“She’ll be called Spider, for the way she spins herself through the air.”
The sun just then drops below the wall. Light turns to shadow all across the courtyard like evil tidings. A shiver of cold runs up my arms.
Spider is an ill-omened name because it is a powerful name. The spider scouts protect our kingdom, and the magic that gives the metal beasts life is a secret known only to the magicians who serve the king. More dreadful yet, wickedly poisonous tomb spiders protect the City of the Dead from grave robbers and impious people who think to corrupt the oracles who guide us.
Spiders may guard tomb and desert but they are not our friends.
The other adversaries look down at the ground or up at the darkening sky, anywhere except at me. They are troubled and embarrassed too.
I am suddenly certain that Thynos and Gargaron are engaged in a game I know nothing about, one that involves lords and palaces as far beyond my common reach as the stars in the sky.
I incline my head to accept what I cannot change.
Lord Thynos departs, Inarsis walking beside him. Once they’re gone the conversation jolts back to life as everyone mingles, relaxed and easy.
“Jes! You want to sit with us?” Gira waves me over to her table. “This is Shorty, and Mis,” she adds, introducing the other two women.
They smile. Nothing feels more natural than to sit down together with the three of them as all my life I have sat alongside my sisters. Missing Merry, Bett, and Amiable gnaws like a pain in my belly, and I desperately wish they were here, but the cheerful way Gira, Shorty, and Mis include me makes my grief easier to bear.
Talon stays off by herself. The praise the adversaries throw my way is sparse, like a passing shower of rain, but I can tell they are glad to have me. People sing as they drink cups of passionflower juice and graze through bowls of nuts. I could learn to love this.
After bathing I pick my own cubicle, one near the door. I’m issued Fives gear, a long, sleeveless linen sheath gown for everyday wear, undergarments, sandals, and a worn but serviceable set of formal clothes pressed and folded. An oil lamp. A bed with a linen sheet and a pillow. All the necessities for grooming, monthly bleeding, and washing. Exhausted, I stretch out on the bed.
How swiftly fortune changes!
Everything I took for granted has dissolved into mist and shadow. That which I never dared hope for has come true. Is there an oracle at the heart of the world who whispers a fortune into unhearing ears and we never know until it is too late? Or does fortune fall at random like ripe fruit dropping when a passing wind shakes it free?