowing wisps that dwelled within the heart of the forest. Scarlet bloomed and withered in a single breath as a thumb pressed gently into her cheek, a quiet threat in its own right while she searched that face for any fault in his likeness.

 

“I’ve come by many names and swallowed countless more. To you born of flesh from beyond the sea, I wonder which one you’ve come to know best?”

 

He squeezed her jaw until it popped open, savoring the way she was glaring at him before he parted his own lips. Her stomach dropped when she saw a flicker of movement within the darkness of his mouth, something small and alive that she could feel crawling underneath her own skin as he drew closer.

 

Djeeta thought her life was about to end right then and there, her nails carving holes into the door until heat suddenly engulfed her, a familiar flame roaring between them.

 

The other stumbled backwards, hand shielding his face. Djeeta had reached for him without thinking—it was still Lord Aglovale’s face after all, but before she could say anything, he took his hand away to reveal the blistered skin smoothing itself back over.

 

“What a beautiful flame that reaches you even here,” he remarked. “And how many years has it been since I’ve last tasted it?”

 

Djeeta tore her eyes away from him to look down, finding the remnants of Percival’s sword clutched tightly in her hand as if it’d been there all along.

 

The other stepped closer, eyes alive as a warning grew hot in her grasp. 

 

“Stop.” She tightened her hold. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

 

He tilted his head, his soft smile feeding her sense of impending doom. “Sweet child, you cannot hurt me.”

 

He took another step and before she could repeat herself, flames erupted anew, but the imposter only stepped into them as if there was nothing there, both silk and flesh passing through unharmed as he closed the gap between them.

 

Consumed by panic, Djeeta swung the blade, only for the other to catch it bare-handed. He squeezed the steel, nearly wrenching it out of her grip as he slowly began to choke out the flames lashing helplessly at his encroaching form. He was too strong and too heavy—no matter how hard she pushed back against him, her knees could only bend as she sank closer and closer towards the ground, the blade that had pierced through the Oomukade and Ootsubame nothing more than a piece of metal rattling in her ear.

 

Her knee finally hit the floor, the flames sputtering one last time in his grasp before blood and steel ran cold. A shadow fell over her and just like before, he was already upon her, scarlet swallowing her whole.

 

“My turn,” Lord Aglovale’s voice whispered, a hand cupping her cheek before she could react until—

 

—she was wrapped tightly in a colossally serpentine body, armored plates slowly crushing her lungs as nothing left her mouth but the soft rush of air. Giant fangs loomed over her head as her eyes bulged out of her skull, the venom that dripped onto her cheek hissing as it ate through her skin.

 

The Oomukade dipped its head and buried its swollen fangs into her neck, ripping through flesh and arteries alike as she watched her own blood fountain all over the centipede’s chitinous armor. The pain was like no other, molten lava coursing through her paralyzed body as pure venom filled her veins until they popped, but her torture didn’t end there as the Oomukade tore her from limb to limb, tendons ripping like paper as pieces of her were scattered all across the forest floor.

 

She stared blankly at her own torso, centipedes emerging from the ground to crawl all over it as hundreds of greedy jaws ripped into what was left of her. When she felt sharp legs climb the length of her neck and circle the shell of her ear, she opened her mouth and—

 

—she was at the manor. The light of flames filled her vision as she stared blearily at the burning hearth. In the corner was the little forest spirit, lying motionlessly in a puddle of its own argent blood. She startled back to attention as the laughter of men filled her eardrums in lieu of the centipedes, the one with the scar pulling the glowing iron free from the fire.

 

The fire that licked her feet and made her sweat was not her friend. The man was approaching. Tried as she might, she couldn’t break free from the rope binding her to the chair. No one was coming. Lord Aglovale wasn’t here. In her mind’s eye, all she could see was his head falling from his shoulders as filthy hands gripped her own in a vice to hold it straight. The iron grew closer and closer until all she could smell was her own hair and skin turning to ash, the fire consuming everything that she knew before the tip steadied itself and—

 

Djeeta let out a bloodcurdling scream, casting the sword away as if to cast off the flames consuming her. She felt her eyes and brains boil inside her skull, blighted by the sound of her own liquids sizzling from every orifice as she screamed and screamed while the other only pulled her into his arms.

 

“…So much,” he said softly, almost sympathetically. “Your wounds bleed so much.”

 

She couldn’t move, one foot trapped within her nightmares as he gently hushed her like he wasn’t the one who put her there to begin with—

 

“See? This is what it means to defy me,” he murmured. “Quiet, now. I've decided… Call me by the name that has always brought you comfort.”

 

And just like that, the illusion vanished and the screaming stopped, Djeeta heaving for her life as she swallowed the surge of bile rising in her throat. Every inch of her was reeling, her head swinging around like it would detach from her shoulders at any minute as he propped her up like the ragdoll that she had turned into.

 

“Lord Aglovale,” she croaked, hating the way she wished that were true. “You’re not—you’re not Lord Aglovale.”

 

“But I am.” Amused more than anything else by her enduring insolence, he ignored her renewed attempts to break free as he wiped away the hair sticking to her forehead. “All that belongs to him belongs to me as well.”

 

He parted from her then, holding her by the shoulders to keep her steady. Djeeta could only sit there as he touched their foreheads together, closing his eyes like this moment was theirs to share.

 

“I am both God and Steward,” he said, the deep murmur of his voice spreading through the depths of her very bones as Djeeta watched blossoms bloom to the cadence from nothingness. They withered and turned back into nothingness, the circle of life and death turning evermore in the cradle of space between them.

 

“I am the first thread.” His lips moved slowly, Djeeta’s own moving in tandem. “The first lord, the earth beneath which all life is born. Amongst many things, I am—”

 

“—The Jorougumo,” she said quietly, staring at him as he reopened his eyes with another smile. “The Jorougumo is dead.”

 

“You’ve crossed paths with your fair share of dead gods,” he replied. “What is one more?”

 

The spider pulled away from her, leaving her to sit on the ground in her daze. Life and the promise of death followed his footsteps in equal parts, the great verdant casting him in a resplendent glow that nearly made her eyes water, but even then she couldn’t look away. To do so would be a sin.

 

“Death has done well to whet my appetite for life,” he continued. “I had become stagnant and cloudy-eyed in my old age, permissive and hedonistic and tired of living.”

 

He stepped toward the garden, pausing as Lord Aglovale’s silk swirled around him with great flourish. “And yet when I gaze upon you, touch you, warmth fills my breast with the flames of your insolence—a peculiar and fluttering sensation that moves me as deeply as dying itself.” He breathed in. “Although it is this phenomenality that joins mortals together, you find me repulsive regardless.”

 

Djeeta wondered if somewhere in history, the god of the forest had lost his mind. But that wasn’t what she came here to find out.

 

The Jorougumo tilted his head, watching curiously as Djeeta shook off the lingering bite of his illusions. She forced herself back onto her feet, knees buckling along the way until she finally mustered the rest of her strength to hold steady. She glared right at him.

 

“Where is Lord Aglovale?” she demanded. “The one I know.”

 

His curiosity gleamed as he chose to humor her this time. “He is here. He never left, and he may never leave.” Stolen eyes swept leisurely around the room. “This is his heart after all.”

 

“…Heart?”

 

The Jorougumo turned away from her and continued into the open veranda before he descended the steps and walked along the cobbled path. Djeeta ran after him, determined not to let him out of her sight.

 

“If the forest and earth are our body, then where is the heart?” he posed to her. “Beneath the cracks through which your spirit has fallen I presume.”

 

“What does that even mean? Why would I be here?”

 

“Take it in stride, Djeeta. Where else would you wish to be?”

 

It was just her luck that both of them had the same infuriating habit.

 

The Jorougumo smirked without meeting her eyes, leading her further away from the manor as they entered the grove that flanked the garden. She had never seen the forest in full bloom before. Something told her that maybe this was just one more thing Lord Aglovale wanted to show her himself come spring, and she would’ve found the sea of drifting blossoms beautiful if it weren’t for the fact that she would trade it all in a heartbeat just to know that he was okay. 

 

“You’ve no idea how generous I am being for you, do you?” the Jorougumo said. “That is fine. It is only because of you that winter has reached its end.”

 

He raised a hand and pointed at the space between the trees. Djeeta followed his finger, her breath catching in her throat the instant she saw a familiar silhouette standing in the distance, flowing hair lifting into the breeze. Breaking into a run, she left the Jorougumo behind as she flew over the roots of the burgeoning trees.

 

The wispy forms of the medusozoa materialized from nothingness, drifting alongside the falling petals, but Djeeta only brushed them out of her way as she cut through the forest, forgetting what Aglovale had told her. She was too close to reaching him to think of anything else—that is, until she heard something crack beneath her heel. Grinding to a halt, she looked down to find herself standing on top of a broken rib cage. 

 

“Yoohoo,” came a stranger’s voice as her head shot back up. Djeeta was flummoxed to find that it wasn’t Aglovale at all, but a young man with soft brown hair and a single braid that adorned his low-hanging ponytail. He stood with his back to her, staff in hand, and while he was no Lord Aglovale, there was something about him that struck her as dreadfully familiar. She spun around, ready to demand an explanation from the Jorougumo who only lifted a finger to his lips.

 

An armored tail suddenly lashed out from the thicket, slamming the ground where the stranger had been standing just moments before. Djeeta quickly shielded herself from the shower of dirt and broken bones before a second voice cut through the now silent forest—a voice she never thought she'd hear again.

 

“You conniving… little… weasel—!”

 

Djeeta stared with her mouth agape as a giant centipede emerged from the shadow of a nearby cavern, its oversized fangs angrily wringing themselves together as countless legs rippled over the forest floor. It reared its tail back.

 

“Watch out—!” she shouted, but the mysterious stranger was already in the air before he landed on a fallen log, the Oomukade’s tail leaving another gash on the earth. Neither he nor the centipede paid her any mind as the young man picked at the rotting bark with the end of his staff.

 

“Hey now, that could’ve hurt,” he said, clicking his tongue while he waved his staff at the clearly incensed spirit. “Is this how you say hello to an old friend?”

 

“You’ve made a fool out of me—!” the centipede roared, baring its fangs as it started to beat the ground with its tail. “You set me up didn’t you? You said if I communed with a human, I’d have all that I’d need to win, and now look—!”

 

“I guess I did say something like that.” The young man tilted his head, face scrunching together for a moment. “Well, my advice was solid. You’re the one who fumbled the execution.” He pointed at one of his eyes while the Oomukade screamed with pure indignation.

 

“Yes, he took my eye! I hardly even touched his offering!” More bones rained from the sky as the centipede threw one of its tantrums, but to its credit, one of its eyes had indeed been gouged out. “He took it, and I still have nothing to show for it! All because of you, you damned—”

 

“Okay, okay, you’re mad, but you need to stop swinging that thing around, please—what if my brother hears?” 

 

The gears turned in her head, putting two and two together as the memory of the portraits that adorned Lord Aglovale’s walls came back to her as vividly as the scene unfolding right before her eyes. Despite his current predicament, Lamorak looked even more handsome in person, alive in a way that no portrait could ever capture as even the way he spoke matched the words he wrote to the point that she had to ask herself why she didn’t realize sooner.

 

She didn’t know what she was supposed to think. She found it indescribably strange to see Aglovale’s eyes pasted on the face of somebody else. Lamorak had only ever been human, but even the grace in his footsteps as he effortlessly evaded the Oomukade was also reminiscent of Aglovale’s own. It was almost uncanny, but that said nothing as to why he was here. Why she was here.

 

“If the spider comes, then I will give him his brother’s pelt as a gift,” the Oomukade leered, crawling along the ground as it crushed bones underfoot. “Come closer, sorcerer.”

 

Lamorak was unfazed as he fished around in his bag. “Right, maybe I miscalculated… which is why I didn’t come empty-handed—“ He whipped out a single flower, its roots buried in a clump of dirt. “Behold—proof of your birthright!”

 

The centipede came to a halt, its mandibles slowly parting like it couldn’t quite believe what it was seeing.

 

“My flower… My flower…” it whispered, antennae gingerly uncurling as it beheld the faint red glow with its remaining eye. It looked so meek that Djeeta couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for it.

 

“The last of its kind and I kept it safe just for you,” Lamorak said, eyes growing dark as he dangled the precious flower right in front of it. “You want it back, don’t you?”

 

Uncharacteristically docile, the Oomukade hunched its back as it quietly nodded, staring intently as Lamorak knocked aside a skull and scratched a hole in the ground with his staff before he knelt down and planted the flower back into the dirt. 

 

“It’s yours to watch over now,” Lamorak told the Oomukade, wagging a finger like he was talking to a child. “Keep it safe until you take what’s owed to you.”

 

The centipede was hardly listening now as it coiled protectively around the flower, jaws tenderly stroking its petals while Lamorak straightened himself with a sigh. Djeeta stared at him, waiting for him to explain himself.

 

“...The karmic history of this land will be too much for my brother to bear. Within three centuries, the Jorougumo’s power will wane like the phases of the moon,” he said. “There will be another offering for you to pilfer then—a special one—just as the spider did when it overthrew the storm god.”

 

With that, everything from the Oomukade to Lamorak to the bones that littered the forest floor vanished in a rush of wind, returning the pair of them to the grove where the blossoms drifted in ill-fitting serenity.

 

Djeeta lowered her arm. She shot a glare at the Jorougumo.

 

“What was that?” she demanded. “What did you just show me?”

 

“A memory of the forest,” he replied. “To which I am only an observer, just like you.”

 

Djeeta turned back around to stare at the spot where the flower had vanished. She recognized it the moment Lamorak had pulled it out, feeling its warmth beat in tandem within her, but what she saw felt closer to a lie than a memory. In what world could Aglovale’s own brother call a monster like the Oomukade an old friend?

 

“Strange, is it not?” the Jorougumo mused aloud. “The centipede was so sure of itself when it pulled you into its schemes. Who could have put that idea of communion within its head?”

 

“It could’ve been anyone,” Djeeta said curtly.

 

The Jorougumo only cocked his head like they were simply divining tomorrow’s weather. “Perhaps. The medusozoa’s recollections can so easily be misconstrued,” he said. “But they are not yet done with you.”

 

“The medu—?” Djeeta had to brace herself before she could finish her sentence, a second whirlwind whipping around them as even the trees vanished from sight.

 

They were standing in the middle of a dirt field this time, Djeeta squinting underneath the unfiltered sunlight as the spirits scattered into the ether. Not too far was Lamorak again, surrounded by a throng of strangers who watched with rapt attention as the sorcerer tapped the soil with the head of his staff.

 

“That should do it for several more generations,” he said, taking a fistful of farmland with him as he straightened himself.

 

A middle-aged woman who stood above all the others seemed relieved. “You’ve toiled for us for countless seasons now… How may we thank you, Lusor?”

 

“Don’t thank me just yet,” he replied. “It’s only a matter of time before you’ll exhaust the earth again, then it’s back to square one.”

 

The woman frowned, the others murmuring amongst themselves. “Again? Are our tributes not sufficient?”

 

Lamorak’s smile seemed cold, almost empty and very much unlike the one Djeeta had grown familiar with as he crushed the dirt and let it crumble between his fingers. “Just as soil needs amendment and reservoirs need replenishment, the god of the forest will need new blood to keep the wheels turning. The old stuff just won’t cut it anymore.

 

“When the time comes, call an offering from beyond the sea,” he continued. “One whose heart is pure, one you’d hold above all the rest. It doesn’t matter how you do it, as long as you get it right.”

 

The woman looked mortified while Djeeta watched this unfold with utter disbelief.

 

“Beyond the sea,” she repeated, pausing like there might’ve been a misunderstanding. “How… How can we bear to involve outsiders in our affairs? As a sacrifice no less?”

 

Lamorak didn’t seem to share her concern while Djeeta was very much the opposite. “It’s only one life, you’ll bear it just fine,” he said. “You’ll bear it just as your father did when he slaughtered the entire royal family.”

