A Kiss of Venom (An Araneae Nation Novella)
“All my life, sentries had guarded these underground tunnels beneath the city of Erania. There was no one now. My clansmen hid in their nests, on my orders.
Darkness warped my sense of direction as cold shriveled the marrow in my bones.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
I froze. Were those…footsteps? Pressing my back against the chilled earth of the tunnel walls, I waited for the intruder to pass. No one materialized from whence I’d come. Yet the pounding stuffed my ears. Slumping, I realized my ...heart was to blame.
Another time, I would have laughed at how I leapt at shadows in my own clan home, but not this night. No doubt the one shadow I failed to outmaneuver would belong to an invader, the one footstep I ignored would be the one to crush me, and the one breath I held would be my last.
The people of my clan, the Araneidae, were gentle silk spinners, artisans without armaments.MoreLess
Darkness warped my sense of direction as cold shriveled the marrow in my bones.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
I froze. Were those…footsteps? Pressing my back against the chilled earth of the tunnel walls, I waited for the intruder to pass. No one materialized from whence I’d come. Yet the pounding stuffed my ears. Slumping, I realized my ...heart was to blame.
Another time, I would have laughed at how I leapt at shadows in my own clan home, but not this night. No doubt the one shadow I failed to outmaneuver would belong to an invader, the one footstep I ignored would be the one to crush me, and the one breath I held would be my last.
The people of my clan, the Araneidae, were gentle silk spinners, artisans without armaments.MoreLess
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