Page 48 of Queen Takes Blood
Ijerked awake, not sure what had happened. Pain throbbed through my head with every beat of my heart. A scraping sound echoed around me. I tried to move, sit up, turn, but I was pinned. I remembered a crushing weight falling onto me. A massive stone crashing down to block the exit. Itzcoatl screaming.
Evidently, Queen Tocatl had made her choice.
I tried to do a mental check through my body to see where I was injured but my head hurt too badly to focus.Did she feed on me? Am I Blood now? Why can’t I move?
Actually, I was moving, just slowly. My head wobbled, a slight bump that rolled me to the side enough to see a lump beside me. Tangled in glowing white ropes and cloth that fluttered across my face.
I stared, blinking, trying to make the connection in my throbbing head.
Not ropes. There wasn’t any kind of braid, just smooth strands and wispy, billowing clouds of white. The lump was round. Ropes trailed alongside me.
Around me.
I’m bound. That’s why I can’t move.I’m not paralyzed from the statue falling on me and crushing my skull or spine.
I became more aware of slight jerks. The pull on my body. A faint scrape and drag against my back as I glided along the ground. I might be mistaken but it didn’t feel like smooth stone against my back. More like packed earth. Faint ridges and bumps. Roots?
I managed to turn my head a bit more, staring intently at the round thing so close. Another bump, more significant. Enough to dislodge the fluttering cloth.
Itzcoatl stared back at me. Eyes wide, mouth strained open on a silent scream. Blood streaked his face, forever frozen in a grimace. Only his head. What had the queen done with the rest of him?
A harder bump jostled me, sending another flash of lightning tearing across my vision. Everything went dark, my head echoing like a hollow drum. Panic pulsed through me in waves, growing in intensity. I needed to free myself. I had to get away. Before she could do the same to me.
Or worse.
Because honestly I’d rather be a head bouncing along the ground like Itzcoatl than ever serve as the kind of Blood who’d willingly destroy a young queen like Mama.
I couldn’t move my arms. My legs. I managed to flop a little, arching my back, but nothing else. I couldn’t wriggle my fingers, let alone slide my hand down to the knife on my hip, even if it was still there. I felt another larger bump gliding beneath my body, so I used it to help me lift my head, trying to see around me, but it was too dark.
Barely, I managed to keep my head from jouncing even harder on the downward slope.
Heart pounding and head swimming, I closed my eyes. I couldn’t see much anyway. I breathed as deeply as the bonds allowed, trying to filter through the various scents like Itztli did. Other than the dank earthy scent, I couldn’t pick up any other identifiable smells.
I focused on my ears. The soft scrape of cobwebs along the ground, whisper of silk rubbing against my body and the roots. A deeper, rhythmic rasp. Something hard scuttling along the ground. Likely the queen’s legs as she pulled me deeper into her nest. I could still breathe, though I could feel the soft flutter of silk across my lips and face.
It felt like a deep, dark tunnel stuffed with thick, sticky webs. She was big enough to pull a full-grown Aima warrior along the ground like a dead weight. Maybe two, though Itzcoatl was in pieces. All too easily, I could imagine her monstrous form. Hairy legs spread from ceiling to floor of the tunnel, her bulbous abdomen heaving me along the trail.How do I even begin to kill such a queen?
No way out. Bound. Helpless. Even if I managed to free myself, how would I escape the goddess’s realm? Or find my way out from beneath the pyramid—if that’s even where the queen was located? Itztli might need help with the other three Blood.
Her other Blood had survived the ritual. They’d escaped—or been allowed out to live above in the city of Teotihuacan. How, though? My thoughts whirled and rattled inside me like a rat trapped in a cage, gnawing helplessly at its own leg to try and escape. My breathing came quicker, shallower, frantic little pants that weren’t drawing enough air. My chest banded with pain, a tightness that had nothing to do with the ropes of web wrapped around me.
No. I won’t go down like this. Frantic and desperate and terrified.
I sank deeper into myself. My core. The deep, silent river that rippled inside me. There was peace in accepting that I was not in control. I couldn’t do anything in this moment, so I would wait for a better moment to be revealed.
I would endure. I would pay whatever price required to gain justice for Mama. To keep another young queen from being hurt like her.
Never again. I swear it, Mama.
She survived much worse than being torn apart by a spider queen, and her blood, honor, and courage flowed in my veins.
My body jerked to a halt. It felt like the webbing around me had snagged on something. I still couldn’t see much with the silken sheet billowing over my face. It seemed a bit lighter, or perhaps my eyes had finally adjusted to the darkness. I sensed more air and space around us, so we were out of the tunnel. I could smell water nearby, thick with minerals. Slow, steady plopping drops as water seeped through the earth above.
Something tickled my mind, a faint itch. Itztli? Hope swelled in my heart and I reached for that sensation, but it wasn’t my brother’s bond.
:Tasty.:A voice scratched in my head.:Hunger. So long.:
I held myself very still, barely breathing. I sensed movement around me, a dark shape looming nearby, moving softly and lightly despite its size.
