You won’t be able to think your way out of this.
You're going to die here. Accept it. You know the truth.
My eyes snapped open, and I sat up, staring at the web and the way it sunk right into my wrist.
The truth.
“No, I won’t,” I said confidently, a smile forming along my lips.
It’s much easier to give up. To go to sleep.
“I’m not tired,” I said. The negative thoughts were never mine, but that of my enemy. Thoughts were fed to me. Lies by a great deceiver.
“I feel great.” I stood up and held back the wince as the web yanked at my wrist. “I’ve never felt more confident that I will, in fact, kill you. Escape this pit, and defeat Greed.”
The web trembled slightly, and its hold on me weakened. I started racing toward the exit.
Stop! It’s not worth it. Give up.
I gasped in pain and glanced at the web connected to my wrist. It was thicker, injecting me every time it spoke. I could feel depression weighing me down, and the string would tighten and regain its strength.
“I won’t give up.” I took another step up the stairs. “I will succeed,” I grunted and tugged against the web that was desperately trying to drag me back down into the pit of despair. “It won’t be easy. But I am not alone.” As I fought for each step, I continued to climb. At the top of the stairs, I could see light. I was almost back to where I’d started. If I could just get to Rumple.
Thousands have come to my pit out of loneliness, despair, hopelessness. None have ever escaped. What makes you think you will?
The clicking grew louder. The silver webs that were strung along the wall wriggled, and I knew the creature was coming up the tunnel behind me. I would not turn around. I would not.
“Because I do not listen to the lies of my enemy. You don’t know me, or what I’m capable of.” The webs loosened, and I ran up the steps. The threads now shook the stairs, vibrating as it chased after me.
“You’re a scared little girl, and your blood will taste sweet on my tongue.” The creature’s voice no longer spoke to me through thoughts.
The thing had an actual mouth.
“Is that you, girl?” Rumple called as I achieved the last step. The axe was only a few feet away.
I reached for it and fell on my feet as the web around my foot was yanked backward. My fingers brushed the leather bandolier, and I held on as it flipped me over and towed me toward the tunnel.
“Tricky, Tricky,” the creature said, and I felt my stomach roil at seeing the cursed monster staring back at me. It had the abdomen of a spider with eight black spindly legs, each with sharp and deadly spines shooting off like daggers. The torso and head were that of a goblin, its eyes white like death. The mouth was a deadly mixture of sharpened goblin teeth hidden under wickedly curved fangs.
I gripped the axe, and the goblin attacked, another stream of web attached to my other hand. Another injection of despair slowly crawled through my blood, and I felt a paralyzing chill wash over me. My grasp loosened on the handle and another tug pulled me closer to the spider. My head thumped along the stairs as it dragged me back down toward its mouth.
You’ve failed like all the others.
“I can defeat you,” I whispered, feeling tears well in my eyes. “Because I am not alone. I have friends.” Another tug and the axe almost slid from my grip.
“Arachnis, you coward!” Rumple roared, coming to my aid as he distracted the giant spider.
Arachnis froze, her head turning right and left as she searched the dark cavern for the owner of the voice.
“Who’s there?”
Rumple’s assured voice woke me, and I wrapped my fingers around the leather strap at the last moment. The spider’s black, pulsing abdomen sat right above me. A whip of air flew past me as it shot out web in every direction, trying to snag the speaker. Then I understood the creature’s need for luring its prey. It was blind.
“How do you know my name?” Arachnis cried out. It seemed the spider goblin no longer considered me a threat. I slipped the axe from the bandolier.
“I know your name, Arachnis, for we’ve met before.”
“Rumple?” Arachnis changed her tactic and began to plead. “Then you should let me have this girl. She is of no use to you, and I am very hungry.”
“I once pitied you because you were cursed, so I let you live. But it was a mistake I won’t let happen again.”
The spider trembled above me, and it attempted to retreat into the tunnel. It grasped my leg, and my bottom thudded down every step. I gasped as I hit my head on the way down.
“Release her!” Rumple roared.
“When she’s dead,” Arachnis cried out.
The axe glowed in my hands, and I felt my body move on its own. I swung outward and took out the spider’s leg.
Arachnis screamed and dropped me. I rushed to my feet just as another sling of web came my way. It was as if another person had taken control of the axe in my hands. It moved toward me, and I dropped low, the web shooting over my head. I swung upward, and the axe sliced through the spider’s abdomen. Warm blood splattered across my dress. I wanted to release the axe, but Rumple wasn’t done, for the fight was far from over, and he was fighting this battle for me.
A leg swiped at me, and I went flying back into a wall. A stabbing pain ran up my calf as Arachnis stabbed me with a spine attached to her leg.
Heat burned through the muscle and I cried out, but I didn’t let it stop me. Rumple didn’t give me time to think as he swung, cutting clean through the spine. I did nothing more than hold on as Rumple attacked, parried, and with a final swing, sliced through Arachnis’ neck, severing her head.
The spider goblin fell in a clump on the ground, its seven remaining legs twitching and spasming.
Finally, I felt the axe’s magic release me and I dropped Rumple.
I rushed away to empty the contents of my stomach. When it was over, I sat on the floor next to an axe covered in stinking black goblin blood.
“You did good,” Rumple tried to console me. “Was this your first fight?”
I nodded, unsure if I could speak without throwing up again.
“Well, I could tell . . . because you fight like a girl.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Fighting like a girl isn’t a bad thing.” Rumple tried to change his tone when I stormed off, leaving the spider goblin carcass behind me.
I couldn’t get the sight of bones down in that pit out of my mind. The number of human remains I’d seen . . . how many of those skulls were servants? How many had unwillingly lost hope, walking aimlessly toward their death?
I was conflicted, feeling upset at killing that cursed creature. As I sat by a stagnant pool of water and washed its blood from my palms, I found my eyes welling up with pity at its predicament. It wasn’t always like that . . . until it was cursed. Or was it?
Then my pity turned toward anger as I scrubbed my nail beds. That creature would never again snare someone in its web. I ran my fingers over my wrists, feeling the phantom strings she’d held me with. With her death, the lies that had bound me fell off, and I was free. But I could still feel that echo of doubt, the poison of her words in my soul.
Truth, I told myself. Truth will set you free.