Darkness embrace her, it sparkled. She tugged it. Flexible, but strong as steel. Impossibly light. But—
“There’s an imperfection here . . . Can I expect the rest of it to be similarly marred?” The spider hissed and the ground thudded as she neared. Abraxos stopped her with a warning growl that set the other three coming up behind her—guards, then. But Manon held up the swatch to the light. “Look,” Manon said, pointing to a vein of color running through it.
“That’s no imperfection,” the spider snapped. Abraxos’s tail curled around Manon, a shield between her and the spiders, bringing her closer to the wall of his body.
Manon held it higher, angling it toward the sun. “Look in the better light. You think I’m going to give away my beauty for second-rate weaving?”
“Second rate!” the spider seethed. Abraxos’s tail curled tighter.
“No—it appears I’m mistaken.” Manon lowered her arms, smiling. “It seems I’m not in the bargaining mood today.”
The spiders, now standing along the cliff ’s edge, didn’t even have time to move as Abraxos’s tail unwound like a whip and slammed into them.
They went flying into the ravine, shrieking. Manon didn’t waste a second as she stuffed the remaining yards of silk into the empty saddlebags. She mounted Abraxos and they leapt into the air, the cliff the perfect takeoff spot, just as she’d planned.
The perfect trap for those foolish, ancient monsters.
38
Manon gave a foot of spidersilk to the overseer after he carefully grafted it onto Abraxos’s wings. She’d gotten extra—lots of it, in case it ever wore down—and it was now locked in the false bottom of a trunk. She told no one where she had been, or why Abraxos’s wings now shimmered in a certain light. Asterin would have murdered her for the risk, and her grandmother would have butchered Asterin for not being there. Manon was in no mood to replace her Second and find a new member for the Thirteen.
Once Abraxos had healed, Manon brought him to the mouth of the Northern Fang to try the Crossing. Before, his wings had been too weak to attempt the plunge—but with the silk reinforcements, he’d stand a far greater chance.
But the risk remained, which was why Asterin and Sorrel waited behind her, already on their mounts. If things went wrong, if Abraxos couldn’t pull up or the silk failed, she was to jump—jump away from him. Let him die, while one of them caught her in the claws of their wyverns.
Manon wasn’t too keen on that plan, but it was the only way Asterin and Sorrel would agree to let her do it. Though Manon was the Blackbeak heir, they would have locked her in a wyvern pen rather than let her make the Crossing without the proper precautions. She might have called them softhearted and given them the beatings they deserved, but it was smart. Tensions were worse than ever, and she wouldn’t put it past the Yellowlegs heir to spook Abraxos during the Crossing.
Manon nodded her readiness to her Second and Third before approaching her beast. Not many had gathered, but Iskra was on the viewing platform, smiling faintly. Manon checked the stirrups, the saddle, and the reins one more time, Abraxos tense and snarling.
“Let’s go,” she said to him, pulling the reins to lead him a bit farther ahead so she could mount him. He still had plenty of space to get a running start—and with his new wings, she knew he would be fine. They’d done steep plunges and hard upswings before. But Abraxos wouldn’t move.
“Now,” she snapped at him, tugging hard.
Abraxos turned an eye to her and growled. She lightly smacked his leathery cheek. “Now.”
Those hind legs dug in, and he tucked his wings in tight. “Abraxos.”
He was looking at the Crossing, then back at her. Wide-eyed. Petrified—utterly petrified. Useless, stupid, cowardly beast.
“Stop it,” she said, moving to climb into the saddle instead. “Your wings are fine now.” She reached for his haunch but he reared away, the ground shaking as he slammed down. Behind her, Asterin and Sorrel murmured to their mounts, who had skittered back and snapped at Abraxos, and at each other.
There was a soft laugh from the viewing platform, and Manon’s teeth popped down.
“Abraxos. Now.” She reached for the saddle again.
He bucked away, slamming into the wall and shrinking back.
