The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [145]
“You are hateful as a wasp, Melindora Nightsilver,” the arachnid god spat. Then, in a more sullen voice, he added, “But I will tell you whatever you wish to know.”
Unfortunately, it turned out Sif knew little. Melia and Falken questioned the god repeatedly, but the only thing he could confirm was that the golden spider did not belong to him or any of his followers, and that he did not know who might have dropped it. At last they gave up.
“I’m tired of you, Sif,” Melia said. “We’re leaving.”
She turned away from the throne, Falken beside her.
“Wait, Melindora,” the god called out in a sickly sweet voice. “Since I cooperated with you, I am sure this means you will not tell the Etherion about my little deal with Geb, now will you? Melindora? Melindora!”
Spittle sprayed from Sif’s lips, but Melia only held her chin high as she walked away from the throne.
“Let us leave this place,” she said to the others. “I have never cared for spiders.”
Moments later they found themselves outside, at the foot of the temple’s steps. Melia’s hard expression softened, and she leaned against Falken.
“So it wasn’t Sif after all,” Lirith said. She glanced at Durge. “It looks as if you were right about everything. Except who the murderer was.”
Durge shrugged. “I suppose it is a wonder I got as much right as I did, my lady.”
Aryn sighed. She had thought the mystery solved, but they were no closer to an answer than they had been before. “But who does the golden spider belong to?”
“I don’t know,” Falken said. “But I think maybe Orsith did. I think that’s what he was writing in his journal. And my hunch is that’s why—”
A scream pierced the night, high, bubbling—and something other than human.
They turned around. The scream had come through the open doors. Durge and Falken reached the temple first, followed by Melia and Landus. Aryn came last with Lirith. They skidded to a halt, jaws agape at what they saw.
Once again, priests ran back and forth inside the temple, but this time they were not fleeing from Melia’s wrath. Instead, they stumbled away from a gaping hole on the far side of the temple: a black void where Sif’s throne had been. A half dozen columns had toppled over, their supports removed. Heaps of rubble had fallen from above, and dust choked the air. There was no sign of the arachnid god.
Ignoring the fleeing priests, they wove their way among the wreckage and approached the hole, although as they drew near Falken held up a hand, preventing them from getting too close. The hole was perfectly round, its edges as sharp as if cut with a knife. Inside, the pit was a void of pure darkness. It sucked at Aryn, dragging her forward. Lirith gripped her shoulders. Durge kicked a stone into the hole. They waited, but they did not hear it strike bottom.
Falken tried to grab one of the running priests, but the man only cried out in fear and twisted away. The bard swore. “What’s going on here? And where is Sif? We need to ask him what just happened.”
“You won’t find him.”
It was Melia. Her voice was strangely soft and weary. She pressed a hand to her forehead, her visage ashen.
“By the gods, what is it?” Falken said.
Melia swayed on her feet. “He’s gone. Utterly and completely gone.”
Aryn clapped a hand to her mouth to stifle a cry. Sif was dead. The murderer had been there, in that very temple, and they hadn’t even known it.
49.
It was the time of owls.
Grace lay on the hard, narrow bed and stared into perfect darkness. She had pushed down the rough sheets with skinny legs, and her faded, too-small nightgown bunched and sweated around her. The dormitory occupied by the older girls was on the second floor of the orphanage, and the air was dead and metallic. It would have been good to open one of the small windows, to let in a whisper of the cool mountain night. But Grace did not bother to get up. All the windows in the Beckett-Strange Home for Children had been nailed shut years ago.