“Goddess?” Rugr repeated, utterly lost. His questions multiplied by the moment, but it was impossible to interrupt Jack and Kleo, who were deep in a conversation only they understood.

  “Gods and Fates, Jack,” Kleo exclaimed, shifting from shock to exhilaration, “this is both completely insane and perfectly logical at the same time!”

  She spun toward Rugr, urgency in her eyes. “Father, go get Maya—now. We need her.”

  Rugr wasn’t accustomed to being ordered around by anyone, least of all Kleo, but he nodded and headed for the door without protest. Jack pointed him in the right direction.

  “Turn right, second hut on the right. It’s the only one with a stoop.”

  As Rugr left, Kleo paced the room, her fingers threading through her damp hair as if she could physically untangle her thoughts. Jack watched from the side, his stomach growling in protest. In the bedroom, he rummaged through their bags for food but found nothing. The door swung open again, and he returned empty-handed to the main room.

  Maya and Will entered, their expressions worried and their clothes disheveled. Rugr followed behind, face unreadable. Jack wondered idly what Rugr had interrupted.

  Maya immediately fixed her gaze on Kleo. “Kleo, what’s wrong?”

  Kleo stopped pacing, pressing both palms against her temples. “Maya, you’re going to think Jack and I have completely lost it—if you don’t already.”

  She took a steadying breath, composing herself. “Rugr told us your theory about the box—the Kull magic, the suspended animation.”

  Maya nodded, cautious. “It’s one possibility. Far-fetched, perhaps, but the evidence fits. Such spells require a specialized container, exactly as Rugr described. But my understanding is limited.”

  “Jack and I think the person who cast that spell—the body in the box—is a woman.”

  Maya arched an eyebrow. “Explain.”

  Kleo hesitated, eyes flicking around the room. Jack gave her an encouraging nod.

  “Okay, here’s the crazy part.” She began to pace again, her voice fast with excitement. “After the battle with the Dark Witch, Jack had an experience. A vision—or something. He encountered a presence that he called ‘the goddess.’ When he mistook her for me, she said something strange. Something like, ‘I’m not Kleo, but that’s an easy mistake to make. She’s the thread binding us. We’re both trying to find our way back to her.’”

  She turned to Jack. “Did I get that right?”

  Jack nodded. “That’s exactly what she said. I understood it completely at the time, like it was undeniable truth—but now I can’t explain why.”

  Silence fell as the others tried to digest this revelation. Rugr finally spoke, skeptical. “You’re putting a lot of stock in something Jack dreamed while unconscious.”

  Kleo snapped at him. “You, of all people, know better. Tell them about my dreams.”

  Rugr sighed, addressing Maya and Will. “When Kleo was very young, she had vivid dreams—ongoing stories, detailed and consistent. She spoke of them often until she was about ten and probably experienced them longer but stopped telling me about them.”

  Kleo prompted, insistent, “And?”

  Rugr continued, eyes sliding toward Jack. “In these dreams, she was always an adult. Never a child. And each dream involved the same man—a man named Jack.”

  Maya and Will exchanged uneasy glances. Will broke the silence first. “That sounds… kind of creepy.”

  “At the time, I thought so too,” Rugr admitted. “But when I met Jack and brought him back to the wagon, I knew, from the look on Kleo’s face, that this was the Jack from her dreams. Honestly, I still don’t know exactly why I didn’t kill him outright. But, as you see, he stands here very much alive.”

  Jack swallowed. Kleo glared at Rugr. “Father, really? Was that necessary?”

  Kleo turned to Maya. “It’s true—all of it. Seeing Jack for the first time stopped my heart. And then—”

  Maya finished, understanding dawning in her eyes, “—it triggered your unyielding fate.”

  Kleo nodded, visibly shaken by the memory.

  Will leaned in, curious but cautious. “So, what does this have to do with the box? You don’t seriously think it contains an actual goddess, do you?”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Not exactly,” Kleo admitted. “But there’s more.” She bit her lip, recounting her experience with the pulse: the overwhelming joy, peace, and safety, the deep feeling of connection. By the time she finished, she was trembling from the memory’s lingering impact.

  “So, after your party at the abbey, you figured out it was a signal and triangulated it?” Will asked.

  “Yes,” Kleo said.

  “Let me guess," Will said. "South?”

  She nodded again.

  “And since the box is also south, your theory is the pulse originates from it—that this ‘goddess’ is somehow the consciousness of whoever is inside the box?”

  Kleo’s voice trembled. “Is that completely insane?”

  Will opened his mouth to reply but caught Maya’s warning glance and reconsidered. “It’s ‘circus crazy’—exactly the kind of crazy I’ve come to expect from you two.”

  Kleo frowned, unsure if she should be annoyed or flattered.

  Maya interjected, “What Will means is that it might sound unbelievable, but it also makes a strange kind of sense.”

  Kleo smiled. “Circus crazy sense.”