 

Her stomach dropped, and the nonchalant cheer that crept into his expression had her wondering if she heard right, silence falling over the rest as the woman stared wide-eyed at the ground. No one dared to challenge the sorcerer as he placed a hand on her shoulder.

 

“This is your recompense,” he told her, his smile laced with something poisonous. “But you’re lucky. Pass this onto the next generation, and when your god is no longer listening, your descendants will know what to do. That’s all you have to do.”

 

Djeeta was speechless as the scene before them vanished, turning to dust in the wind until the sound of waves filled her ears.

 

They were standing on the shore of the lake now. Djeeta whirled around until she spotted the sorcerer, immediately making a beeline to shake the daylights out of him for answers. However, her hands only passed through him when she tried.

 

Oblivious to his observers, Lamorak stood alone against the great expanse of the lake, streaks of white and silver running through his hair as he looked even thinner than he was in his youth. Scowling still, Djeeta watched him carve something into the pebbled sand, her brows furrowing closer together with every letter she could make out.

 

Aglovale.

 

He took a step back, watching as the gray waves lapped up the name and left nothing behind but the smooth canvas upon which it was written.

 

“...What did you just do?” Djeeta asked even though she knew he couldn’t hear her.

 

Lamorak looked resigned as he took a seat where it was dry, laying his staff across his lap. “That’s it,” he sighed. “I’ve done my part. Just one more coin I’ve thrown into your little wishing well.”

 

The waves crashed against the shore as he smiled, exhaustion woven into the lines of his face.

 

“In due time, the Jorougumo will have no choice but to kill the Oomukade. Without the keystone spirit to weigh down your fetters, the rest will follow and you’ll get your chance to spread your wings,” he said. “Won’t that be nice? Wish I could stick around a bit longer to see it.”

 

“What… What are you saying?” Djeeta asked him. “Who are you talking to?”

 

Lamorak closed his eyes as he let down his hair. “It’s not like I didn’t try. I searched high and low for any farsea god who would help me, but none of them would no matter what I was willing to sacrifice. There’s no prize in crossing the god-eating spider I suppose.”

 

“Help you how?” she demanded, making a grab for him only for her hands to pass right through again. “Help you how?”

 

The sorcerer only reopened his eyes, taking in the waves as they came. The look on his face opened a great pit within her as Djeeta stood on the shore, the two of them at a standstill until Lamorak finally spoke again, the low howl of the wind carrying his voice across the lake.

 

“Lord of storms, progenitor of divinity, take what I’ve offered you and kill my brother.”

 

When Djeeta came to, she didn’t know when or how they had returned to the manor. She only looked down, finding a cup of hot tea sitting innocuously in her hands.

 

The Jorougumo sat across from her, swirling his own cup. “The sorcerer outdid himself,” he said, a touch amused while Djeeta felt like her entire world had been turned upside down. “One has to admire the mortal who can bend greater creatures to his will.”

 

Djeeta stared, uncomprehending. A face had been put to what she had always taken as unfortunate, uncontrollable circumstances, and it belonged to someone who’d been dead for over two hundred years, someone who was only ever an ally to her from beyond the grave. Or that’s what she always believed. Djeeta recalled the journals and the meticulously illustrated notes Lamorak had left behind. What was it that she was missing between the last page and back then?

 

Somewhere in his heart, from beginning to end, did he believe that “what” he was doing was right? Then what about what Lord Aglovale wanted? What about her, the sacrifice? What about the villagers who would have died? What was it all supposed to have been for?

 

“You should drink,” the Jorougumo said to her. “You’ll feel better, Djeeta.”

 

Djeeta looked at him, then at her tea. His words felt so sincere, something like sympathy lurking in the spider’s eyes, but the Jorougumo was right—there was something about him that repulsed her, something that made her heart and head throb with an uncomfortable anxiety and it wasn’t just the mere fact that he had so easily overpowered her. Yet even so… there was softness where softness shouldn’t be at all.

 

“I’m not… thirsty,” she said, torn for a moment before she placed the cup on the table. The corner of his lips twitched but he let the matter rest, choosing to leisurely gaze out at the gardens.

 

“Was the sorcerer not who you thought him to be?”

 

“Of course not!” Djeeta bit her lip. “Lamorak loved his brother—“ She stopped, looking back up at him. “…You said something about the medusozoa, right? That the things they show might not all be right?”

 

The Jorougumo toyed with the ends of Lord Aglovale’s hair, taking the moment to seemingly mull over her question.

 

“The medusozoa are fragmented spirits shed by the forest—little different from the dust on your clothes that you would brush off from time to time. They reflect the voices within our own hearts, repeating things they do not understand, unable to form egos of their own… but I digress.” He twirled the air, watching the golden strands slip from his fingers as Djeeta wished one more time that he would take a different form. “Just as they are a reflection of our memories, your Lord Aglovale was a reflection of the sorcerer’s own failures.”

 

The Jorougumo smiled at her. “Family is such a lovely and horrifically soul-rending concept, isn’t it? The sorcerer was still an older brother, and yet it was your Lord Aglovale who shouldered everything and provided everything. Perhaps deep in his heart, he wished to dash upon the rocks the scapegoat of his own self-loathing.”

 

That couldn’t be right. “No. He couldn’t have been that kind of person.”

 

“Have you met?” the Jorougumo asked. “I’ve seen blood turn on blood for much less. Many times. Although I must concede that I too cannot divine a dead human’s true intentions.”

 

Djeeta didn’t want to give the spider an inch or beg for anything, but he was right in a way that she didn’t want to admit, and so she couldn’t help but ask, “Did Lord Aglovale know?”

 

“He knew he had been betrayed in some way,” he replied. “But perhaps it changed nothing.”

 

Lord Aglovale never told her anything. The days they spent together on the hearth while he recounted stories from the past felt so far away, but she never forgot how fondly he spoke of his family. Djeeta stared at the tapestry bound to the loom, wondering how much of everything had been planned from the start.

 

“There were many things the sorcerer did not account for,” the Jorougumo said, voice soft as if he were trying to comfort her. “He could not have known who you were, what kind of person would answer the call and the actions she would take. Even during his own era, he did not account for the Oomukade’s stupidity.” He seemed amused by that. “Your Lord Aglovale already knew not to depend on the centipede, doubly so when the creature crossed him the first time, and so he wrote the autumn rites into existence.”

 

Djeeta felt her throat go tight. “But those rites—”

 

“Failed, yes,” he finished for her. “Just as humans sleep to replenish their strength, the Jorougumo takes to hibernation. To go without is to incur a debt, and to deny the tribute of sleep is to undermine the integrity of his own authority. Once one thread unravels, so does the rest.”

 

Her heart fell. She was right from the start to blame herself, and yet Lord Aglovale could only protect her, neither of them truly understanding how the other felt. With Lamorak’s machinations to add to the pile, maybe she never really understood anybody at all.

 

“There’s no need to be so harsh on yourself, Djeeta.” Again, his voice was so soft, so gentle. “What does it matter? You performed admirably with what you had and overcame the powers acting against you.” He tilted his head. “And now you are here, where you and I have finally crossed paths.”

 

Djeeta swallowed the knot in her throat, wondering why he was so intent on consoling her. “The last time a spirit told me that, it wanted to eat me.”

 

He laughed, setting his cup down. “I am no spirit.”

 

She looked at him. Despite everything, Lord Aglovale’s heart seemed like… a peaceful place. Birdsong laced the air as stray petals tumbled over the reed mats, a wind chime clinking somewhere in the distance outside. If she had to stay here forever where spring was eternal, then maybe that wasn’t so horrible either.

 

“A god then right?” she said, pausing for a second. “...How did you become one?”

 

He peered at her, intrigued that she would extend her curiosity toward him, but the question had tumbled out before she could think twice. “Oh? Interested in becoming one of the divine yourself?”

 

“Absolutely not,” she said flatly, to which he smirked before humoring her. 

 

“Do you remember the day you were born? Of course not,” he replied. “It is the same for me, but if I tried a little harder to recall something for your sake, then I recall a storm of intent, an injection of purpose, and the joy that filled me as I ripped off that noisy little swallow’s wings like shucking corn.”

 

The Jorougumo sighed wistfully before he emptied his cup, strangely human in that moment.

 

“I swallowed many gods in between, claimed their authority as my own. Their malice lives on beneath the earth and within the Jorougumo’s body, writhing like the worms that trawl the soil.” He poured himself another helping. “By the time of my decline, there was nothing left to challenge me, and so I spent my last days partaking in meaningless indulgences.”

 

He lifted his cup toward her. “You should know that the curiosity enduring within you is like a flame that keeps the frost of apathy away, Djeeta. This, too, is one such example,” he continued. “And so I am grateful—please, drink.”

 

The tea was still hot when Djeeta took it back up, staring at her own reflection. Everything felt like an endless dream and a river full of loose ends, but trying to think of the world that must still be waiting for her only triggered the heaviness of her own exhaustion. She had enough, and perhaps the spider was right all along, that maybe she’d feel better if she drank. Blinking away the steam, she gingerly brought the cup to her lips and resigned herself into taking a sip until she felt scarlet eyes glaring at her, a small hand tightly gripping her wrist.

 

Djeeta almost dropped the tea, her heart pounding. Nobody was there except the Jorougumo who only tilted his head, concern etched onto his face. Onto Lord Aglovale’s face.

 

“What is the matter? Have I upset you?”

 

She couldn’t look away, the same dread from before seeping into her as she scrambled to her feet.

 

“Don’t.”

 

“Don’t?”

 

“Don’t talk like you’re him,” she said, backing away. “I haven’t forgotten what you are.”

 

The Jorougumo seemed disappointed somehow, lightly touching his fingertips to his face as he spared a single glance at the abandoned cup of tea. Then he smiled.

 

“But I got closer this time, did I not?”

 

Djeeta turned on her heel, running into the veranda until she found herself stumbling back into the weaving room from the hallway. The Jorougumo turned his head to look at her.

 

“Have you not tried that already, child?”

 

“Let me go,” she hissed, searching the room for any sign, any crack. The spider only watched her from where he was seated, looking almost bored. “What do you want from me?”

 

Djeeta felt the world outside change before a fog rolled in and blotted out everything except for the winding cobblestone path.

 

“You’ve had many chances to escape since that fog-shrouded day,” the Jorougumo said. “But you never did, never tried. Not really. Why was that?”

 

She glared at him, heart pounding in her chest knowing that it wouldn’t matter how closely she was watching him if he decided to move. “Tell me since you know so much.”

 

“You were curious,” he said, amused more than anything else by her bite. “You wanted to know more about the resentful god and his conceit. Voyeur that you always were, you wished to find meaning in his kindness, to peer into his heart. So are you not where you wish to be? Has your hunger for understanding not been fed?”

 

“This isn’t real,” she said, fists closing for how empty they were. Maybe he was right about the past, but she was no longer the girl simply gazing upon Lord Aglovale’s back as he walked ahead of her. “The things you showed me aren’t real either. I know what you’re trying to do.”

 

“I’ve not lied to you, nor have I played a part in the whims of the drifting spirits,” he said, swiping a finger along his bottom lip. “But you appear convinced otherwise.”

 

Djeeta bared her teeth, wondering how far he was willing to take this. “I choose to believe in them. Lord Aglovale loved his brother, and Lamorak loved him too.”

 

“‘Love?’” he asked loftily. “...What a waste. I have a story to answer every desire within your heart, but I realize now that nothing I say will ever convince you.” 

 

With a look in his eyes that froze her breath inside her lungs, the Jorougumo stitched her into place with his gaze alone.

 

“So why not ask your precious Lord Aglovale yourself?”

 

Djeeta yelped, stumbling forward as she was seized by her wrist. The Jorougumo pulled her toward him, and before she could even try and wrench herself free, he plunged her hand into his chest, her fingers passing through bone and flesh like they were made of water.

 

“No, stop—”

 

“Kind child, I don’t find this entirely unpleasant,” he leered, eyes alight as he pushed her in deeper. Lord Aglovale’s chest split apart to accommodate her arm, but what made her stomach churn wasn’t just the hot squelching that swallowed her limb, but the countless wails that spilled out into the silence of the manor, pure torture carved into every note that pierced her ears.

 

There was no blood, but she felt the writhing. Hands unseen clawed at however much of her was buried inside Lord Aglovale’s body, nails digging into her arm to drag her in deeper when the Jorougumo had let go.

 

“Don’t get distracted,” he said to her while she struggled against his chest. “You know which one you want.”

 

Djeeta’s own hand found something slender and rigid amongst the rolling chaos, something that neither grabbed nor pushed against her flailing grip. When she instinctively wrapped her fingers around it, the Jorougumo shuddered, a deep sigh escaping his lips.

 

“That’s it,” he purred. “Pull it out now, and don’t let go.”

 

Djeeta had no choice but to listen, tugging with all of her might. It was like pulling a wagon stuck in the mud, losing an inch of gain with every moment she took to catch her breath until she dug her heels into the floor. Fingertips sprouted from within the void while a damning flush crept across the Jorougumo’s skin, but she was too busy pulling as hard as she could to notice until something finally gave and it all came spilling out of him, a second body tumbling out of the fissure.

 

The Jorougumo doubled over, heaving for breath as his rib cage fused back together, the deafening silence that followed even more unsettling than the screaming it swallowed. “What an oversized thorn,” he remarked, lips glistening and eyes glowing with the ghosts of his pleasure. “How happy I am that you belong to me, Djeeta.”

 

Djeeta sat up, eyes wide with her arms wrapped around the scrawny form of a young child. A mess of blond hair slid lower down her chest as she realized he was the same boy from the forest, his cheeks sunken and skin covered in old scabs and sores, except this time there was no doubt in her heart that it was him.

 

“Lord Aglovale—” she whispered, pulling him back up. “Lord Aglovale—”

 

She squeezed him, listening for a heartbeat, but when she closed her eyes, she was standing at the mouth of a cavern, the boy standing a ways away from her with his clothes piled around his ankles. A drop of blood trickled down his inner leg as he stared at her, the observer, eyes listless and empty except for the rawness of an open wound. It was over in a flash, but she had seen enough.

 

She remembered now, everything that she saw—the princess, the boy, Lord Aglovale’s enduring sorrow—everything that she saw as she tumbled through the ether flashing through her head faster than she could swallow until she tore herself back to the present, shaking.

 

“...Monster.” She met the Jorougumo’s eyes as she held Lord Aglovale’s childlike form in her arms. “Lamorak was right—you’re… you’re a monster.”

 

“Oh? Is that what the sorcerer wrote about me?” The god’s voice had changed, shedding the facade of gentleness that she had almost fallen for. “Did I do wrong?” He paused, feigning ignorance with a look that made her sick. “Or was there something else that you saw?”

 

“He was a child—!” Djeeta roared, rage crashing down like a tidal wave. “He was only a child who wanted to save his family, and you tortured him for years, you… you—”

 

“Yes, I partook in what was promised to me. Nothing more, nothing less,” the Jorougumo said, smiling like he reveled in her fury before he gazed down at the boy in her arms. “And how delicious you were… Aglovale, my stupid and frail-hearted child.”

Chapter 33

Djeeta’s world froze as she watched the boy stir in her arms, Lord Aglovale’s eyes fluttering open.

 

The last of her rage slipped through her fingers when their eyes found one another, the light of recognition shining through his sleep-addled depths. Gaze transfixed upon her face, it was as if he couldn’t get enough of it as his breath quivered from between his lips. What had he dreamt about?

 

“Djeeta,” he rasped, that scarlet wavering like it might shatter at any moment. “Djeeta, you’re—...” He reached for her with a hand much smaller than the one she knew, suddenly stopping when he noticed the same as his brows furrowed together.

 

When Lord Aglovale met the eyes of the Jorougumo looming over them both, he didn’t take nearly as long as she did to put two and two together. In an instant, he was between them, scrawny arms spread wide apart as if to shield her from their interloper.

