Page 197 of The Spider Queen
Night fell over the desert. The air didn’t cool, nor was there a breeze to lift the drenching heat. The Plum moon was now the biggest and the brightest as the three of us traipsed across the land. Our ride’s shell had turned from purplish-black to neon blue.
The bloody thing was glow-in-the-dark.
It walked steadily and silently, its legs skating across dunes that continued to shift.
Thane pointed out a speck in the distance, but due to the warring light sources, I couldn’t tell what it was.
Use your eyes.
Iamusing my eyes.
Yourothereyes.
I have other eyes?
A sigh came through our connection.
Don’t take that tone with me.
His impatience morphed into amusement.
Go, go spidey eyes!
That’s not how it works.
Then teach me, Yoda.
Let’s try this again, shall we? Relax your eyes. Loosely focus on what’s in the distance.
After I’d gotten onto the back of the scorpion, I’d opened my mouth, and my spiders had crawled back inside. I went into the place inside myself and reached out to them. They vibrated with gratitude, wanting to be used. They were mine to command, and they were itching to be valuable.
Suddenly, it felt like I could see with thousands of eyes, all around me, at night. I could pick out individual grains of sand. I could decipher colors despite the different sources of moonlight.
And there, off in the distance, where Thane had pointed, was a ship. Even from our spot, I could see the coppery tones on rusted metal.
There’s a ship here?
The desert was once an ocean. We’re riding what used to be a sea scorpion, but it has since adapted to live here.
But how? The ship…
The dunes shift constantly, right? That process of shifting both buries and unearths things out here. Think of this as one giant snow globe, but instead of snow, it’s sand. When the globe shakes, things change, shift, and resettle.
Is all of Purgatory like that?
No. Only here. The Desert of the Forgotten follows its own rules.
The desert was once a sea. Well, that made sense. There were parts of the Earth that were the same.
You said this place was stagnant. But that’s not really true, is it?
Oh, things change here. Just at the slowest rate incomprehensible by humans.
I’m not human. Not anymore.
Thane’s connection abruptly closed off, shielding me from his thoughts. I thought about poking him into replying, but I hadn’t been lying when I said I didn’t begrudge him his safe space.
I thought by removing half your heart, you’d cease to be human. I’m not sure that’s entirely the case.
