Page 70 of In Darkness Forged

Aislin nodded. There was probably no point in trying to hide it now.

“And you thought you would walk in here alone and take it?”

“I truly did not know what I would do. Only that I had to try,” Aislin replied. At this point, honesty cost her nothing.

“Tell me, little one, why are you creeping about beneath my mountain?”

Well, that was a bit awkward to explain. “It’s a long story,” Aislin hedged, but the Queen chuckled, and the sound was an eerie rasp that sent shivers down Aislin’s spine.

“And that matters why? Are you in some great hurry for me to kill you?”

“It is a tale of human problems,” Aislin replied. “Of my own, small, pitiful worries. What would you want with a story such as that?”

“You refuse me your story?” The Queen’s tone was cool and disapproving. “Fool of a human. Have you learned nothing in your years beneath the sun? In times of great trial, a story may well be your only hope.”

Then Aislin would tell it. Once more, she would share the shameful details of her life and hope that someone might understand her—understand why she refused to quit, why she attempted the impossible, and why she had to keep going, even when no one else thought she should.

“I live in a human village,” she began, “where we all owe service to the lord who owns our lands.”

“You are bound to bring him food and protect his nest?” the Queen asked.

“Yes.” More or less. Too late, Aislin wondered whether the Arantha Queen might not identify more with Lord Dreichel than with her own part in this tale.

“My family has always paid what we owed through magic, until my mother’s magic was lost, and I had none to replace it. So the lord demanded that I pay my debt by procuring a great treasure from the night elves. If I failed, he would evict us from our home, and my mother and grandmother would have nowhere to go.”

“Does not the parent care for the young amongst humans?” The Queen sounded perplexed, and two of her legs began to tap with what appeared to be irritation.

“Usually,” Aislin told her. “But my father is gone, my mother is ill, and my grandmother’s mind wanders. There is no one but me.”

“Your colony must provide care for those who require it,” the Queen insisted, arms folded across her chest.“Or why would not everyone exist as individuals? Why gather and build a nest? Why subject themselves to the rule of a queen?”

Aislin opened her mouth and then closed it again. There was nothing to say that would not reflect poorly on humans.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But humans in general are afraid most of the time. We are afraid of death, of sickness, or of not being able to control what happens to us. We are even afraid of other humans. So we try to make ourselves safe, and sometimes we do it by being cruel to other humans.”

“And they regardmykind as monsters.”

“We didn’t know you were…” No matter what Aislin said, it would not be enough.

“I’m sorry,” she said instead. “We came here thinking of you as something to be used for our own needs. I could claim ignorance, but… in truth, I did not even ask. I was desperate, and I thought only of myself.”

The Queen regarded her solemnly out of wide, unblinking eyes.

“You are truthful,” she said at last. “It has been some time since I last tasted someone who told the truth.”

So that was it, then. Aislin lifted her head to look around at the scene of her death, and realized with a shudder that as she’d spoken to the Queen, the cavern had silently filled to the brim with a seething tide of aranthas. They clung to the webs all around her, a tightly packed mass of dark bodies, waiting and watching for the outcome of this confrontation. She ought to feel horrified, and yet, that emotion seemed to mean little after all that she’d faced.

“Tell me, human, what did you intend to do after you left this place?Once you slaughtered my guards and took what you wanted?”

Why would she ask that?

“My intentions have changed in the past few hours,” Aislin confessed. “I came to the Darkspring to protect my family. I hoped only to return to the night elves with the venom they requested. But now, my first desire is to save my companion’s life. After that… I suppose I will go home and attempt to save my family another way.”

The Queen regarded her sternly. “For the sake of your companion, you would throw away the very thing you risked your life to seek?”

“I would.” She didn’t even need to think about it. Tal had given his life for hers, and she would do anything to save him.

“Why?”