 

“My,” the Jorougumo began. “You’ve become small, or perhaps this has always been your true form?”

 

“She has no oath with you,” Lord Aglovale snarled as deeply as his callow voice allowed him. “You cannot have her.”

 

The spider smiled too widely, beside himself with joy as if there was no other place he’d rather be than here. “Lovely child, this is not how you should greet me after so long.”

 

That was his only warning when he wrenched Aglovale by the top of his hair, pulling him to his feet while he thrashed around, seething. 

 

“Lord Aglovale—!”

 

“No,” the Jorougumo said, looking straight through her. “You will stay where you are.”

 

Djeeta froze mid-lunge, gasping as something sharp and invisible pierced through her arms and legs. When she saw the telltale glimmer of silk cast by the sunlight breaking through the fog, she realized that the spider had literally sewn her into place.

 

“Djeeta—”

 

“And you,” the Jorougumo drawled, dragging Lord Aglovale by his hair until his toes were dancing against the ground. “You will look at me.”

 

Aglovale snarled at him, and the spider sighed as if he couldn’t have expected anything else, hurling him against the table. The abandoned tea cups clattered noisily to the floor, scalding hot liquid sloshing across the surface before the Jorougumo made his way back over to kick him aside.

 

Beads of crimson strung the threads as Djeeta fought against them, watching helplessly as Lord Aglovale shakily pushed himself onto all fours only for the Jorougumo to pin him back down with a foot to the back. The humiliation was by design. Forcing her to watch was by design, and Djeeta could only do just that.

 

“I was gentle,” the Jorougumo said softly, gradually placing more weight into his heel as Lord Aglovale gasped and struggled. “I was so very gentle with your most treasured offering, as a favor to you… But with you… With you, I do not have to be so meek.”

 

The Jorougumo crouched down, foot still planted on Lord Aglovale’s back as he slowly combed his fingers through the ends of his hair, squeezing the last of his air from his lungs all the while.

 

“Stop it!” Djeeta screamed as Lord Aglovale’s lips turned blue. The Jorougumo smiled at her, the mirth in his eyes a total perversion of the original’s own likeness as silk that had only ever been gentle in her memories sliced into her the more she fought against it.

 

“Djeeta,” the fallen god purred, fingertips stroking his skin as she heard the first crunch of his ribcage. “Djeeta, there was never a reason for you to fear. I would never have let this one die, come storm or venom.” The Jorougumo lifted his foot right before his bones could break completely underneath his weight, Lord Aglovale wheezing for breath.

 

“Do not… Do not speak to her,” he rasped, glaring at his stolen face. “Whatever… Whatever you have planned… Djeeta is not yours to toy with.”

 

Her stomach dropped. Why was this happening again? Why was he trying to protect her? The spider tilted his head, simpering with gleaming fascination for his enduring ire, but to him, it was like watching a mouse struggle to bite him from where it was pinned beneath his paw.

 

“And what will you give me in exchange?” he asked. “You’ve no coins left to spend, no cards left to play. You were so sure that you would never come to cherish anything ever again that you traded it all in an instant for your brothers’ lives… and what long and fulfilling lives they lived. I did not have to do that, you know.”

 

The fingers entangled in his hair turned to claws as Aglovale gasped in pain, pinned to the ground by his head as the Jorougumo licked his lips, his own head lolling on his shoulders. 

 

“What a long and dreary winter we’ve awoken from…” Fingers traced the length of Lord Aglovale’s back before they wound themselves around one of his wrists. The Jorougumo’s mouth pulled into a ravenous smile, and with it, Lord Aglovale’s own arm as he cried out. Djeeta struggled. “Pain courses differently in a body that remembers its fear of death,” he remarked, slowly twisting his elbow. “But I will not let you die. Even if you had thrown yourself into the Ootsubame’s mouth, I would never have let you die… You will persist, forever and unwithering—”

 

“Djeeta—” Lord Aglovale managed through clenched teeth. “It is a game. Do not listen, do not watch—”

 

The Jorougumo roared with laughter at that. “Again? How many times will you ask this child to avert her eyes?” The spider abandoned his arm, limp and bruised, to pull him back up and wrench him by the jaw so that he was looking right at her. “Bare all of it—all of your agony, all of your ugliness, and all of your perversions. Then watch how she slices herself on the thread just to reach you—does it not move you to tears?”

 

“Get your hands off him—!” Djeeta roared as those snaking fingers hugged too closely to Lord Aglovale’s skin. The Jorougumo only smiled at her.

 

“Your devotion shines like spring,” he said to her, words pulled into a drawl that mocked the groan of the threads binding her. “What is it that you feel for this god who knows nothing but hatred and resentment? How could he be anything but repulsive to the likes of someone such as yourself?”

 

Djeeta’s anger swept through the room like a wave of fire, her eyes burning in the reflection of the Jorougumo’s own. 

 

“You’re wrong.”

 

“Djeeta, do not—”

 

Glass fingernails bit into Lord Aglovale’s throat, choking him into silence as the spider leered at her.

 

“I already know,” he murmured lowly. “Your chest swelled during those precious nights you spent on the hearth. The only solace you could find in your own imprisonment were the stories the forest god imparted upon you. If he could mourn, then perhaps he was human, you told yourself. If he was human, then perhaps he would not devour you. For the sake of your own sanity, you thought him a creature of love.”

 

He chuckled dryly, the sound rattling in his throat like he had just told a joke. “Love… Love, you said…”

 

The Jorougumo sighed, lazily draping his arms around the shoulders of Lord Aglovale’s battered form as he gasped for breath.

 

“Tell me, my beloved Aglovale… where have you buried your brothers?”

 

The snarl on his lips slowly came undone, Djeeta watching as what little color was left in his face drained away. When he didn’t answer, she couldn’t stop herself from answering for him as the stark silhouette of the twin headstones flashed in her mind’s eye.

 

“They were scattered… their ashes,” she said. “Across the river from that cliff…”

 

“A fair guess,” the Jorougumo said loftily as he rested his head against him. Lord Aglovale had grown still, staring blankly at the space before him. “Percival was the first to go. The pyre you lit alongside the sorcerer burned all throughout the night, and what a beautiful midsummer sunrise it was when you let go of your baby brother for the very last time. You remember it like it was just yesterday, your grief as inseparable from you as the flesh you were born with.

 

“But what of the other? Where have you buried him?”

 

“Stop,” Lord Aglovale whispered.

 

That smile grew wider while Djeeta couldn’t bring herself to understand. Why wouldn’t it be the same for the two of them? What was she missing that shook him even more deeply than grief itself?

 

“Lord Aglovale, the kindhearted god who loved his family above all else,” the Jorougumo sang. “Lord Aglovale, where have you buried your last brother?”

 

He let him go and he fell to his knees, staring blankly still.

 

“You do not remember, do you? So strange. You’re never so forgetful,” he said, licking his lips again. “But this is your heart. The memory should be somewhere. Just around the corner, perhaps—?”

 

Lord Aglovale’s head snapped back up. “No—!” But they had already been plunged into complete darkness, Djeeta’s voice bouncing back at her like it had nowhere else to go when she cried out.

 

And then the world around them came back in a rush of light.

 

She found herself kneeling in just another room of the manor, her surroundings nondescript beside the mess of blankets scattered around. Lord Aglovale was seated across from her on the opposite side, grown and no longer trapped within his childhood form, but that wasn’t what made her heart stutter inside her throat as his mirror image loomed over him from behind.

 

His hands and mouth were caked with dried blood, Lord Aglovale unable to tear his eyes away from his open palms as his shoulders rose and fell in great heaves. Crimson handprints were smeared all over the front of his silk, a heavy metallic stench overpowering the usual smell of the manor’s halls as Djeeta couldn’t help but ask herself to whom did the blood belong.

 

“You could not bear it. Not again,” the Jorougumo said to him, breaking the stillness. “It was too painful, saying goodbye once. Knowing that one day soon, you would have to light that pyre alone, you grieved and grieved and grieved.”

 

The spider slowly circled the room just like how the Oomukade had circled around her, its prey.

 

“You already buried one brother. You could not do it again. You could not bear to face eternity alone, and so what did you do instead?”

 

He slowed to a stop right back behind him, placing his hands on his shoulders as he leaned in.

 

“You ate him,” the Jorougumo whispered into his ear. “Your own brother. Skin and bones and all.”

 

Scarlet shattered like glass as rage surged through her, erupting from her lips as she screamed, “Liar—!”

 

“Tell her,” the Jorougumo said. “Tell her how you devoured him, denying his spirit eternal rest to keep him close. Tell her how you could not bear the weight of what you had done, and so you cast him out all the same, locking away the memory.” Fangs gleamed. “Oh Aglovale… you pathetic and malformed creature.”

 

Lord Aglovale slowly crumpled beneath the Jorougumo’s shadow, looking nearly as small as he was when he woke up in her arms. Djeeta hung there, watching him, waiting for that sharp retort to come at any moment, but what she got instead was silence.

 

The Jorougumo laughed again—sharp raucous laughter filling the room as if to mock them both before he seized Lord Aglovale by the arm and dragged him back to his knees. He dangled him before her like a small animal he had trapped, Aglovale having eyes for neither of them as if his mind was locked somewhere else.

 

“Behold,” he drawled, triumphant at last. “The prize of your Lord Aglovale’s ‘love’.”

 

What she saw wasn’t whether or not it was a lie. What she saw was Lord Aglovale, the pillar who had stood so tall beside her, crumbling to pieces before her very eyes. It didn’t matter to her whose blood he was stained with. Maybe it should’ve. Maybe she should’ve been horrified, terrified even, but Lord Aglovale was falling apart and she couldn’t reach him. She couldn’t help him. In her darkest moments, Lord Aglovale had always come for her when she called, but here, she could barely eke out his name as the Jorougumo spun the last of his web and pulled him into his arms.

 

“Two hundred years of winter just to keep me sealed away within your heart,” he said to him. “Two hundred years of silence, daring not to wish for anything ever again… until now.”

 

Fresh blood splattered the floor as Djeeta tore her right hand free, silk slicing through the meat of it. “Get your hands off him, you freak—!” she snarled, hooking her fingers around the threads binding the rest of her. “Don’t touch him! Don’t speak to him!”

 

The Jorougumo brushed his lips against Lord Aglovale’s ear, delighted to watch her bleed. “You wished for me to save this child,” he continued. “But you can save her yourself. You can keep her by your side forever. You’ve always known how.”

 

“Stop it! Lord Aglovale!” she found herself yelling as the thread cut her fingers to the bone. “Please, snap out of it!”

 

Lord Aglovale jerked, the light returning to his eyes as if a spell had been broken. He twisted his hand around, glistening silk slicing through the air to cut into the Jorougumo—

 

—but the Jorougumo had moved faster, his hand buried deep inside Lord Aglovale’s chest. Crimson dribbled from his mouth as Djeeta’s mind went blank, spurts of it spilling out as the spider began to pull something out from within him.

 

“You—“ Aglovale hissed through a mouthful of blood.

 

“Why did you plant these thorns around your heart?” the other remarked softly as if to chide him, the squelch of his insides reaching Djeeta’s ears. “This is no way to live. Let me free you.”

 

Blood splattered the walls of the room before either of them could say a thing, thorned tendrils sprouting from Lord Aglovale’s chest as the Jorougumo ripped them out of him. He grasped the gaping hole left behind, his face frozen in something that looked almost like fear as Djeeta opened and closed her mouth. Pieces of his silk fell all around them, shimmering and harmless as they floated to the ground while the Jorougumo stood, smiling as he watched Aglovale flounder like his heart was about to fall out from between his ribs altogether.

 

“I have heard your prayers, and this is my answer.” Having served its purpose, the Jorougumo’s vessel began to fall apart, skin gradually peeling away until his flesh was sloughing off the bone like melting wax. Pieces of him hit the floor with a sound that made her sick, but the old god’s tongue was not quite yet finished.

 

“Do not turn your eyes away from desire,” he said as the rest of him began to liquify. “Embrace it. Sink your teeth into it. It is the only salvation afforded to creatures like you and I.”

 

Only a skull coated in viscera was left when he turned his head to look at her. “Goodbye, Djeeta. We will rest our heads upon one another soon.”

 

Djeeta ripped herself free from the last of the silk, but the Jorouguomo was already gone, his form collapsing into nothing more than crimson liquid that covered the floor while Aglovale was left alone to crawl through it, his body shaking. Djeeta ran toward him.

 

“Lord Aglovale—”

 

“Stay where you are—!” he roared, black thorns exploding from beneath the floorboards between them. Djeeta stumbled backwards, missing them by an inch as Aglovale choked on something rising inside of his throat. “Stay… Stay where you… are…”

 

His voice came out in pieces, worn down to the bone. When he managed to meet her gaze through the snaking thorns, she saw that the vessels in his eyes had burst, flooding his sclera with red. Djeeta snapped out of it, leaping back onto her feet to pull apart the thorns with her bare hands.

 

“Let these down,” she said, ripping through the vines even as their barbs pierced her already bleeding hands. “Let me through, Lord Aglovale, please—”

 

“Don’t come!” he snarled at her, baring his ebon fangs. “You never should have come here, you… you—” He grimaced, wavering as if he had not meant to yell. “—no, I… this is my doing.” Agony was etched into every line on his face as he doubled over, nails digging into his chest. The wound there had already begun to close, Djeeta watching as his skin melded back together, but the Jorougumo had done something else to him, something she couldn’t see as Lord Aglovale began to tear into himself with a seething vengeance. 

 

"Lord Aglovale, don’t—!”

 

He raked his scalp with his claws, ripping out his hair like he couldn’t hear her. And then something broke. Something she could feel. “...Why could I not let you go,” he gasped, blood spilling from his eyes in droplets. “Why, even though I knew—”  

 

She didn’t understand. It was like the tendrils had somehow found their way into her heart too, their thorns biting into it as she fought to reach him. The arms that had held her and kept her steady when she needed it most were hardly strong enough to hold his weight. The legs that had carried them closer to the sky than she’d ever been before were on the verge of collapsing. She ripped a thorned tendril from her arm, stumbling into the thick of it as she felt them bite into the rest of her.

 

“Lord Aglovale—”

 

“There is nothing for you here!” he snapped. “It would have ended the same way! I was a fool to think that this could have ever ended differently!”

 

“That’s not true, Lord Aglovale,” she said to him.

 

He bared his fangs again, but Djeeta saw something waver in his eyes as he tried and failed to swallow a howl that erupted from his throat. Djeeta had never heard him scream before, the visceral wail of his voice tearing her heart apart as his body was wracked by a hell that could bring the god she knew to his knees.

 

“Your… Your heartbeat… I hear it,” he gasped. “I… I smell it… I—” His eyes were drowning in scarlet when she met them again. “I—I want to eat it.”

 

She heard the agony and loathing in his voice as a black claw emerged from Lord Aglovale’s sleeve. Its talons gripped the floor as the malformed limb began to drag him closer to her until he violently wrestled it back into place.

 

“Don’t you see now?” he said to her through clenched teeth, the slope of his back swelling and churning as if there were more of the spider struggling to escape. “This… is my true form, my true nature—I… I could never have been anything else, not to you—”

 

“That’s not true, Lord Aglovale,” she said again. 

 

“You are not listening. Why won’t you listen?” His words staggered over the lump she saw rising in his throat, saliva trickling from the corners of his lips. “Why… Why do you look at me with those eyes? Why do you reach for me? I want to eat you, Djeeta. I want to eat you! I cannot think of anything else but how you might taste! How I’ll spare nothing—“ His voice broke as it sank into him.

 

“…Why.” He covered his face. “Why do you still call my name?”

 

Djeeta watched the thorns tear through his mouth, her eyes following the path of his bulging veins as he pinned his own disobedient limbs to the floor. The tendrils wrapped around her must’ve had their fill of her blood by now, but all she could feel and see was that the one she loved was in incredible pain.

 

Oh.