  Rugr cleared his throat. “Crazy or not, we have critical questions we must answer. One: who exactly is in the box? Two: why is she reaching out to Kleo? And three: why does Markus—or perhaps Barto—consider this ‘goddess’ such a threat?”

  Silence settled again, heavier now. Maya broke it, thoughtful. “The answer to those questions is the key to everything that happens next.”

  “What happens next is I go to bed,” Jack said, stifling a yawn.

  Rugr had a different plan. “That’s where you're wrong. We need to work through this tonight. Tomorrow, we go collect this ‘goddess’ and head for the desert.”

  Jack groaned. “Fine, but I need something to eat first.”

  The demana stood no chance against the Arraku. The attack was swift, clinical—the stinger plunged deep into his heart. Death was silent except for the faint, wet crunch of bone meeting barb. The Arraku soldier held the body upright, gripping it through its dying spasms, maintaining the illusion of life as his cluster brothers took positions in the shadows. Three were enough. The fourth waited, a contingency. A precaution. The Spider Queen demanded it. The operation was sacred.

  This demana was nothing—waste. Only the female mattered: food, a prize for the Spider Queen’s feast. She must be captured, sedated, cocooned. Her vitality preserved. The Queen’s decree left no margin for error.

  The Arraku stood motionless behind the demana corpse, its limbs deceptively humanlike, the stinger hidden within the hollow of the victim’s chest. He held the pose flawlessly, waiting for the signal as the cluster prepared their assault.

  Two demana stood watching. One was the female—the Queen’s chosen. He saw fear in the female’s eyes as he twitched his bipedal puppet, imitating its crude movements:

  I am fine. Standing in the rain. Normal demana behavior.

  His performance was flawless.

  He observed her with curiosity. Why the Spider Queen desired this particular female did not matter. The Queen had spoken. Her command absolute.

  The signal pulsed through the cluster’s shared consciousness. Immediate. Absolute. His brothers descended from the trees, deadly shadows, movements fluid and precise. The second demana fell instantly, the barb piercing his heart with a choked gasp and a spray of blood, lifeless before he struck mud.

  The female screamed, her terror sharp and piercing. She turned to flee, but a second brother intercepted, limbs closing around her like iron restraints. She thrashed uselessly. The Arraku struck without hesitation, venomous fangs sinking deep into her shoulder. Resistance faded, muscles slackened as the toxin surged. Cocooning began immediately, silk spilling from hidden spinnerets, binding her limbs rigid. The webbing preserved her flesh and organs. She was precious. Her value absolute.

  A third demana fled into the woods, crashing through the brush in a blind panic. The cluster leader considered pursuit but dismissed it—irrelevant. The objective was secured. The female was theirs.

  The leader pulsed the signal: Nest.

  Three Arraku gathered, forms obscured by rain and darkness, surrounding the cocooned prize. Their compound eyes glinted green, thoughts attuned to the Queen. The fourth brother did not appear. The signal shifted—anger. He pursued the fleeing demana male into the woods, breaching protocol. His prey irrelevant. An unforgivable mistake. He would be waste.

  Connection sharpened, reality twisted, and the air shimmered and tore as the Spider Queen opened the portal. Threads of her vast web bridged the distance attuned to their signal.

  The female was secured. Her capture guaranteed the Queen's favor. To stand in the Spider Queen's presence, enter her personal nest—these were rare honors. Pride surged through the leader, echoed and magnified by his brothers. Victory elevated them. They would earn the right to mate with the Arrakfala, her brood mothers.

  Then came a new command: wait.

  Confusion rippled through the shared link. Unexpected. The sender insisted on patience, but the cluster responded decisively: regret. The fourth brother no longer mattered. The mission was sacred. The female their sole priority.

  They stepped through the portal one by one, carrying their unconscious prize. Reduced to three, the cluster exuded satisfaction—a deep, collective sense of triumph. They had fulfilled the Queen’s command. Their reward awaited them in her nest.

  The fourth Arraku returned to the rain-drenched clearing too late. The portal had closed, leaving it stranded—severed from its cluster, the nest, and the purpose that defined its very existence. A cluster of one was no cluster at all. Isolation was a death sentence.

  Pursuing the fleeing demana had aligned with the mission, but abandoning the cocoon had been selfish, driven by pride and instinct rather than the Spider Queen's will. Now, its brothers were gone. No connection. No Queen. No future.

  The Arraku staggered toward the discarded body of the second demana, rain streaming down its carapace, forming rivulets like the tears it could not weep. It sank to the ground beside the lifeless prey, the corpse still warm and pliant—one final, pitiful meal to delay the inevitable. Already, spider madness whispered at the edges of its consciousness, fraying its thoughts into chaos. The silence in its mind was deafening.

  With limbs folding beneath its failing body, the Arraku curled into the mud. Rain pattered upon its carapace, a cold rhythm marking its solitary end. The darkness closed in, absolute and irreversible, as the Arraku waited, feeble and afraid, for death to grant mercy.