Page 182 of The Spider Queen
Chapter 22
Hours passed and there had yet to be any consequences from summoning my spiders and using magic.
Don’t be fooled into thinking we’re safe,Thane said through our connection.I have no doubt that my brother knows our whereabouts. For whatever reason, he hasn’t done anything with the knowledge.
I stood up from the log I was sitting on and began to pace. The forest floor was littered with an array of decaying leaves. Brown and white nightshades clung to stumps of trees.
Virbius was off scouting the next leg of our journey. Apparently we had to slog through swampland if we wanted to reach the Desert of the Forgotten in time.
Joy.
What critters lived in Purgatory swampland? Maybe I didn’t actually want to know.
What is the Desert of the Forgotten?
You can speak out loud, you know. Virbius isn’t here.
Sometimes this is easier.
Thane snorted out a laugh. He pressed his back to a tree and watched me as I walked off the nervous energy that pumped from my cells.
It’s hard to describe the desert. It’s…well, sandy. And hot. The sun beats down relentlessly. It’s not a…stationary place.
I have no idea what that means.I arched an eyebrow and waited.
The dunes shift. There is no path. It’s taken me weeks—months—to find my way to the other side of the desert before.
I blinked. “Then how are we supposed to navigate it?”
Thane pushed off from the tree and stalked toward me. “There is no navigating it. We walk through the desert for as long as takes for the Ebony moon to rise to its highest point, and then the barren tree will appear.”
“How will it appear? In a cloud of smoke?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that we had to be in the desert when the Ebony moon rose?”
“I didn’t know about it,” he admitted. “Not until a little while ago. Cassandra told me. In a dream—the night Gabriel visited us. The prophecy comes in pieces. We succeed at a certain stage, the next part of the prophecy becomes clear to Cassandra.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “The way of prophecies, I suppose. Prophecies can have different outcomes. But certain things can’t happen if other things don’t happen first. Does that make sense?”
“I think so. What does Cassandra see?”
“Multiple outcomes for the same prophecy. The fact that we’ve gotten this far has allowed her to see a bigger portion of the true outcome.”
I sighed and hung my head. “I’m tired.”
“I know.” He reached out and gently lifted my chin so I met his gaze. “But we have to keep going.”
With a deep inhale, I nodded. Thane gently pressed his lips to mine. Through it all, I wanted him. I moved into his embrace and grazed his arms with my fingertips.
“No time for that,” Virbius stated.
His arrival made me jump. My head bashed Thane’s jaw, and the both of us scurried away from one another, rubbing our stinging body parts.
“Make a noise,” Thane growled, his hand dropping from his chin.