 

A beat of silence passed within her like a cloud passing by the sun. Like a breeze, the clarity it brought cut through her fetters as she let the dream slip between her fingers. It was simple. It had always been so simple. Why didn’t she understand it sooner?

 

She watched Lord Aglovale curl in on himself in his anguish, his eyes weeping blood. He didn’t have to do this anymore, struggling alone. Why would she let him? The distance between them was nothing she couldn’t cross, and she would cross it over and over if that was what he wanted.

 

Why?

 

Because.

 

Tangled amongst the thorns, Djeeta placed the answer on her tongue.

 

“Because I love you.”

 

He froze, bringing himself to meet her gaze.

 

“…What?” It was hardly more than a whisper, like he would fall right apart if he spoke any louder. Djeeta wondered if she was any better off with the way her heart quivered, but as she felt her resolve unfold from within, she had her answer.

 

“I love you, Lord Aglovale,” she told him again.

 

For a moment longer, he stared at her in his disbelief. And then his face twisted, eyes flashing with rage and anger and fear.

 

“You… You cannot— ” he hissed, stumbling backwards as if she had lashed him. “Djeeta, you—”

 

She loved him more than anything. He was Lord Aglovale, the one who filled that empty field with flowers with a snap of his fingers—Lord Aglovale who saw her through her pain and grief and never asked for anything of her in return—Lord Aglovale who could only make excuses when he put her before himself over and over, regaling his own selfishness every time when she knew he was anything but.

 

Djeeta brushed away the thorns. The path through them was so clear that she couldn’t help but wonder why she didn’t see it before as she stepped forward. Lord Aglovale snarled again, wounded and desperate as he summoned more tendrils to keep her away, but even those were too brittle to do anything, their spines crumbling before they could break through her skin.

 

Djeeta knelt before him, just an arm’s reach away.

 

“…It is too late,” he said in a fit of his desperation, another one of the spider’s legs emerging from the hollow of his sleeve. “I could not save you. I… I…”

 

“I’m still alive, Lord Aglovale,” she replied. “And I’m here, with you. How else could you hear my heartbeat?”

 

Maybe somewhere else where she couldn’t see, he was still holding her body as the waves of the lake lapped at the shore. She remembered his voice calling for her as she followed it here, the part of her that could still think and feel finding shelter within his heart. She knew the weight of uncertainty from the sleepless nights she spent at his bedside, but Lord Aglovale had always come back, and so what else could she do but the same for him?

 

She loved him. It was so strange how a single thought, a single realization could bring all the pieces within her to their proper places. Just moments ago, she was bleeding out her helplessness, but kneeling before him now, Djeeta couldn’t think about much of anything besides how she loved him more than life itself.

 

Holding out her arms as if to catch him, she wanted to take him as he was, torn halfway between god and man because still… still, he was her Lord Aglovale. She knew now that the nine-eyed god and the boy from the forest were of the same cloth, the same kindness. No matter what form he took, Lord Aglovale had never wished to hurt her.

 

And so, she wasn’t afraid.

 

“You lie,” he said softly, pleading against her determination. “You cannot do this for me. You cannot love me, you—“

 

“Lord Aglovale.”

 

“It is a lie! ” he said louder, his fangs gleaming as if that could make it any more true. “It was deception that brought you to me, you… you know this—“

 

“Then I’m glad I was deceived,” she said, not an inkling of doubt in her words as she spoke. “I’m glad I was stupid and gullible and naive because I wouldn’t have met you any other way.”

 

Lord Aglovale’s shoulders rose and fell, his monstrous limbs dragging the train of his silk along the ground as they slowly encircled her. He staggered beneath his own weight, his disbelief enduring as Djeeta felt the push and pull of his breath.

 

Then slowly, a hand parted from the ground, dripping crimson as it reached for her, its master unable to curb its longing.

 

“I…” he croaked, fingers grasping the air. “I cannot have you.”

 

She took that hand, carefully, bringing it to rest against her cheek. Long ago, she told herself that the act of understanding would be her way of rebelling against the forest god and his secrets, not knowing the kind of debacle after debacle life had in store for her. She couldn’t help but laugh to herself looking back at it now. Why did he ever put up with her?

 

Lord Aglovale’s nails raked gently against her skin—she knew he was trying even now, even though it was hard. She felt his hunger thrumming beneath his fingertips as she nuzzled them, the echo of the two hundred year winter he endured alone coming to a head.

 

“Lord Aglovale, you silly spider.” She reached out to wipe away the droplets running down his face even though all it really did was smear the blood across his skin. “I’ve always been yours.”

 

A moment passed between them as she cupped his cheek, baring her heart for him to take. As she felt him unravel, Djeeta took hold of him, wrapping her arms around his ever-shifting form. “Djeeta—“ he gasped, burying his fingers into the stretch of her back. “Djeeta…—“

 

She held him tight, the length of his hair spilling over her arms as she felt his labored breathing kiss the tenderness of her neck. “I won’t let him have you,” she told him. “You’re mine, Lord Aglovale. You belong to me.”

 

Cracks formed along the floor before they climbed the walls that surrounded them, pieces of the manor breaking away as if the old building hidden away within the forest was finally succumbing to the passage of time. 

 

And she felt him, the thrum of the storm of his immortal hunger writhing inside of him as he took in great, shuddering breaths just to hold it all within. Djeeta placed a kiss against his temples, taking a deep breath of her own as she welcomed the great expanse of the unknown that stretched far beyond the walls that caged this heart.

 

“Tell me your wish, Lord Aglovale,” she said softly. “I’ll grant it.”

 

His teeth rasped the skin above her heart, warm droplets collecting upon the shelf of her collarbone. She ran her fingers through the length of his hair, nuzzling him close.

 

“I promise.”

 

They fell through the earth together, Djeeta watching the light disappear through the flowing river of Lord Aglovale’s hair. Lord Aglovale, her beautiful Lord Aglovale whose teeth were so gentle as she felt the depths of his aching.

 

“Stay with me.”

 

Djeeta smiled as she wove their fingers together, the two of them sinking slowly through the weightlessness. “I’ll stay with you forever.”

 

“Do not leave me alone.”

 

“I won’t,” she answered. “I’ll go wherever you go.”

 

Talons invisible in the darkness pulled away her clothes, the robes granted to her by Lord Aglovale’s dreams splitting effortlessly at the seams before they slipped off her body. Djeeta felt herself unravel too as they brought themselves closer, skin losing its meaning as their pulse wound together as one. His wish was hers to grant, and no god nor ghost would take that from her.

 

“I love you, Lord Aglovale,” she said once more. “More than anything in the whole wide world.”

 

She gently kissed the dew of his eyes, and Lord Aglovale brought himself to kiss her back. First with his lips, and then slowly, achingly, with his teeth sinking inside her neck.

 

Scarlet flowers bloomed across the great unknown, soft petals peeling away from them both as they fell together. Her flesh split apart like she was a flower too, Lord Aglovale sinking into her with all of his burning warmth—just a little more, and he would finally reach her heart at long last.

 

“Djeeta.” 

 

“I’m here,” she said softly. “I’m still here.”

 

Her right arm throbbed, the piece of himself that he had given her opening her eyes to the gossamer threads that danced in innumerable tandem. Silk of the past, present, and future wove together, wrapping around her outstretched finger before binding them both so closely together that there was no meaning in where one ended, or where one began. His flesh was her flesh, her blood was his blood, his heart was—

 

It was here, all around her, within her… and waiting for her too at that faraway shore. He wouldn’t have to wait much longer—she would not be just another page of his sorrow. No matter what the Jorougumo had whispered into his ear, she rejected it all.

 

Lord Aglovale moaned softly as her ichor flowed inside his mouth—one more bridge to connect them as she swallowed the gentleness of his venom. He was ripping her apart, skin tearing like paper, bones breaking like glass until finally his thorns found the softness of her heart. Djeeta tasted herself on her tongue as she too dipped her fingers into his spirit, breaking the surface as the ripples of her touch spread all across him. He had given her his wish, and in return—

 

He took the thrum of her life into his mouth, the core of her soul resting on his tongue as it beat in tandem alongside his own. 

 

“Djeeta?” She saw the boy in her mind’s eye, standing barefoot and alone within the forest. She held her hand out to him.

 

“I’m here.”

 

“I do not want you to go.”

 

“We’ll go together,” she replied softly. “Don’t be afraid.”

 

He leaned his head against her and wove together their bodies, threads entwined within the same tapestry of his heart. Cradled within, Lord Aglovale held her just as she held him, the ocean of his longing flooding into her as tears sprung to her eyes.

 

Nothing would stand between them again.

 

It was a promise, one that Lord Aglovale came to embrace in a leap of trust across all that he must’ve known, sinking his fangs into her heart at long last and devouring her whole.

Notes:

Hello dear readers! I'm still accepting questions and ideas for an afterword! Please send them in if there's anything you'd like to know more about 🥺

Even if you don't have anything in mind, I'd still love to hear from you! It's been a long journey and it'd be lovely to know if you're still here along for the ride ❤️ Once again, thank you for all of your support. We're almost there!

Chapter 34

Notes:

Content warning with heavy spoilers in the end notes! If you don't want to be spoiled, you can keep reading.

Somewhere in a field lush with white flowers sat a young girl, gentle breeze combing through the blonde hair that had been cropped to her shoulders. She exuded nothing but warmth, radiance unchanging like she existed to defy time itself.

 

Aglovale stepped toward her without thinking, petals folding underfoot as the girl turned to look at him. He wondered if she had been beautiful her entire life, from beginning to now her end, his own presence a darkness that crept across the field itself.

 

“I saw the boy in the forest,” she said, smiling at him still like there was nobody else in the world that she would rather see. “Where is he now?”

 

“Dead,” Aglovale replied. “Dead and gone.”

 

Her warmth didn’t fade even as she tilted her head toward the knees pulled to her chest. “Then who was the one who saved me?”

 

“I do not know.”

 

A strange tenderness passed over her features as Aglovale couldn’t help but ask himself if she truly was just a child who knew nothing of the greater world. He had thought that perhaps they were alike in that sense, tied down to the earth they were born of until one of them found the strength to break free from these green pastures, but standing before her now, he wasn’t so sure of anything anymore.

 

“You told me that gods don’t lie,” she said to him. “It was you, wasn’t it? It’s always been you, Aglovale.”

 

“If not for me, you would never have come here. You would still be across that ocean, safe.”

 

“Silly,” she remarked, running her fingers over the petals beside her as they both watched the lotus-like heads bob back and forth. “I chose to get on that boat. You couldn’t have known, you couldn’t have stopped me.” Her eyes narrowed with mirth, not a shred of resentment within her no matter how much he sought it out. “Even if you had, who’s to say I’d be safe for long? Who would save me then?”

 

For a moment, she was no longer a small child, but something shapeless—a beam of light painted onto the wall by the setting sun, sparkling dust floating amidst the gold. She was the sunlight bouncing off of the threads tied to his loom, and Aglovale wondered if it was the infinite divides between each moment in time that provided him with the opportunity to meet her again like this.

 

“...It does not matter anymore,” he said, his voice floating away from between his lips as if it did not truly belong to him. “You promised me all of your heart.”

 

She grinned. “That’s what you’re here for, right?”

 

“Yes. I’ve come to devour you, Djeeta.” He stepped closer, the ashblooms offering no resistance as he crushed them beneath his heel. “This is the end.”

 

She raised her hand, offering it to him. “Okay, then. Come here.”

 

Aglovale slowly lowered himself to his knees as he closed the distance between them in a single stride. He thought she might finally understand what it meant to grant him his wish, that at any moment now as he took her arm into both of his hands she would realize that nothing was sacred before him, not these skies nor these flowers.

 

She cupped his face instead, her hand so painfully small against his cheek. He could almost feel how soft her bones were, how easy it’d be to crush them and how smoothly they’d go down.

 

“If I can stay in your heart forever, then I won’t stop you.”

 

Aglovale shut his eyes, seeds of an indescribable agony blooming inside of his chest. Long ago, he had promised everything to the Jorougumo, and now, Djeeta had done the same for him. Her heart and all of its peace, all of its innocence, belonged to him in every sense of the word.

 

He opened his mouth, softly rasping his teeth against the impossible tenderness of her palm. Djeeta was so many things, courage limitless and undefined. He saw her in his mind’s eye, beaming at him like he were a creature worthy of it. But that was only the Djeeta of his memories. Amidst the sprawling fields of her heart, he felt the youth of her pulse singing beneath her skin—untouched by the rigors of the outside world, she was almost translucent.

 

Why would he hesitate? He could already taste her. He had already tasted her.

 

“Go on, Aglovale.” A hand gently stroked his hair as he knelt there, his lips frozen to her wrist. “You’re the one I love the most.”

 

He inhaled sharply. It was unbearable. His wish was right here, beating softly and ripe for the picking. Djeeta had placed the answer his heart had yearned for all along right in front of him, and yet—

 

“...You can’t do it?” she asked him.

 

Aglovale reopened his eyes, heart pounding loudly. Was he not capable? Had his fangs dulled, his jaw atrophied? He pressed her arm to his teeth in his desperation, but tried as he might, he couldn’t sink them into her skin. She was so sweet, so tender, her defenselessness promising him everything, and yet these parts of him refused to obey his commands.

 

He couldn’t do it.

 

She had sacrificed all that she was and he could not even carry her will to its final conclusion.

 

“This is a choice too, you know,” she said softly, resting her head against him like she had done before, when he was nothing more than that exhausted spider climbing out of its molt. “These have always been your choices, Aglovale… not the Jorougumo’s, not anyone else’s.”

 

He crumpled in on himself and Djeeta pulled his form onto her lap like she had read his heart. Had he not learned his lesson? Was two hundred years not enough time for him to forget what love felt like?

 

The cloth of her dress bunched around his fingers as he buried his face into her lap. He loved her. How could he not? Djeeta, the child who would not avert her gaze. Djeeta, the child whose defiance outshone the sun.

 

And Djeeta… Djeeta, the fool whose first wish was to place those flowers at his brothers’ graves, forever reaching for things she should never have reached for.

 

He loved her. He wanted to go back. He wanted to treat her kindly this time, to weave for her another robe even more beautiful than the last. He wanted to teach her the things that Lamorak had taught him, tell her the stories that Percival had left for him, and in turn learn of the wondrous and exotic lands she had been before. The forest was more than just danger and misery—there was so much more hidden within the eaves of towering branches and beneath the cobble of sparkling streams but he had let those precious months slip between his fingers to the point that they had only grazed the surface of all that it—that he—had to offer.

 

And she had warned him too, warned him not to be so callous with his life. He didn’t listen to her just as he didn’t listen to Lamorak, the haughty and stubborn god that he was who could do nothing but wallow in his misery.

 

He couldn’t do it. If he was nothing but hunger and longing, if this was what his “love” could ever amount to—depravity or inaction—then what else could he do but disappear?

 

“Don’t listen to the spider’s whispers,” Djeeta murmured, her fingers combing slowly through his hair. “Your love is right here.”

 

She placed a hand over his own. “It’s gentle and kind and selfless,” she said. “Everything that you gave, you gave because you loved so so much. And I… I love you, Aglovale.”

 

She squeezed his hand as the first teardrops slid down his nose and dripped onto her apron. His heart wailed. Of course he could not swallow her no matter how much misery the future promised him without her by his side. Djeeta would never be able to rebel again if he swallowed her, nor would she ever sleep or wake or eat or cry or be any of the things that made her beautiful.

 

“Aglovale.” She spoke his name so gently. If he swallowed her, would she still call for him just like this? Could she? “Why are you crying?”

 

In that moment, she sounded like a child again, dabbing his tears with the clumsiness of one.

 

“I failed,” he said. “And now another god will take you from me.”

 

“Oh,” she said, and then she was smiling again as Aglovale wondered if she understood what he just said. “You actually worry a lot, don’t you? Even though you pretend that you don’t.”