One of the men brought out a whip, but she held out a hand. “Don’t take another step,” she snapped, iron nails out. Whips only made Abraxos more uncontrollable. She turned to her mount. “You rutting coward,” she hissed at the beast, pointing to the Crossing. “Get back in line.” Abraxos met her stare, refusing to back down. “Get in line, Abraxos!”
“He can’t understand you,” Asterin said quietly.
“Yes, he—” Manon shut her mouth. She hadn’t told them that theory, not yet. She turned back to the wyvern. “If you don’t let me into that saddle and make that jump, I’m going to have you confined to the darkest, smallest pit in this bloody mountain.”
He bared his teeth. She bared hers.
The staring contest lasted for a full minute. One humiliating, enraging minute.
“Fine,” she spat, turning from the beast. He was a waste of her time. “Have him locked up wherever he’ll be the most miserable,” she said to the overseer. “He’s not coming out until he’s willing to make the Crossing.”
The overseer gaped, and Manon snapped her fingers at Asterin and Sorrel to signal them to dismount. She’d never hear the end of this—not from her grandmother, or from the Yellowlegs witches, or from Iskra, who was already making her way across the floor of the pit.
“Why don’t you stay, Manon?” Iskra called. “I could show your wyvern how it’s done.”
“Keep walking,” Sorrel murmured to Manon, but she didn’t need a reminder.
“They say it’s not the beasts who are the problem, but the riders,” Iskra went on, loud enough for everyone to hear. Manon didn’t turn. She didn’t want to see them take Abraxos back to the gate, to whatever hole they’d lock him in. Stupid, useless beast.
“Though,” Iskra said thoughtfully, “perhaps your mount needs a bit of discipline.”
“Let’s go,” Sorrel coaxed, pressing in tight to Manon’s side. Asterin walked a step behind, guarding Manon’s back.
“Give that to me,” Iskra barked at someone. “He just needs the right encouragement.”
A whip snapped behind them, and there was a roar—of pain and fear.
Manon stopped dead.
Abraxos was huddling against the wall.
Iskra stood before him, whip bloody from the line she’d sliced down his face, narrowly missing his eye. Her iron teeth shining bright, Iskra smiled at Manon as she raised the whip again and struck. Abraxos yelped.
Asterin and Sorrel weren’t fast enough to stop Manon as she hurtled past and tackled Iskra.
Teeth and nails out, they rolled across the dirt floor, flipping and shredding and biting. Manon thought she might be roaring, roaring so loud the hall shook. Feet slammed into her stomach, and the air shot out of her as Iskra kicked her off.
Manon hit the earth, spat out a mouthful of blue blood, and was up in a heartbeat. The Yellowlegs heir slashed with an iron-tipped hand, a blow that could have severed through bone and flesh. Manon ducked past her guard and threw Iskra onto the unforgiving stone.
Iskra groaned above the shouts of the swarming witches, and Manon brought her fist down onto her face.
Her knuckles howled in pain, but all she could see was that whip, the pain in Abraxos’s eyes, the fear. Struggling against Manon’s weight, Iskra swiped at her face. Manon reeled back, the blow cutting down her neck. She didn’t quite feel the stinging, or the warm trickle of blood. She just drew back her fist, knee digging harder into Iskra’s chest, and struck. Again. And again.
She lifted her aching fist once more, but there were hands at her
wrist, under her arms, hauling her off. Manon thrashed against them, still screaming, the sound wordless and endless.
“Manon!” Sorrel roared in her ear, and nails cut into her shoulder—not hard enough to damage but to make her pause, to realize there were witches everywhere, in the pit and in the viewing platform, gaping. Sword raised, Asterin was standing between her and—
And Iskra, on the ground, face bloodied and swollen, her own Second’s sword out and poised to meet Asterin’s.
“He is fine,” Sorrel said, squeezing her tighter. “Abraxos is fine, Manon. Look at him. Look at him and see that he’s fine.” Breathing through her mouth thanks to her blood-clogged nose, Manon obeyed, and found him crouching, eyes wide and on her. His wound had already clotted.
Iskra hadn’t moved an inch from where Manon had thrown her onto the floor. But Asterin and the other Second were growling, ready to launch into another fight that might very well rip this mountain apart.