She’d nearly reached the tunnel when some instinct, born of fear or deep-rooted, visceral knowledge, urged her to stop. The light she wielded flickered, and she wondered if she should douse it altogether. But the thought of standing at the mouth of the tunnel in utter blackness was too terrifying.
Long moments passed, and Evelayn began to wonder if it had been nothing more than her own silly fears that had urged her to stop before descending into the tunnel. But then her heightened hearing caught the barest hint of sound—of soft legs scraping against stone. Many legs.
“To what do I owe this singular honor?” A voice came from deep within the tunnel. It sounded female—to a degree. But the words were strangely clipped and accompanied by a faint clicking. “A queen of éadrolan, come to see me.”
Evelayn straightened her spine, standing as tall as possible as she faced the black tunnel. There was a peculiar scent wafting from the opening and growing stronger every moment. A scent that spoke of darkness and perseverance and avarice and of enduring years beyond measure. “I mean you no harm.”
There was a hissing laugh. “Of course not, because harming me would make it rather difficult to obtain what you seek, would it not?”
The scent was stronger than ever, but still Evelayn couldn’t see anything in the thick, inky darkness of the tunnel.
“I offer you what no Draíolon has ever offered before in exchange for your revered silk, Máthair Damhán. I beseech you to help me—to help all of Lachalonia.” Evelayn extended her right hand forward—the one that clutched the Solascás. The crystal vial flickered in the darkness with the glowing contents it held.
“I have lived since before recollection, before the First King and Queen and will live beyond the last. What need have I for your worthless trinkets?”
And Máthair Damhán finally appeared, not on the ground heading toward her as Evelayn had assumed, but scuttling toward her on the ceiling. Evelayn smothered a yelp of alarm and involuntarily jumped back a step. The Ancient paused, all six of her eyes trained on the young queen.
To cover her increasing terror, Evelayn pressed, “The Solascás isn’t worthless. It is one of the vessels that contain the pure essence of Light Power, captured by the First Queen when she claimed her power, and kept for eons in our temple. There are only two left in existence.”
“And yet, you only thought to offer me one.” Máthair Damhán suddenly dropped from the ceiling, flipping in midair to land on her eight legs.
Evelayn flinched but held her ground, now standing only ten strides from the Ancient.
She was grotesquely beautiful. The lower half of her face was almost that of a woman, a slender nose and jaw, full lips the color of ink, with elongated canines that curved into pincers peeking out. Her main eyes were nearly the same as Evelayn’s except larger, and entirely black. But above that her head became completely insectoid, with two other, smaller sets of eyes and thick, coiling ropes of black hair growing out of the ridges on the top of her skull. She had arms and hands, but instead of nails, she had long black talons, and her body was the bulbous torso of a spider, with all eight legs—each one longer than Evelayn—holding the Ancient up so that her head soared above her.
“What is it that you want, Evelayn, Queen of éadrolan?”
Evelayn tried to hide her shock that Máthair Damhán not only knew who she was but also her name. “A skein of your silk.”
“No, youngling. I’m well aware of why you came here. But what is it that you want?”
Evelayn searched her mind for an answer to satisfy the Ancient’s question. And then it dawned on her. “Balance. I want to stop King Bain and restore peace to Lachalonia.”
“Ah, balance. A tricky thing. Even when attained, it can so easily be upset again.” Máthair Damhán struck out so quickly, slicing into Evelayn’s palm with a talon, that the Ancient knocked the Solascás from her hands before she could react. It crashed to the stone floor and shattered. A blast of light knocked Evelayn off her feet to land with a thud on the ground a dozen paces away, her head cracking against the rock. “One wrong move, and it is gone.”
Evelayn moaned and rolled over onto her knees, ignoring the sharp pain and the warmth of blood oozing down her neck to lift her head and stare at the shattered crystal on the ground. Her one bargaining chip was gone. Dismay threatened to overwhelm her, but she fought it back, refusing to have come all this way for nothing.
She slowly, deliberately climbed back to her feet and met Máthair Damhán’s inhuman stare with a cold glare. “You say that you have lived since before time began, and will live past the last of our world? I wouldn’t be so sure. You have rejected our offering of goodwill—a priceless emblem of power—and have threatened to upset the balance of our world further. You are right. Balance is hard to obtain and possibly even harder to maintain.” Evelayn summoned her sun-sword and it flared into existence faster than a blink of an eye, brighter and more powerful than it had ever been before, aided by the power that flowed through the White Peak into her conduit stone—into her. “But it is worth fighting for, and fight I will. Even if it means fighting you. You know the power I have access to as the Queen of éadrolan, standing on the ground upon which the Immortal Tree lives. You may be Ancient, but the power I wield is infinite and you will not triumph.”
Máthair Damhán’s lips curled into a feral smile, exposing all her pointed fangs. “You are so very young. Brave, it is true. But also foolish. If I had wanted you dead, Queen of éadrolan, you would already have joined your parents in the Final Light. That is not my wish. And I have no need for your offering. But I will give you the skein of silk you request.”
Evelayn’s sword dropped an inch as she watched in stunned silence as the Mother of Spiders, the Ancient tasked with protecting the Immortal Tree, reached up with two of her enormous legs and began to spool a strand of iridescent silk from her spinneret.
In a matter of moments she had finished, lifting the gleaming skein to her hands and holding it up.
“You speak of balance, young queen, but I wonder if you know where the true imbalance began?”
Evelayn couldn’t take her eyes off the silk. “I … I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Do you think the power you wield was always yours to conquer—to disperse through the stone that burns in your breast?”
Evelayn finally looked away from the silk to meet Máthair Damhán’s chilling gaze. “What—what are you talking about?”
“Once the power was only Ours. Until it was taken by the First, claimed and chained to your bodies through those stones. I have no need for your gift because I can still access your power for brief moments. No more than what that vial would have given me, but it is something. However, I can’t keep it. And so, if it is balance you truly wish for, the silk is yours. But only if you grant me a favor.”