 

She squeezed him, nuzzling close. “Maybe that’s my fault. I’m sorry, Aglovale. I… I think I know now what you meant when you told me you couldn’t stay. Not here.”

 

Something wrapped around his lower body as Aglovale felt himself slipping from her lap. 

 

“I’m only the tiny part you swallowed the first time. Just one red flower in a sea of white,” she said. “You can’t stay, but I’ll always be here. With you, waiting for you—“

 

He scrambled in place for her as he was pried from her arms, his fingers grasping for the hem of her dress, his nails catching on the lace. “No, Djeeta—“ Darkness tightened its hold. “Let me stay. I want to stay, please—“

 

“I didn’t want you to hurt anymore. But more than that, I wanted you to live. Living is full of hurt, so I think… I think that’s why I’m a little sad too.”

 

“Djeeta—!”

 

He was ripped away from her, his claws tearing the ashblooms up by their roots as Djeeta smiled at him with tears in her eyes. He was that little boy again, watching from underneath the bed as his mother was dragged away for slaughter. He was that boy in the forest, screaming for God to help as vultures circled his starving brothers. He was that weeping monster, covered in the viscera of whom he had loved. Alone. Alone until the end of time.

 

Darkness was like the lake as he was taken from blooming fields and plunged into it. His voice bubbled around his mouth, unable to go where it needed to go. Had he chosen wrong? Would he never see her again?

 

Could it not have been him who disappeared instead?

 

“You mock me—!” Aglovale roared, tears flowing from his eyes as bubbles exploded from his mouth. He clawed at the darkness, struggling in the emptiness where his silk could not find anchor. “You’ve taken everything from me and now you mock me, river god—!”

 

“Don’t be mad,” a voice both familiar and unfamiliar echoed from the bottomless void.

 

“Don’t be mad.”

 

“She told me you were kind.”

 

It was as if the scattered pieces of him were forcefully smashed back together as he was dragged back into a world of pain and cold. Hard pebbles dug into the underside of his paws in place of the soft cushion of the ashblooms or the floors of the manor. He was back where he started, Djeeta’s cold and lifeless body lying beneath him unchanging.

 

The dream was over. This was his reality. Djeeta was gone, and the window of her miracle had set alongside the sun.

 

Waves lapped against the shore and even in his mounting despair, he could feel eyes watching him from beneath the water. But there was no more rage in his heart, no anger. This was nobody’s failure but his own.

 

“Djeeta,” he moaned, raking his claws through the pebbles as if he could reclaim her soul from the rocks. “Djeeta… Djeeta…”

 

The waves crashed louder and a faint glow flickered from within her chest, his despair seizing inside of his throat. In utter silence, Aglovale watched as the soft blue light filled the halves of her lungs until—

 

She sprayed his face with water, coughing and coughing as more of it spilled from her mouth. Groaning and wheezing with her face twisted in what was probably a horrible agony, Aglovale quickly slipped a forelimb behind her neck to keep her head from collapsing against the rocks.

 

“Lord Aglovale…” she rasped, everything within him falling apart to the first note of her voice. The mysterious glow was gone and so was the presence lurking in the waves, Djeeta’s eyes fluttering when she met his gaze. The color had returned to her skin, cheeks flush with oxygen, so much so that she almost felt real.

 

“You… You changed,” she coughed, smiling even though it must’ve been painful. He had forgotten how to breathe, how to speak, and before he could pull himself together, Djeeta had closed her eyes again. Her fingers brushed the slope of his outer jaw before she sank into the crook of his limb, the rest of her going slack as her lungs drew in those most precious breaths.

 

Djeeta woke up to a sea of stars and a river in the sky she had never seen before.

 

She couldn’t look away from the stars twinkling overhead. The night sky was full of colors that she never knew it had, and she didn’t know how much time passed as she laid there counting them all, the river drifting slowly by until she finally remembered something important.

 

“Lord Aglovale?” she asked softly.

 

“I am here.”

 

She took in a shuddering breath, her eyelashes fluttering. The sky felt so close, and she… she felt so heavy.

 

“There's a river full of stars above us, did you know that? It’s… It’s so pretty.”

 

“Is that so?”

 

“Can’t you see it too?”

 

“I’m afraid it’s difficult for me to look.”

 

“But you’re here?”

 

“I am here.”

 

Djeeta fell quiet. She listened to her own heartbeat as she smelled the pine of the forest mingling with the wet earth. She searched her own body until she could feel her hands again, bending her fingers to find that she was resting on a bed of soft fur as trees slowly floated by. If she held her breath, she could feel Lord Aglovale’s own heart beating atop the gentle rhythm of his footsteps too.

 

“Lord Aglovale?”

 

“What is it, Djeeta?”

 

“Where are we going?”

 

“Someplace safe. Someplace warm.”

 

“I think I’m already too warm.”

 

“Have you considered for a moment that I might be the cold one, child?”

 

She found herself smiling softly, the stars twinkling within the space of her eyes.

 

“So what, my love isn’t hot enough for you?”

 

“That depends. Can your love cook our dinner or dry our clothes?”

 

She gently scratched him through his fur as if that might appease him. “Touche,” she muttered. “But for what it’s worth, I think my love can do anything.”

 

“…Then I shall hold you to it.”

 

Djeeta mustered the strength to roll over onto her side so she could bury her face into his fur, free arm hugging the stretch of his back. She was exhausted beyond words, her meatbag of a body even worse for wear, but still she didn’t want this journey to end.

 

“Lord Aglovale?”

 

“Yes, Djeeta?”

 

“Have you seen a shooting star before?”

 

“Several times. Did you see one just now?”

 

“Yeah. Yeah, but I couldn’t think of a wish in time.”

 

“You could confide in me.”

 

“It won’t come true if I tell you.”

 

“…Then perhaps from now on, you can ask these shooting stars of yours to clothe and feed and entertain you to your heart’s content instead.”

 

She giggled. “I don’t think I will. I think I prefer imposing on you much more, Lord Aglovale.”

 

“Oh? You only think?”

 

She giggled again, running her nails along his back as she wondered if he could feel them through his armor.

 

“Lord Aglovale,” she said after another moment of silence, drawing shapes into his fur even though she could barely make them out beneath the starlight. “Are there things you haven’t seen before?”

 

He didn’t answer her right away this time. Djeeta felt her consciousness drift as she lazily scritched him before he finally spoke.

 

“The ocean.”

 

“You haven’t seen the ocean?”

 

“Do you ask me strange questions just to mock my answers, child?”

 

She cleared her throat. “No, sorry. Please go on.”

 

“I’ve not seen the ocean… or anything that lies beyond it.”

 

“We could see the ocean together. I could take you.”

 

Aglovale was quiet. Djeeta tried again.

 

“…Are there other things you haven’t seen before? Things your brothers have told you about?”

 

She could almost hear him think as they continued their almost leisurely stroll through the forest.

 

“I was told… I was told of rainbows that dance in the night sky… Days where the sun never rises, and days where the sun never sets. It distressed Percival greatly when I did not believe his tales of this strange land.”

 

Djeeta smiled, glowing with pride that she knew exactly what he was talking about.

 

“He wasn’t lying. I could take you to that place too, Lord Aglovale. It’s cold up there though, you might not like it.”

 

He made a noncommittal noise as he continued walking with her sprawled across his back.

 

“...They’re called the aurora borealis,” Djeeta murmured after a while. “The rainbows that dance in the night sky I mean.”

 

“Are they as beautiful as my brother described?”

 

“They are, but there’s nothing like seeing them for yourself. There’s nothing like them in the entire world actually.”

 

“Yes, Percival said the same.”

 

Djeeta squeezed his fur. “Let me take you, Lord Aglovale.”

 

Aglovale was quiet again.

 

“...As you wish, Djeeta,” he said after a moment.

 

She smiled softly, her eyelids growing heavy.

 

“Shut your eyes, Djeeta,” Lord Aglovale said to her, his voice still so soft it was almost a lullaby. “Go back to sleep.”

 

“I didn’t say I was tired.”

 

“If you could see yourself now, you’d find it obvious too.”

 

“Gee, thanks... How am I supposed to watch the night sky if I’m asleep?”

 

“I know for a fact that you are not watching the sky right now, child.”

 

“Guilty…” She rolled back over, the contrarian that she was, but when she opened her mouth next, her voice shook against the back of her throat. 

 

“This… It’s not a dream, is it? Lord Aglovale?”

 

“If I were to ask you the same, what would you tell me?”

 

She buried her fingers into his fur as if to anchor herself to his beating heart. The thread was still there, gleaming faintly. “No, it’s not… it’s not a dream.”

 

“Yes, it’s not a dream. I will still be here when you awake.”

 

That was all she wanted to hear as the stars twinkled on. She blinked slowly as she took in the rest of the forest with her senses and committed it all to memory, the night breeze brushing over her like a veil. Crickets chirped away in their little quartets, survivors of the storm to sing another day. “I love you, Lord Aglovale.”

 

His heart stuttered beneath her like cricketsong while his gait remained steadfast. It was so brief she almost thought she imagined it. She was so tired she might as well have. “...Those words leave your mouth so easily.”

 

“Because it’s true.” She took a deep breath. “I love you, Lord Aglovale. More than anything.”

 

For a moment, Lord Aglovale had nothing to say, but she was already content, her body sinking deeper into his warmth as her vision blurred around its edges.

 

“...I could never measure up to you.” She felt his lungs fill themselves with the night air as peace washed over them both. “Good night, Djeeta—”

 

It was like she was floating on a cloud so soft and fluffy that even angels would envy her. She wanted to stay like this forever, enveloped in a golden light, but when she felt something warm and wet splash onto her face, she couldn’t stop her body from rousing as she cracked open an eye to investigate.

 

She was wrapped in softness here too, a gentle crackling in her ears from maybe a nearby campfire. Wriggling about to test her surroundings, Djeeta instinctively clawed at the space before her and opened up a fissure through which crimson light and the smell of burning wood flooded in.

 

Poking out her head, she found that she had been wrapped in a cocoon of sorts, the “softness” being freshly-spun silk, and the “golden light” being the firelight diffusing through it. Looking about herself, she quickly found the culprit’s colossal form looming over her, his limbs cradling her almost protectively in a cave he must’ve found for them.

 

With no eyelids for her to tell, Djeeta wondered for a moment if he was asleep until he answered that question for her, his voice a deep rumbling within her mind while the rest of his body remained utterly still like a sentinel determined to watch over her.

 

“It is not yet morning. You may sleep for just a bit longer.”

 

“No, I’m not tired anymore.” She paused. “How long have I been out?”

 

“Only a few hours.”

 

She sighed, mildly relieved that she didn’t sleep an entire day away and keep him waiting, but seeing how soft and comfy her sleeping cocoon was, she was sure Lord Aglovale would’ve never blamed her if she did.

 

Knowing now that he was close though, Djeeta settled back down as she let her gaze wander around the cave. It was barren except for the two of them and the campfire he had made, the ground nothing but sand and grit. Only when she saw their clothes strung up by the fire to dry did she realize that she was completely naked.

 

“There was no time for me to weave for you something proper,” Lord Aglovale said when he sensed the flush in her cheeks. “Even if there was, I cannot spin anything more refined in this form.”

 

She blinked, remembering that it was odd that he was still in this aforementioned form to begin with. A hand braved the harsh outside of the cocoon to run its fingers along the nearest leg cradling her before she asked, “You can’t change back?”

 

Lord Aglovale peered down at her. “Would you like me to, Djeeta?”

 

She shook her head. “No, I wasn’t asking that. Things are perfect the way they are right now without the fuss.” She wiggled again, preferring the cocoon over her usual futon oddly enough.

 

He blew over the top of her head, his breath a blast of hot air that fluffed up the raw silk. “My body is not amenable to changing right now… but it will pass. This is only the form that comes most naturally to me.”

 

She never knew that. It never really occurred to her that one form came more naturally to him, although even if it did, she would’ve assumed it’d be his more human appearance. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

 

Lord Aglovale’s several paws slid along the ground as he lowered his head until it was almost level with her own. “Why do you apologize?”

 

“I don’t know, I think I’ve just been a bit… self-centered?”

 

Lord Aglovale cackled, his nine eyes gleaming. “Even if that were true, I suppose we must have our days. Some more often than others.” He blew on her again, more gently this time as her bangs flipped backwards.

 

“It is less effort to maintain this monstrous form of mine,” Lord Aglovale continued. “But it keeps me from several things. Namely, moving freely in the comfort of my own home, spinning these fibers into something of proper use, and…”

 

Djeeta blinked at him. “And?”

 

He brushed her cheek with the shell of his outer fangs, gentle despite his size. “…Holding you,” he said. “Properly.”

 

With that, his whole body began to shift as he moved to get back up, Djeeta nearly jumping out of her skin when a rush of cave air pushed out the warmth she had been marinating in. “Wait, where are you going?”

 

“Hunting. I fed you sweet dew while you slept, but you need proper food.” However, before he could unfold himself all the way, Djeeta threw her arms around the closest leg, clinging to him with the determination of a leech.

 

“Don’t go,” she said, her face shoved into his pelt.

 

“You must eat, Djeeta,” Lord Aglovale said as he tried to gently tug his leg free to no avail. “I will not be long—“

 

“I don’t care, I’m not hungry.” She held on tightly. “Please don’t go, Lord Aglovale, not when I just woke up.”

 

Djeeta could almost hear the soft rush of blood inside of him as she prepared to hold on for dear life if Aglovale decided he needed shake her off. Instead, he merely stood there for a moment, quiet until he decided to carefully lower himself back down, his joints groaning all the way.

 

He was hot, she realized, and the sound of his blood flowing wasn’t just her imagination when she brought herself to look at him. Up close under the light of the fire, Djeeta could see all the strange parts that made up his mouth, everything about him so far removed from anything remotely human. She could make out the vice of his outer jaw, the thorns of his inner fangs, and the glimmering chelicerae of his outer ones. The forelimbs that flanked his jaw reminded her of the little paws the forest spirits usually held close to their bodies—Djeeta read in a book that they were called pedipalps as she briefly wondered if Lord Aglovale used his to wipe his face down like a cat too.

 

“...Stay a little longer,” Djeeta said to him as she reached past them to place her hands on either side of his maw. “We can eat something together when morning’s here.”

 

“Until then…?”

 

“Until then, we’ll enjoy each other’s company I suppose,” Djeeta replied, channeling a bit of pompousness to her chest as she said so.

 

“Company…” Lord Aglovale murmured as he sank lower to the ground. He exhaled deeply, woven into his breath the faint note of a groan. “If only you knew…”

 

“Know what?”

 

He inhaled sharply this time, nine eyes holding her gaze as even more warmth exuded from his fur. She felt his jaw part, and from its thorny depths emerged the pink and fleshy length that was his tongue. Shivers ran down her spine as the hot appendage slid along her cheek, teasing the lobe of her ear just briefly before it wrapped around her neck, leaving a trail of saliva in its wake.

 

“How irresistible you are.”

 

Lord Aglovale pulled his tongue back inside his mouth before he moved to pull himself away from her altogether, but Djeeta wrapped her hands around the shafts of his fangs before he could.

 

“Djeeta… I am poison,” he said when she refused to let go, the look in her eyes something he knew very well by now.

 

“You started it,” she replied. “And I want all of it—all of you, Lord Aglovale.”

 

She pressed her lips to the space between his outer fangs to prove it, brushing against a mixture of his fur and armor. “...I promised you everything,” she told him softly. “Let me give you everything.”

 

Djeeta didn’t know if it was her heart beating in her ears or his own as she felt the moving parts of his jaw hug close to her neck. He moved slowly, almost uncertainly, and Djeeta wondered if he was giving her one last chance to back out and tell him that it had all been a dream. 

 

She parted her lips, their breaths one more thing mingling together as that tongue emerged once more. She wanted to kiss him right this time, and that tongue must’ve felt the flutter in her pulse when it gently probed her bottom lip, an inch away from answering her desire.

 

“This is your wish?” he asked her.

