Page 156 of A Promise of Peridot
Those pincers, too close now. The sound like a knife being sharpened before it cut into fresh meat. Slicing, snapping, clicking. The silk shook as the creature hovered above me, and I—
I didn’t squirm. I didn’t cry. I sucked in a great lungful of air and braced myself. The widow crouched low, and the fine hairs of her legs tickled my shoulders and nose. Slowly, she cut through my restraints with those gleaming pincers, taking her time as she freed my arms, my torso. Her hypnotic yellow eyes shone, her lips parting to reveal the shining white fangs inside.
Her nostrils twitched, pupils rolling together to follow my involuntary jerks and spasms every time a fine hair touched my skin. She cocked her head to one side, and then the other... waiting.
Waiting for my struggle, for the hunt—
But I lay still, despite the audience’s groans and bellows for me to scramble away. I shuddered through the horror, the smell of earth and musk, as the creature opened her gruesome arachnid mouth, let out a hungry, fevered hiss, and tore her venomous fangs through my thigh.
My vision tunneled to a single pinprick.
It was worse than agony.
The closest I had come to feeling even a whisper of this kind of pain had been the night Kane’s healers purged wolfbeast venom from me. And that—that had been a splinter, a papercut, astubbed toecompared to this.
I shrieked.
Sobbed—
Bellowed as acid ripped through muscle, flesh, my very bones, until I could feel my blood bubbling,sputteringunder my skin.
Another wave of relentless anguish hauled me under and I screeched, my voice like a banshee in my own ears—
Do not faint. Do not faint.
All the while the crowd cheered for my death. For my evisceration. Some faraway part of my brain remembered what needed to be done. My only chance at survival.
I reached with arms that didn’t feel like my own for the metal chain connected to the widow’s collar. Tugged and wrenched it looser, longer, until I had enough slack to bring the chain down to where the creature’s fang was still impaled in my leg and ran the metal through my own bubbling, sizzling flesh.
Moaning through clenched, gritted teeth, I nearly vomited from the splintering, nerve-shredding torture. One more minute—
One more second—
Until finally,finally—the widow’s chain snapped, liquefied by its own acid, with a wonderfulcrack.
I had to move very, very quickly now, lest the widow realize she was free and take off, leaving me to plummet through the gaping holes of her web. I pushed one hand into my thigh and felt the lighte eagerly pour through me, sealing up the wound, purging the acid, cooling the burning, ripping venom.
I exhaled with the fleeting relief, and with my other hand I clawed for her collar, dodging as she lurched toward me, her toxic fangs just narrowly missing my neck.
The crowd booed their displeasure as I ducked to the side, the silken lattice swaying and bouncing with my every movement. Thewidow crawled around me, pouncing to pierce me with her fangs once more.
I rolled, skirting another blow, the web dipping uneasily and my foot slipping through a gaping hole.
More cheering, more rabid joy—
My hands wrapped around the thin strands of silk, the fibers too slight, too dainty to hold me—
My stomach plummeting as I reached, and reached andreached.
And finally grasped her collar.
My fingers twined around the metal chains, pulling myself upright and, despite the pain, over the creature until I was seated atop her like a horse. She screeched out a wicked sound, and I wrapped my hands in her hair to hold myself steady. Her bony exoskeleton was thin, and bowed under my weight, the reedy, prickly hairs grazing my arms. While the crowd thundered with glee as I tried to hold on, the widow’s flexible body writhed and shrugged, trying to buck me off. I yanked the chain around her neck harder, rearing her up like a steed on its hind legs.
“Come on,” I said, grunting. “I freed you,come on—”
Suddenly she took off, and I was thrown backward as we skittered toward a large oak platform bursting with spectators. Their shouts of elation quickly bled into gasps of terror as the widow’s legs scurried over vines and stairs and bodies. I held on for my life, tugging at her silky hair as she hissed and shrieked, fangs snapping.
I just needed to get closer, higher, over to where Killoran and his men were beginning to panic, scrambling for their weapons, crawling over one another to aim their crossbows at us.
