'ᴡᴇ ꜱʜᴀʀᴇ ᴀ ꜱᴇɴᴛɪᴍᴇɴᴛ. ɪ ᴄᴀɴ ʙᴇ ʙᴏᴜɢʜᴛ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʙʟᴏᴏᴅ ᴀɴᴅ ʀᴇᴠᴇʀᴇɴᴄᴇ.'
Only one month has passed in Daliah Viper's life trying to reintegrate at court and follow the uneasy trails her eyes have caught.
One month filled with blood, tribulations, and l...
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Rain pounds against the window like the desperate hands of a prisoner begging to be freed. The water draws streaks over the glass, butthat's not what wakes me up.
Something tickles my cheek. It feels soft first, like the hair of a careless lover that turns in their sleep and flings themselves toward the face of their dreaming partner. It's the gentle caress of a hand on my hair too, a gesture for good dreams.
But I don't share my bed with anyone. I sleep alone. More on guard than even before I clashed in the palace, but still untouchable.
When I fully come to my senses, the soft feeling on my cheek has turned into a light, nipping scratch.
Too many legs wander over my face.
Two big black spiders wander over one side of my face.
One runs up a strand of my hair, pincers clicking, eyes moving, before it sits perfectly still in the tousled mess, somewhere I feel the weight but can't see it.
The other stays on my cheek, next to my mouth, almost casually stretching, waiting.
There is only one person even in a house filled with crippled animal handlers that would dare. Something under my rib expands in a burst of a hiss.
I could rip its brittle body apart, but who knows what that would do to my face. I know she loves creatures that cause minor discomfort and pain.
I keep my head on the pillow and only blink into the dusky grey nether light. The spiders don't retreat, but they don't wander down, not beneath the length of my neck, even though my naked skin gives plenty of spots to bite. I don't need to guess that it is because everything about physical contact makes her uncomfortable, and she would rather let me burn her eyes out than admit that there is a body below my neck and shirt. That body gets impatient, slowly.
Outside the room, the mutts run through the house and bark. Another voice, and even more commotion.
I close my eyes again, extending toward the noise.
Hearing her thoughts is wrapping yourself in a torn blanket made of chainmail. I bask in the short, pitiful burst of anger and hatred. Sometimes when we watch each other, invade each other, creep inside each other, we are mirorrs reflecting each other in an endless loop. I see her how she sees me, that strange warped image of a spider in the dark, the missing movement and the missing light form a strange image of one half-closed eye and my hair in disarray.
"Welcome home, wife," I whisper.
The spider slowly moves over my mouth as I speak. I breathe in. For the fracture of a moment, the leg almost slips in between my teeth.