 

“Yes,” she breathed. “I want you closer to me.”

 

“...Then allow me to grant it.”

 

Lord Aglovale pressed his tongue inside her mouth as she opened wider to take in its length. It was just as hot and wet as before when it had kissed her skin, its girth throbbing with his rushing blood as Djeeta ran her own tongue along its underside. She didn’t know if what she was doing was right, only that whatever she did coaxed him deeper inside as he probed the back of her throat. She reflexively buried her fingers into his fur as he pulled her closer to him, a pair of his limbs wrapping around her waist to keep her from escaping as he pushed inside her throat.

 

She had never swallowed anything like it as Djeeta’s muffled surprise traveled up that tongue from her core as she did whatever she could to embrace that high. He was so hot, even bigger now as he filled her mouth and emptied her head, her own fingers slipping as Lord Aglovale kissed her far deeper than she thought possible. Could he go even deeper? Would she survive? Somehow it felt so good already, so freeing—but could she feel even better?

 

It was a dangerous thought as her eyes rolled back to catch a glimpse of his gaze, molten honey dripping from inside before he released her from their kiss. Saliva trickled from all corners of her mouth as his tongue slithered back out.

 

She gasped for air, Lord Aglovale holding her steady on her feet as her head lolled on her shoulders. He slowly licked the side of her face, his jaw split wide open as Djeeta blinked the wetness away from her eyes.

 

“You are beautiful,” Lord Aglovale drawled as she made eye contact with her own reflection. Her lips were swollen and dripping, her cheeks flushed a deep pink that matched the tongue that had slotted itself into her throat. Her eyes were almost unrecognizable, a burning gold that only hungered for more.

 

And Lord Aglovale gave her more, his tongue gliding along her jugular before it slid between her breasts. Djeeta fumbled for a part of his jaw to hold herself steady as that tongue coiled around to grip her soft flesh, the rest of her trembling with anticipation. Lord Aglovale’s dripping length was pure muscle—dexterous and full of intent as it squeezed and massaged her while sparks danced along her inner thighs with every stroke.

 

She was weak in the knees when Lord Aglovale scooped her up and eased her onto her back next, sheets of unrefined silk protecting her from the grit of the cave’s bottom. He continued massaging her breasts uninterrupted, saliva dripping onto the flat of her belly as she wondered if she tasted good to him too.

 

“Is this what you were after all along?” Lord Aglovale purred, dragging his tongue across one of her nipples as he hungrily watched the flush creep across her skin. Her eyelashes fluttered as she was brought back to that blooming meadow, Lord Aglovale’s glowing scarlet smiling at her from that burning memory. “You naughty child.”

 

“I-I’m not a child,” Djeeta managed to retort.

 

She gasped softly when Lord Aglovale buried the tip of his tongue into her teat, rubbing against the small slit there as if to chide her.

 

“No,” he conceded despite the brief lecture. “Not anymore.”

 

Skin flushed and buzzing, Djeeta watched as Lord Aglovale’s tongue unwrapped itself from her chest to travel further down, its glistening surface following the slope of her navel until it reached the dip of her pelvis. She swallowed thickly, Lord Aglovale’s eyes watching her as he carefully worked her legs apart.

 

“Your aroma’s changed,” he said lowly, teasing the groove where her thighs met her body.

 

“Is that a bad thing?” she asked him and he chuckled, making her flush an even deeper shade of red.

 

“‘Bad’? You’re more irresistible than before.”

 

Djeeta scowled as he continued to tease her, using his own forepaws as stirrups to keep her thighs apart. He seemed to be taking his sweet time for something he supposedly found so irresistible, but maybe that was par for the course as she pictured that smug look on his face.

 

“The roots inside of you have matured into another flower,” he said while she peered down at him in question. “While its nectar…” She felt him inhale. “Its nectar—”

 

Without warning, Lord Aglovale lathed his tongue against her heat and she yelped, electricity dancing across her belly as he moaned his utter delight, the baritone of his voice sinking into her folds before he licked her again for another taste.

 

She jerked away out of pure reflex, but Lord Aglovale’s oversized fangs had locked her in place, keeping her from wriggling free as he burrowed into her with a voracious hunger. Djeeta moaned in turn—his tongue was far thicker and longer than before, but it was no less precise than his human one when it found her arousal.

 

Even in this form that was far from human, Lord Aglovale found a way to work his mouth against her folds, rubbing her arousal and drinking in the crescendo of her voice that came with it. The world inside his jaws was hot and wet and so full of purpose as Djeeta clumsily rolled against him, throbbing and chasing the burning pleasure that sank into her with every roll of his tongue. She felt his thorns, their sharp points grazing the surface of her skin, but even in his thirst as he pulled another cry free from her throat, he was careful not to prick her. 

 

Stifling her voice with the back of her wrist, Djeeta fought against the pleasure mounting inside of her as she brought herself to look down at him. Feeling her gaze, Lord Aglovale gradually relented and ran his tongue along her inner thigh instead as if to apologize.

 

He knew her body too well, and to his own detriment, or at least, that was how she saw it. 

 

“You wish for more.” It wasn’t a question.

 

“I want you to feel good too, Lord Aglovale.”

 

“This is my pleasure,” he said to her, slipping his tongue back between her folds as he watched the way she arched off the ground, her eyes never leaving him even as a soft moan left her parted lips. “Your sweetness drips and coats my tongue,” he murmured, teasing her clit as her thighs trembled in his grip. “Like honey that draws me deeper into madness… Yet you wish for more.”

 

“Lord Aglovale—” He cut her off as he drove his tongue against her most tender nub, her hips jerking violently off the ground as she immediately forgot what she was going to say.

 

“Will you deny me this?”

 

“N-No, I—”

 

“Prove it,” he thrummed, his voice dangerously low. It was her only warning before he latched his mouth to her cunt, the coil of his tongue teasing her slit while its apex rubbed against her swollen clit. Djeeta’s head hit the ground, her eyes fixated on the ceiling as she felt the pleasure inside of her gut churn and tighten, coalescing until—

 

She pulled herself upright, throwing her arms around Lord Aglovale’s head.

 

“Stop,” she whispered, chest rising and falling as she caught her breath. “Not like this, Lord Aglovale.”

 

He stopped just as she asked him to, tongue gingerly pulling away from her tenderness. He lifted his head, eyes almost unreadable if it weren’t for the heaviness weighing on his voice when he spoke.

 

“...I pushed it too far,” he said. “Forgive me, Djeeta.”

 

She furiously shook her head. “It’s not that, I promise! It’s just…” She trailed off, the heart pounding in her chest not helping her case as she scrambled for something to console him with.

 

She had felt him burning ever since she opened her eyes. Even in his passion as he eagerly tended to her pleasure, he was careful and measured in everything that he did with her body. It belied the flame burning inside of him, trapped in fur and armor with no crack in Lord Aglovale’s unfazeable demeanor for it to escape.

 

It wasn’t fair, she thought as she brushed her fingers against what she determined was his cheek. She remembered their tryst on top of the mountain, her body tingling just thinking about it, and she remembered how careful he had been back then too. She didn’t think much of it at the time, chalking it all up to Lord Aglovale’s brand of chivalry, but as she beheld him beside the firelight, it was clear as day to her.

 

“It’s just… I wonder if there’s something you’re afraid of,” she finally said.

 

Lord Aglovale didn’t say anything for a moment as Djeeta held his gaze, searching his depths for an answer until he finally spoke again.

 

“There is not.” He blew air across the top of her head. “You silly creature.”

 

Djeeta found herself smiling softly. He wasn’t being honest with her, but maybe it was because he wasn’t being honest with himself and she couldn’t bring herself to scold him for that. She was young and inexperienced, but she wasn’t a complete idiot—no matter how sweet she was on his tongue and no matter how passionately he’d bring her to climax, she knew it would never be enough to calm the inferno raging inside of him.

 

She wanted to set it free. Even if it burned her, there was nothing she wouldn’t do for him when she loved him with the whole of her heart.

 

“I want you to feel good,” Djeeta told him again. “Let me give you everything, and in return… in return, give me everything too.”

 

Lord Aglovale’s breath caught in his throat as she refused to look away from him. She met the burning determination of her own gaze reflected from within his depths, steadfast and unwavering as she used the gift Lord Aglovale had given her to gently pull the silver thread.

 

“...I am beholden to your desire,” he said, his chest swelling with air as he took in a deep breath. “Why must you plant this thought inside my head?”

 

“What thought?” she asked him. 

 

“That I may have you, like this,” he answered. “You who has not laid with another human, taken by the likes of me.”

 

“There’s nobody else,” she said. “I told you, didn’t I? I don’t want anybody else in the world but you.”

 

She touched her forehead to the part of him that she could reach, feeling the molten heat flowing from underneath the plates of his armor. Lord Aglovale’s breathing grew haggard, the warmth of his tongue circling her neck once more.

 

“I… I cannot take another form for you, Djeeta,” he said, his voice fraying around the edges. “It will be painful. Your body will find it repulsive.”

 

She felt his ache. Tied together like this, she wondered if he could feel the pure warmth blooming inside of her chest in turn. It would be okay if he couldn’t. She would bring it to him if she had to.

 

“As long as it’s you, I will never be repulsed.” She nuzzled him, rubbing her forehead back and forth against him. “I want all of you, even if it hurts.”

 

His heartbeat was like a giant drum, filling her ears and sinking into her through her palm as she traced the chitinous plates that lined his underside. Lord Aglovale stood still, allowing her to do what she wished with him when she paused to see if he’d rather her stop.

 

She reached further and further until her fingers eventually found a narrow groove right below where his abdomen fused with the rest of his body. There was a sharp dip, forming a ridge that almost felt like a scar marring the otherwise flawless surface of his armor. Tracing the line of the groove, Djeeta felt him throb from within as Lord Aglovale took in a rattling breath.

 

It was strange, yet somehow so familiar to her like she was walking a path her head had forgotten but her feet remembered. She rubbed the spot, her finger gliding along like it was almost natural while a deep shudder emanated from Lord Aglovale’s core. Remembering what he had done to make her feel good, Djeeta pulled herself further beneath him and pressed her lips to the groove before she ran her tongue along it.

 

Lord Aglovale hissed, rearing his body back to push her into place with his head. He remained there for a moment, taking in deep breaths with his head still buried in her chest, his forelimbs slipping against the ground on either side of her as his body began to sway.

 

“Maddening… it’s maddening…” She felt his tongue slide against her belly, the tip of it probing the softness of it. “Any further, and I’ll… I’ll…”

 

“Show me?” she asked him, pressing her cheek to his head just briefly before Lord Aglovale took himself away, his body still hunched over while tremors ran throughout all eight of his legs. Djeeta reached out, placing a hand on one of them as if to bring him back to her, running her nails through his fur to coax him back down.

 

“...I could not take my eyes from you while you slept,” he confessed, reaching around with one of his claws to comb her hair away from her face. His breath was still haggard, but those claws remained steady as they brushed her cheek. “I… could have spared you and hunted while you were none the wiser, but I… I wondered if it was still a dream, if I had lost my mind. I wondered if you would no longer be there when I returned.

 

“Will you disappear even now, Djeeta?”

 

“I won’t, I’m not going anywhere,” she said to him, holding the embers burning within his eyes. “Come closer and see and feel me for yourself.”

 

“You’ve learned to tempt me.” His breath fell over her as the scar on his abdomen glistened in the light of their campfire. “Let me have you then, all of you—”

 

Djeeta could feel the way he throbbed even from where she laid on the ground, the plates of his underside bulging at the seams as a clear and viscous liquid began to ooze from that very scar. His arching limbs closed around her like a cage, the pressure inside of him coming to a head until that “scar” split open, a pink and fleshy mound slowly emerging from the slit.

 

She held her breath as his heat took shape before her, thick and heavy and glistening. It was like he had a second tongue sprouting from his lower body, except it was deeper in color and far thicker, its head ending in a stiff and tapered point from which more of that clear liquid dripped onto her thigh.

 

Djeeta realized she was trembling just the slightest bit before Lord Aglovale placed his head back between her thighs, his tongue wasting no time in parting her folds as it rubbed against her own slit. 

 

“It never escaped me that your flesh is still intact. Were you saving yourself for this?” he murmured, teasing her with just the tip. “Will you be able to take this part of me?”

 

“I can,” she said, her skin flushed and damp as she watched those oversized fangs close over her thighs again to pin her down. “I want everything, Lord Aglovale.”

 

“Greedy thing,” he hissed lowly, lathing his tongue against her opening while he watched her tremble. “But I too… am greedy.”

 

He pushed inside of her with the tip of his tongue, the molten heat of it squeezing past her virginal opening as Djeeta gasped at the strange sensation. She felt herself stretch around him as he pushed deeper, a breed of pleasure different than before sinking into her as he began to probe and invade parts of her she never really realized that she had.

 

Djeeta’s mouth fell slack as she felt him explore her insides, her fingers searching for something to hold onto before they found purchase on the fur of his legs.

 

“Sweet, so sweet…” he purred as wetness dripped between her thighs. “Can you take more, Djeeta? You must.”

 

She cried out as he thrust deeper, the tip pushing against her walls as her body twisted in place to take him in. Her hips were practically flush to Lord Aglovale’s mouth now, anchored in place as he had his way with her with his tongue.

 

Aglovale neglected no part of her. The base of his tongue pushed against her clit while the tip rolled against her insides. The burning she felt as he stretched her more only fed into the strange pleasure building up inside of her—it was like there was more of her to fill up compared to before. Here, she could feel how thick and heavy he was, his throbbing pulse coursing all throughout her as she gasped his name. 

 

And somehow there was gentleness in the way he ravaged her, each push sending waves of pleasure throughout her belly before pausing just before it became too much. Djeeta leaned into the rhythm he set, squeezing him and keening at the way her insides shuddered against his heat.

 

She wanted more, she thought, rolling against him. As if sensing her desire, Lord Aglovale pulled her even closer, his tongue writhing and thrusting out of her as she gasped and moaned. Head rolling back, her fingers dug into him as she tried to thrust back in her desperation, chasing the pleasure mounting inside of her gut as he pushed deeper and harder until it all finally burst, her vision going white as ecstasy far more intense than anything she’d felt before washed over her. Lord Aglovale rumbled with his own pleasure, working her through her orgasm as her nectar dripped into his awaiting mouth.

 

Djeeta collapsed against the floor, shuddering as she felt Lord Aglovale’s tongue slide out of her, leaving her empty. When he drew himself back up to check on her, she reached out first, holding the weight of his jaws in her hands.

 

“I want more, Lord Aglovale,” she whispered, her reflection a wanton thing. “I want everything, remember?”

 

His eyes grew even darker than before, smoldering depths alight by fire. When he opened his mouth, she felt the damp heat spill out of him, enveloping her like another cocoon.

 

“Then you’ll be mine… forever,” he said, his breath a low hiss as he brushed her cheek. “You will never be able to go back.”

 

She placed a kiss against one of his fangs, aching for even the venom held within it. “I’m already yours.”

 

Lord Aglovale paused for just a moment before he finally gave into her wish. He rolled her onto her stomach, effortlessly manipulating her body with his legs before he offered a pair of them for her to hold onto. Djeeta wrapped her arms around what she could, wishing that she could see his face but otherwise content to rest against the softness of his warm fur instead.

 

The firelight cast their silhouettes against the cave wall. Lord Aglovale’s shadow dwarfed hers many times over, the disparity between them spelled out plain and clear by the flames. Heart pounding, she watched as the shape of his heat emerged from the cage of his legs, wetness dripping onto the back of her thighs as she felt it loom closer.

 

Djeeta drew in a sharp breath as Lord Aglovale slid his cock through her legs, its throbbing length hugging the slope of her stomach until it came to a stop just beneath her chest. She clung to him, bringing herself to look down to find that slit oozing all over her front. It was monstrous, its heat practically steaming as Djeeta swallowed thickly.

 

“You are shaking,” he murmured, claws combing gently through the back of her hair. 

 

She shook her head, squeezing his leg. “I’m ready.”

 

Djeeta found out quickly that this part of him was nothing like his tongue when it drew back and pressed against her entrance. It was pure heat, burning and rigid with only one way to go, and that was inside of her.

 

As she held onto him, Djeeta realized why he rolled her over. As her lips trembled, struggling to take in his tip, she realized why he had used his tongue to loosen her first. These were her last coherent thoughts when her entrance finally gave and Lord Aglovale pushed the first of his cock inside of her, her walls stretching apart to take him in.

 

“Tight,” he breathed, his voice dripping with lust where he had hesitated before. “You’re so tight, it’s so… so lovely—”

 

Every push was too much as Djeeta choked on her voice, her knees shaking until something took hold of her hips to lift them higher into the air. He pushed deeper, a sharp cry wrenching itself free from her mouth as she was split open, hips bucking helplessly. Lord Aglovale was right—it was painful, so painful to be stretched past her limits, but somehow it felt so good to be taken and invaded by something she knew she couldn’t stop, their heat sloshing together as Djeeta drank in the shudders running up and down his limbs, knowing that she wasn’t the only one drowning.

 

Lord Aglovale buried himself inside of her and for a moment he held her just like that, her belly swollen with his girth as her spent from before dripped onto the ground. She felt herself twitching, stuffed to the brim to the point that she could barely move.

 

“Your tears,” his voice thrummed. “I can smell them… but I cannot wipe them… Do you hate this, Djeeta?”

 

“No,” she gasped, quivering to the sound of his voice humming all throughout her as she became aware of the tears spilling from her eyes. “I want you closer—I-I want all of you, Lord Aglovale.”

 

“Closer,” he echoed softly and then slowly, he began to roll into her, his girth churning her insides with every thrust. Djeeta whimpered, overwhelmed by his sheer size as she buried her face into his leg, taking a mouthful of his fur to stifle her cries as Lord Aglovale pushed deep into her stomach.

 

She glanced through her tears at their silhouette flickering on the wall, watching Lord Aglovale’s monstrous length pull out of her only to push back in, her belly rounding out with each thrust. She was taking him—the raw agony merging with the sheer pleasure of taking him like this mounting deep inside of her.

 

“More,” she whimpered through his fur. “Please, Lord Aglovale—”

 

His voice rumbled as he pushed down on her, Djeeta crying out as he filled her stomach back up again. “My name,” he murmured. “Say my name again—”

 

“Lord Aglovale,” she gasped, rocking against his leg as something gripped her ankle and spread her wider apart. “L-Lord Aglovale—!”

 

She cried out as he drove into her, her back arching off of him to accentuate how utterly full she was. She was losing her mind and she wanted it—she wanted him, pain and pleasure wracking her body as she threw her head back and let the rest of her voice spill out of her when she was thrust into violent orgasm.

 

It was nothing like the first. Djeeta writhed through the overwhelming pleasure, stars dancing across her vision as Lord Aglovale’s heat continued to thrust in and out of her, her ecstasy sloshing out from where they were joined to form a puddle on the ground. 

 

“You are ready now,” his voice echoed in her head as she gasped for air. “Djeeta, my love. You are mine.”

 

He left no more room for doubt when he drove his cock deeper into her, dragging her entire body with it as she went limp, eyes rolling in her head as Lord Aglovale held her in place himself. Merciless as he rocked into her, there was no more pain to tear her apart—maybe her body had already adjusted to being used as a tool for his pleasure, or maybe she simply couldn’t tell the difference anymore.

 

Whatever it was, she finally understood the meaning of everything as all she could feel and see and smell and think about was him. She wanted his pleasure, she wanted to feel his wildness and the fangs of his desire as he slammed against her womb as if to claim that too. 

 

Djeeta barely felt human as she cried his name over and over, her body locking up when she was brought to another orgasm, squirting her heat all over him. Feeding on her pure ecstasy, Lord Aglovale sank himself into another frenzy, his haggard breathing falling all over her as she felt him grow even hotter to the point that she was melting from the inside.

 

“Please—” she sobbed as she was rocked back and forth, impaled by his girth. “Ah—L-Lord Aglovale, please—”

 

And then she felt his pleasure too, his cock throbbing inside of her stomach until he gave one last thrust and spilled his heat inside of her, Djeeta rising to meet him in a fourth climax when she was still drowning in her third. It all washed over her, pure bliss and madness as her throbbing walls spasmed around him. She swallowed his moans as he filled her to the brim, milkiness mingling with her nectar as it spilled out of her and onto the floor. 

 

Again, he rocked her through her ebbing pleasure, easing her back down to earth before he gingerly pulled out, the last of his seed oozing from her swollen heat. Gasping for breath, Djeeta rolled in the waves of her fading bliss before she turned over to take in his face, opening her arms to which he wasted no time in meeting.

 

“Told you,” she said breathlessly, dressed in the warmth of their afterglow. “I told you I could take it.”

 

Lord Aglovale gazed upon her with his nine eyes. “But have I hurt you, Djeeta? Are you not in pain?”

 

She shook her head, smiling softly as she cupped his jaw. She finally understood what it meant to become one in a place that wasn’t relegated to only their hearts, her body tingling with the remnants of her joy as she felt Lord Aglovale’s warmth still lingering inside of her. “What about you? Was it good for you too?”

 

Her bangs soaked with sweat flopped around as Lord Aglovale blew gently on her forehead. “Yes. I am afraid that I too will be unable to go back.” He gave her a good lick, wiping the salt of her sweat and tears from her cheek. “You’ve given me a taste of something dangerous.”

 

“Was it only a taste?”

 

“I misspoke. A full meal.”

 

He slowly careened to the side, gently pushing her flat to the ground to rest his head upon her chest. Djeeta nuzzled him, savoring the rest of their afterglow as her fingers drew languid circles into his fur. 

 

In the midst of their passion, the campfire had died down into smoldering embers. Lord Aglovale would have to build a new fire for them if they were to have breakfast, but that was fine as birdsong filled the silence that followed, the sun breaking over the horizon to cast them in its gentle light.

 

Breakfast could wait, she thought to herself, hugging him close as his legs curled over her in a protective cage. For now, they were fine, and this… this would be fine too.

Notes:

NSFW [click for content warning]

Djeeta fucks the spider in excruciating detail. If this is understandably not your thing, you can skip the last half of the chapter.

I feel like I just revealed my embarrassing side gig at the family dinner table, and that's writing nasty and horrible porn. The "E" label is, in fact, not a lie... it just took... three years... (the cunnilingus in chapter 17 barely counts).

Another question that occurred to me while I was writing the beginning was whether or not Aglovale knows CPR. He does not. He's immortal and hates people how was he supposed to know he'd get attached to a silly little human with no sense of self-preservation.

Chapter 35

When they returned from the heart of the forest, the little spirits poured out of what remained of the manor to welcome them back, varying degrees of relieved, joyful, and exasperated by their master’s abject disregard for both the girl and their own feelings. After having accounted for all of them to make sure that none had blown away in the storm, Lord Aglovale took the moment to assess the damage while Djeeta gently patted the spiders clinging to her legs. With window shutters hanging by a splinter, doors missing, and half the roof gone, they both clicked their tongues.

 

“This happens a lot, doesn’t it?” she said to him, peering up at the giant hole in the ceiling through which the afternoon sun happily shone while soggy wallpaper peeled away from the walls.

 

“Well, this only started with you,” Lord Aglovale replied with a hint of irony.

 

Then they set to work. After clearing out the manor grounds, Djeeta spent the daylight hours digging in the forest, hacking away at the wet earth with a shovel over and over until she reached the wild clay hiding beneath the layers of dirt and pebbles. Wiping the sweat from her brow, she plopped her rear down on the flat of a nearby stone to dig up fistfuls of the smooth goop, massaging it through her fingers with a curious twinkle in her eye before she threw it all into a pile. 

 

The spiders had formed a line, transferring the clay for Lord Aglovale to process into a substance that could be flattened into tiles and fired into ceramic. Ever since their return, there was no time at all for them to rest and recollect themselves, but mold in the walls and a sinking foundation were forces not to be trifled with.

 

Come nighttime, the children had salvaged an old tarp from the attic to cover the giant holes in the roof while Djeeta would curl up in the cage of Lord Aglovale’s legs. She would feel the sharp hooks of his claws gently combing through her hair, and when she would open her eyes to peer up at him, she’d find him staring right back at her.

 

“A penny for the forest god’s thoughts?” she decided to ask one night.

 

He tilted his head as Djeeta rolled onto her side so she could look at him properly.

 

“I was thinking that… I’ve put undue burden not only on you,” he said, “but on my own people as well.”

 

Djeeta sat up, blinking in the darkness. “What will you do now, then?”

 

She felt his gaze drifting thoughtfully toward the gardens from where she had rolled out a futon to camp on the veranda together with him.

 

“...I will tend to them. They’ve carved a place for themselves amongst the bones of a long-departed country, but I must see to them regardless.” He peered at her. “What about you, Djeeta?”

 

Djeeta had to think about it. She never did get the opportunity to see the villagers again after quelling the Ootsubame's rampage, and she had to wonder—worry, actually, if anything else had befallen them after she had rushed to Aglovale's aid. Would it have been her fault? She couldn't have afforded to waste a single second, but did they still resent her for not doing more? Glancing down at her bare wrist, Djeeta thought of the clothes they had given her off of their own backs, garments she could run and leap and fight in, and she remembered that there was no reason she needed to be afraid anymore. Even in the middle of the night, it felt like cloudy days were far behind them as she smiled her answer. “I’ll go with you, but you have to rest up first, Lord Aglovale.”

 

“Naturally,” he sighed, choosing not to be so stubborn this time around. “Descending the mountain in this form will do nobody any good.”

 

Djeeta had to remind herself that it wasn’t so long ago that she shrieked and trembled at the sight of one of the little forest spirits too.

 

“Even if they were afraid of you, I’m sure you’d still find a way to be kind,” she said after a moment, absentmindedly running her fingers over his fur as she continued to think of the day they first met. Maybe it was longer than she thought, but maybe it wasn’t that long for somebody like him. Still though, to her, it felt like the pair of them had finally found a moment to sit down together and rest their feet after a long journey. A part of her couldn’t help but wonder what awaited them just around the corner, but Lord Aglovale only sighed his exasperation, his breath fluttering across the top of her head.

 

“Still think of me as kind, do you now?”

 

“Never stopped,” she quipped, forgetting her worry. “It’s just your nature, Lord Aglovale. Sorry.”

 

“...I remember the days I confounded you as much as you confounded me,” he remarked. “And now you’re so confident as you speak of my nature. What has changed?”

 

“Dunno, maybe the eyes to your soul just got a little bit bigger—” She threw her arms wide apart as if to demonstrate, grinning from ear to ear at her own reflection. “And what big eyes they are, grandma—”

 

“Brat,” Lord Aglovale growled as she careened into his face, giggling when he tried to shake her off. “Shall this big bad wolf snap you up then?”

 

“Eep—” she squeaked as she was pushed against the floor. “Wolf? I don’t see a wolf, just a big fluffy spid—”

 

She screamed as Lord Aglovale closed his jaws around her middle, gnawing on her with the dull side of his teeth while her legs thrashed around. “Hmm, why is my dinner still wriggling about?”

 

“Sto-op—!” she laughed, beating a fist against the top of his head.

 

“Noisy too,” he muttered, Djeeta breaking into a fresh fit of laughter as he shamelessly tickled her through her clothing. “Waiter, waiter, I’m afraid my meal still bleats—”

 

“Rude! You’re so rude!” She howled again as the tickling continued. “T-That’s cheating Lord Aglovale—!”

 

Their combined laughter filled not only the manor, but the gardens too as the furnace continued to burn from inside. Before long, Lord Aglovale in his massive form found himself on his back with Djeeta seated upon the saddle of his sternum, eyes twinkling as she gazed down at the parts of him that she could see. The children were climbing atop one another, spying on them through the crack in the doors to see what all the fuss was about.

 

“You’ve got me all worked up,” she said breathlessly, skin flushed with pure mirth. “How am I gonna fall asleep now?”

 

“You brought this upon yourself,” Lord Aglovale replied. 

 

“I don’t think I bleat.”

 

“Oh? That is what you take issue with?”

 

Djeeta smirked, leaning over to plant a kiss against the bottom of his jaw. She felt the pull of his breath and the fluttering of his heartbeat between her thighs—little things that only made him feel all the more human beneath his shell.

 

“...Come a little closer.”

 

“Why? So you can start chewing on me again?”

 

He laughed. “Can I not kiss my beloved back?”

 

Her cheeks burned at that. “I-I—you lost kissing privileges the second you brought tongue into this, Lord Aglovale,” she stammered, grateful that she was in his blindspot until she remembered that with nine eyes, he could probably still see her with at least one of them. 

 

“Woe,” he moaned softly. “This was not the attitude you had the other night. When did my beloved become so cold?”

 

The second time paired with his bottomless shamelessness was the killing blow as Djeeta’s face glowed red in the half-darkness. “F-For starters, you didn’t tickle,” she said. “Second, you weren’t even half as embarrassing as you’re being right now!”

 

“Forgive me then,” Lord Aglovale said, smiling through his words as she felt a claw gently climb the height of her back. “You do not bleat at all, either… Your voice in all of its forms is a song that heaven itself can only long for.”

 

Embarrassing! Djeeta buried her face into his chest, his underside more armor than fur, but it was all she had as she gave him a few thumps for good measure. Aglovale only chuckled, the throaty sound emanating from deep within his body. 

 

“Sometimes I don’t know how I’m supposed to deal with you,” she muttered. “You’re shameless, Lord Aglovale.”

 

She felt him shift his weight around. “To the one who opened her arms to the sky and promised me her heart and soul, these middling confessions of a little spider should be quite elementary,” he said. “There is nobody here more shameless than you, Djeeta.”

 

She scowled, inching back up to gently headbutt him in the jaw before she pulled away and kissed him again. “I guess that’s right. You’re stuck with me because I meant everything that I said.”

 

“I mean it too, what I say.” He chuckled again, his tongue briefly returning the kiss as she straightened her back. “...The night is still young, isn’t it?”

 

Djeeta didn’t bother glancing at the moon hanging in the sky as she took his head into her hands and brought herself closer once again, those claws catching on the back of her collar. “Yeah, it is.”

 

“Where do you wish to be?”

 

She listened to his heartbeat, the warmth of his breath caressing her and her embarrassment through her silk. Djeeta took a deep breath of her own. “Here. Right here, Lord Aglovale.”

 

Without another word, Lord Aglovale slid the doors shut to ward off prying eyes just as her robes slipped from her shoulders to pile around her waist. Bodies hugging close, their threads wound together once more to the song of the night, the world vanishing from around them.

 

 

“Djeeta.”

“Djeeta.”

She saw a shock of red hair before she opened her eyes, rubbing the crust from her face. Djeeta gingerly sat up, one foot still stuck inside of a dream she could feel but couldn’t see as Lord Aglovale lay beside her, his great limbs shielding her from the draft blowing in from the courtyard. 

 

“Are you awake?” she asked softly, to which he didn’t stir, the height of his body slowly rising and falling with each breath he took. She remembered what he had told her about how he slept, or rather, how he didn’t sleep. Snoozing the night away like this, he felt all the more closer while a part of her couldn’t help but wonder if this was an omen of things to come.

 

A faint ringing in her ears had her looking toward the garden as Djeeta carefully pulled herself free from the futon without waking him, closing her robes back up while her knees wobbled from her peerless ambitions. The chill of the air did away with the stickiness coating her skin as Djeeta made her way through the garden alone until she reached the threshold of the forest, guided by nothing but a strange feeling inside her gut. One of the children sat huddled on a fallen log as if it had been waiting for her, watching her approach with its eight eyes.

 

“What are you doing all the way out here? It’s not safe,” Djeeta said to the creature. It only tilted its head before it shuffled away from its spot, revealing the remnants of Percival’s sword.

 

Warm crimson gleamed beneath the moonlight as Djeeta took the hilt without a word. A glowing wisp materialized from the nothingness before her, weightlessly alighting upon the pommel before it began to float toward the forest. More of its kind materialized in its wake, forming a lazy river that began to pull her away from the garden while the little forest spirit looked on.

 

Djeeta swore she could make out the silhouette of a person walking before her until it vanished when she blinked. Something was calling her—the pull in her gut, the ringing in her ears, and the briefest flash of red in the night—and she could only follow.

 

Only until she was so deep in the forest that she could no longer hear the trickling creek did she realize that she was walking a familiar path that she had never walked before. She looked down at her own two feet stepping over the uneven ground, each of them knowing where to land without her tripping as that young boy with the faraway eyes watched her from her memories.

 

“Aggy, where are you going?”

 

“Why can’t we go?”

 

“Why won’t you take us with you?”

 

Djeeta broke into a run, pushing deeper and deeper into the woods as the moon in the sky lit the way just as it had lit the way for that little boy hundreds of years ago. Dawn was almost upon her when she finally reached the mouth of a cavern, the broken sword in her hand erupting into a heatless flame.

 

Djeeta held the sword before her like a torch, revealing a crimson gleam from within the cave. A chill ran down her spine as she leafed through every explanation in her head, but true to herself, her feet only carried her forward and into the darkness. No red-eyed monster or spirit leapt at her from the shadows, but when she lifted the sword to take in the path before her, her feet froze themselves in place.

 

Sequestered against the cave wall was a colossal spider staring down at her with nine eyes. Heart pounding inside her chest, only when she saw the layer of dust that coated those hollow domes did she realize that she was looking at a corpse. The monster’s legs were not unlike the crumbling stone pillars of a fallen civilization, its carapace partially caved in while impossibly sharp fangs, or what remained of them, lay askew. Percival’s sword throbbed within her grasp and Djeeta raised her eyes to find a gleaming red blade without a handle protruding from the monster’s forehead.

 

“When he found that I had already passed, the littlest brother flew into a rage and plunged his sword into my remains.”

 

Djeeta whirled around, shadows dancing across the cave walls as she came face to face with Lord Aglovale standing at the entrance. When he tilted his head and offered her that smile, Djeeta felt the warmth and love that lived within her turn into snakes, hissing as they slithered up her throat.

 

“Why are you here,” she said quietly. “Why… Why do you still look like him?”

 

That smile almost seemed to soften as Djeeta tasted venom. “You’ve just discovered what remains of my true body,” the Jorougumo replied as he looked past her. “I know no other form.”

 

The Jorougumo approached and Djeeta backed away, but he paid her no mind as he slowed to a stop before his own corpse, hands folded neatly behind his back as if he were taking in the moment to reminisce. She had half a mind to plunge her weapon between his shoulder blades, but the Jorougumo probably already expected at least that much from her.

 

“Well? Are you not going to reunite that blade with its missing half?”

 

Djeeta’s eyes darted from the Jorougumo to the crimson blade that seemed to pulse in tandem with the half that was in her hands, pulling her closer despite her best judgement until she dug her heels into the ground.

 

“What are you after?” she hissed.

 

He peered at her from over his shoulder. “I was not the one who called you here,” he said. “Don’t fret, lovely child. I am well past the opportunity of doing you any harm.”

 

“Liar.”

 

“I am not, but again, I was not the one who called you here, nor am I the one who pulls you.”

 

She pressed her lips together as the longing grasped within her hand bled through her arm and sank into her heart. Curiosity and desire intertwined despite the interloper, and Djeeta finally gave into gravity as she started to climb the legs of the Jorougumo’s husk, her feet finding purchase in the pockets formed by its joints. After much maneuvering, she reached the top, hand planted against the base of one of those fangs for leverage before she touched the hilt to the fractured end of its missing blade just as she had touched the ends of Lord Aglovale’s silk atop the raging storm.

 

The sword made whole in a flash of fire pulled easily from the skull, the resulting blade as long as Djeeta was tall. It was a struggle to get back down without losing her balance or cutting herself on the edge, but she made it down nonetheless, the Jorougumo clapping softly.

 

“Well done,” he said to her while she glowered. “He was no longer a boy when he found this place, but like a petulant child, he broke his plaything in two when I did not give him what he wished for.”

 

Djeeta weighed the sword in her hands, stuck between keeping her eyes on the Jorougumo and admiring the beautifully scarlet steel that gleamed like a blade of myth. “And what did he wish for?”

 

“What do you think? The sorcerer was not the only one who chased the sun across the world for answers,” the Jorougumo said. “The youngest sought the purifying flame of legend and brought it back to this land. He had hoped to hold that blade to my neck, but what blood can you squeeze from a corpse twenty years late?”

 

“So you didn’t just pop out of nowhere for him like you’re doing right now?” Djeeta couldn’t help but be sarcastic.

 

“Of course not. In splendid irony, that child kept my spirit under lock and key within his heart.” He tilted his head, lips pressed together in a thin smile that dared her to venture forward. “Obviously you ruined that when you forced his hand and made him remember what it was like to… wish.”

 

Djeeta squeezed the sword tighter as she turned to face him all the way. “Because of you, he thought that wanting something, that wanting happiness would’ve made him a monster.”

 

“And so you took him from me instead.”

 

Djeeta said nothing.

 

The Jorougumo’s smile deepened and she wanted so badly to rip it off of his stolen face. “Unlike you, your beloved Lord Aglovale held no delusions as to what he was. Man, monster, spirit, god—it made no difference to him until you stumbled into his life, and now he will only ever torture himself with questions he cannot answer.”

 

The spider was trying to crawl inside her head again, but she was no longer trapped inside of a dream for him to toy with as he pleased. Djeeta pointed Percival’s blade at his throat, flames blanketing the steel as they longed to see their mission to its final conclusion nearly three hundred years overdue. Those red eyes only smiled at her.

 

“Djeeta, do you hate me?”

 

“I do,” she said, the serpents inside of her rearing their heads. Did the fire that Percival wield back then burn with his rage too?

 

“If you hate me, then say it with more bite,” the Jorougumo said. “Or are you too soft to even touch that flame to the visage of the one you love the most?”

 

“Shut up,” she snapped, glaring at him from behind the embers. The serpent bared its fangs, but the Jorougumo had seen right through her—the sword was too heavy in her grasp, the smallest of tremors rattling the steel as the spider held her gaze. “Do you want me to run you through with this that badly?”

 

“...Yes,” he said. “Please put an end to me, Djeeta.”

 

She startled backwards, the flames sputtering with her shock as she wondered if she heard him right. Was it another trick? Or was he just mocking her? 

 

“I would like to… die,” he continued as if he were making just any other request. “My silk has become so brittle, I doubt I’d be able to cut through your neck even if I had wished to. Kill me, Djeeta. I will not raise a hand against you, I promise.”

 

Djeeta lowered her sword just as a gust swept through the cavern and howled a low and mournful howl.

 

“Why… Why should I do that?”

 

The Jorougumo mustered another smile, one that didn’t reach his eyes. “Is this not what you came here to do? Do you not hate me?”

 

“Of course I hate you!” she shouted, furious that he had to ask again. “Of course I do!”

 

“But?”

 

She bit her lip. “There is no but. You… You didn’t have to be like this! You could’ve helped from the start! Why didn’t you help them? Why didn’t you help his mother and father? His people? Your people! You were their god, you—” Her voice trembled as she cursed how tightly her heart was tied to her throat.

 

“You were their god, and they... they loved you. When did you decide to stop protecting them? Even the Oomukade knew what it meant to be worshipped—wasn’t it the same for you? Don't you remember what it was like to have others depend on you?”

 

The Jorougumo only watched her stumble through her outburst, no longer smiling. “...You pity me,” he said after a long and uncertain pause. “How strange… I do not believe that I have ever been pitied. I do not mind it.”

 

Djeeta nearly jumped out of her skin when something heavy crashed behind her, one of the Jorougumo’s petrified legs laying in a heap after breaking away at the joint.

 

“Five hundred years,” the Jorougumo said softly. “In five hundred years, what will that child become? In one thousand years? Two thousand? Perhaps it's clear to us now why the sorcerer sought to end his brother’s life.”

 

Another leg broke apart and collapsed into the pile, what remained of the Jorougumo’s corpse leaning dangerously to the side as the one before her pressed a hand to his chest.

 

“Djeeta, am I that much different from your most precious Lord Aglovale?”

 

“Like night and day,” she said.

 

“...Cherish how brief your life is then,” he replied. “He will become the Oomukade. He will become the Ootsubame, the Uzumaki. His shape will diverge further and further from what you will ever know, and he will walk the very same path of those who have come before, of those who now rage beneath my flesh in eternal torment.”

 

“He won’t,” Djeeta said, the burn of the revenants’ grip fresh in her mind. “It’ll be different this time, Lord Jorougumo.”

 

The spider peered at her, eyes unblinking as he took in a breath that rattled when that name left her tongue. “You are betting against providence… against the laws that drive the very seasons—a wager that not even the sorcerer would take.”

 

“I suppose I am,” she said, stepping closer toward him as the tip of her blade kissed the ground behind her. 

 

“You are betting against the human heart.”

 

Djeeta looked him in the eyes, brown for stolen scarlet. “You don’t know what the human heart is.”

 

His lips curled. “I’ve swallowed my fair share, dissected them, listened to them, lived them over and over for countless of your lifetimes.”

 

“You think you know them. You thought you knew Lord Aglovale’s heart. You wanted him to destroy me,” she said. “You wanted him to end my life with his own two hands because it would’ve been the only way you could take me from him. But he didn’t. He chose not to.”

 

“Then you must be quite pleased, making another wager after winning your first,” he said, face unreadable now. “Was that what you were after all along?”

 

Djeeta didn’t answer him. It was never a wager, but the Jorougumo would never come to understand that, and to her… it was almost sad. She took a deep breath as she lowered her gaze, tilting the sword in her hands until she could see her own reflection in the steel. 

 

“Why do you want to die?”

 

The Jorougumo held her gaze when she lifted her eyes to look back at him, shoulders sinking beneath those robes. “I suppose I am… weary,” he answered. “You’ve taken from me my everything and so there is no reason for me to continue partaking in this game. Naturally, you will do away with me.”

 

“No.”

 

“No?”

 

“No more demands,” Djeeta said. “If you want to die so badly, then you need to give me something in exchange.”

 

He tilted his head, eyes gleaming despite his proclaimed exhaustion. “Spoken like a true god yourself,” he said. “What will you wish of me then, child from beyond the sea? Shall I forgive your Lord Aglovale of his eternal debt? Make him human again?”

 

Djeeta squeezed the hilt. It was just like the Jorougumo to go straight for the heart, but she only shook her head. “Lord Aglovale was ready to shoulder the consequences of his wish. He never regretted the deal he made with you. I can’t take that from him.”

 

She saw the curiosity unfold from within the spider’s depths as he stepped toward her, eyes alight. “What then? Immortality? Divinity?”

 

Djeeta could almost laugh. Even now, the Jorougumo was still trying to trick her, but she had already thought it through.

 

“Your thread,” she finally said, holding out her hand. “Give me your thread.”

 

Perhaps for the first time in his existence, the Jorougumo was at a loss for words. The look of confusion on his face was its own reward as Djeeta reveled in it.

 

“What use could you possibly have for my thread?”

 

“That’s my business,” she said, beckoning with her fingers. “So will you hand it over or not?”

 

The Jorougumo was silent for a moment, and then he burst into thunderous, raucous laughter, his voice booming all throughout the cavern.

 

“How dare you!” he howled through tears. “How dare you ignite my curiosity at the very last hour! If only I can wring the answer from your brain until it bleeds out your ears, Djeeta.”

 

Grinning wildly, the Jorougumo spread his arms apart, inviting her blade to enter his chest. “Very well then. We are in agreement. Grant me my wish and take your prize—my thread—from my body.”

 

Djeeta didn’t think he would agree so easily, but she readied herself nonetheless, flames surging forth anew as they cloaked the blade in fire. Had this been Percival’s wish? She would never know, but it was this crimson blade that guided her down this path and cut through every obstacle in her way. The Jorougumo smiled at her from across the flames, and once more, the steel became heavy as Djeeta took in another deep breath.

 

“Is it too much?” he asked her, sincere if only she didn’t know better. “Cutting down this form?”

 

“I’ll be reclaiming it,” Djeeta said, gripping the steel as she remembered all that Aglovale had given her so that she could hold this sword. “You won’t take anything from us ever again.”

 

“That’s right,” he said. “An even longer journey awaits you after this, Djeeta. Do not falter here.”

 

Flames erupted from the Jorougumo’s back as Djeeta drove the sword straight through his core. A gasp spilled from her mouth, tears springing to her eyes as she reminded herself over and over that the real Aglovale was waiting for her at the manor, that the chest before her shuddering as it struggled to breathe didn’t belong to him.

 

…It’s done.

 

It felt like an eternity waiting for the shaking to stop, Djeeta grasping the hilt as if her very life depended on it, but what came to a head was not silence, but a single breath like ash in her ears.

 

“Oh.”

 

She mustered the courage to look the Jorougumo in the face, to maybe answer that morbid curiosity if only to sate her vengeance or calm her doubt. His head was tilted back toward the sky, glassy eyes reflecting the soft light streaming in through the fissure above them.

 

“I remember now.”

 

Hands blindly brushed against her head before they slowly came to a rest atop her shoulders, the Jorougumo still transfixed upon that sliver of heaven.

 

“...I was but a little orbweaver when you stumbled upon my glade,” he said softly. Djeeta caught him as his knees gave out, carefully guiding them both to the ground as he reached for something that she couldn’t see, talking to somebody who wasn’t her.

 

“You mistook the dewdrops in my web for stars, and so you made a wish,” he whispered, his voice wavering as the flames that cloaked him turned to embers. “...Have I not granted it, little one? I did as you asked. I devoured the storm.”

 

The Jorougumo reached for the sky with both hands, his spirit transforming before her very eyes as she could do nothing but hold him with the blade she had impaled him with.

 

“Little one, little one… Have I granted your wish? May I rest?”

 

Gods were nothing without the humans who gave them their meaning. The one who had bestowed upon the Jorougumo its first wish was already gone to the unending march of history, or perhaps they had never been a part of history to begin with, vanishing from the consciousness of the world the moment they had drawn their very last breath.

 

“Yes,” Djeeta said, numb. “You may rest now.”

 

“...Good,” the Jorougumo murmured. Dust drifted down from above as his vessel slowly began to crumble from the fingertips. “I am tired.”

 

The first god of the forest turned to ash in her arms, glowing wisps carried away by the gentle breeze. All that remained of the great deity that had shaped this land and imparted upon it equal parts blessing and suffering was a crumpled spider in her lap. It looked no different from the countless other spiders she had seen in the wild, small and ordinary and insignificant. When she reached out to touch it, it too turned to dust and vanished to the wind.

 

Djeeta caught the golden thread left behind and watched it disappear into her skin. Closing her fist, she remained where she knelt as the first of dawn finally broke through the forest.

 

The Jorougumo was gone.

 

Deciding not to keep Lord Aglovale waiting for any longer than she needed to, Djeeta climbed back onto her feet and reached for Percival’s sword, only to snatch her hand back when the metal stung her.

 

She watched as a black rust spread rapidly from where she had touched the weapon, the sudden blight swallowing its luster until the blade began to crumble. Having fulfilled its final mission, the companion she had come to cherish as her own broke apart and rejoined the earth, leaving nothing behind of its former glory but a glimmering jewel.

 

Heart weighing heavy within her, Djeeta gingerly fished it from the pile of rust. She spared the Jorougumo’s giant husk one last glance before she turned back around and departed from the cave. She hoped that her footsteps would be the last to echo through this place as she turned the final page and shut the covers on its history.