Goddess damn it! The King again…

If the King saw Goldie again, he would surely throw her back outside at the least, if not decide that she was better off killed. It seemed unlikely that the human would understand the bond that connected her and Adon. If he had understood before, he would not have left her all alone when he took the chrysalis inside. He would have brought them in together, especially considering that her bite could not harm him.

Goldie resolved to remain in her dark hiding place under the Princess’s bed until the King left.

As she decided this, the King’s feet carried him past the bedposts to the other side of Princess Rosslyn’s bed. Goldie heard a gentle creak and realized the man had seated himself on a couch. So this would be a long wait, then. That was fine.

Remaining still for long periods of time was not difficult for her, and she did not mind boredom. Before she met Adon, boredom was almost constant. In fact, it was the ideal state of affairs. When she was not bored, it was usually because something was trying to eat her.

It was only when she found her mate, Red, and met her friend Adon that excitement and activity started to mean something different in Goldie’s life than merely preying or being preyed upon. They had helped her to rediscover some essential quality to herself that she lacked the vocabulary to name.

Things that I lost when I was reborn, she thought wistfully. But I have the better part of myself now. I hope.

She sat in place for some time, enjoying the silent stillness and taking in the sight of motes of dust hanging in the air. It was mildly amusing to her that even a royal palace was not free of dust. She had tried to keep her space tidy most of the time when she had a home, but there was an inevitability to disorder. It felt affirming to know that humans who probably had permanent cleaning staff suffered the same problems.

Goldie had been allowing her mind to wander, but suddenly, and then gradually more and more, the silence was broken. The King began talking.

At first, Goldie thought he must be talking to someone, so she listened intently and tried to make out the other voice so she could hear both sides of the conversation. Gradually, as no sound from the supposed second speaker materialized, she realized the King was talking to himself—or rather, talking to his sleeping daughter.

He began with apologies. Repetitive expressions of regret for some events that had transpired with someone called Barank or Baraka. Goldie’s hearing was not perfect, especially with the mattress between her and the King.

Gradually, she inched closer. Although she did not think of herself as an eavesdropper, she recognized that the King might say something that would prove relevant to her and Adon later.

It continued to be mostly apologies, for endangering the Princess by sending her to a city in a place the King simply called “the Empire.”

Just as Goldie was thinking of slinking backward into the deeper darkness, though, he began transitioning to updates on current events. He told the Princess about the chrysalis he had discovered in the garden, which was now beside her bed. Goldie gathered from the contents of this that there were legends about butterflies in this Kingdom that the Princess was somewhat familiar with. Goldie wished the Princess could speak up and tell her father that he should have brought in the spider who was with the chrysalis.

The King discussed some domestic policy matters that the Kingdom was dealing with. Most importantly, they had been forced to raise taxes, because the Kingdom needed to be prepared for the possibility of war after some other power’s brazen assassination attempt against the Princess.

And he began to discuss international relations further from there.

As he began this part of his monologue, the spider decided to settle in and hear everything the King had to say. He mentioned names of places that Goldie did not recognize, but she did her best to commit them to memory. Adon had conversed with the Princess before. Maybe he would know them.

Apparently, there were as yet no signs that the Kingdom’s scouts could discern that the Empire—apparently the country that tried to assassinate the Princess—was moving its soldiers near the border. A country called Parmonia was apparently an ally of the Kingdom, and the King seemed quite pleased about that. Another place called Dessia was sending two dukes’ sons to visit, though Goldie was hazy on the specifics.

Even with her lack of background knowledge, over the next couple of hours, Goldie felt rewarded by her attention as she slowly began to understand a little of the international situation. It seemed Parmonia was a country that elected its royalty—odd though that sounded to the spider—and that shared borders with the Empire and, very slightly, with the country Goldie was apparently in now, Claustria.

There was another Kingdom that stood between Claustria and Parmonia across the rest of the eastern Claustrian border, but for some reason, the King did not seem to think that country was a good fit for alliance. Dessia was somewhat more distant, off to the Northwest somewhere, or so it seemed from the route the King described the dukes’ sons taking.

And the Empire—which she eventually learned was actually called the Demon Empire—was apparently a threat to all of it. Even the countries that were not near the Empire’s borders could be in danger if the states between them and the Empire fell under the Emperor’s influence.

Goldie appreciated the history lesson. The world was larger than she had ever imagined. But it also made her long for the simplicity of her garden. Her web, her eggs, and her plants were easier to understand and less frightening than the environment the King lived in.

What a small corner of the world we have occupied all this time, she thought of herself, her kind, and her friend. She wondered if she should want to explore more of it. She did not feel the tug of that desire, but perhaps that was a defect in her character. Adon certainly seemed to be interested.

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In the end, Goldie was thankful when, as the orange glow of daylight slowly faded around him, the King stopped talking. She had more than enough to think about without further exposition from him. The answers to what she should do and what sorts of lives she, Adon, and the hatchlings should lead would come from within themselves, anyway. She felt that in her heart.

A low rumbling noise began to fill the room, and Goldie looked around, slightly startled.

Lost in her own thoughts, she realized she had missed it as the King’s feet disappeared from the floor, and apparently some other life form entered the room and began to make that strange yet somehow familiar sound.

Goldie took in everything around her. She saw that the whole room was dark now, although her night vision seemed to be better than it once had been, so she could take in much of what was going on in the room without difficulty even without much light.

Nothing visible stirred.

She gathered her courage and decided to find out what was making the noise. It was her intention to either rescue Adon and take him away from here or to make herself at home in this place, but she first needed to know if there was some predator making that strange rumbling sound. That would naturally affect whether she and her friend could stay here safely or not.

Goldie scuttled out from under the bed, turned her head to the left, and saw only the door to the room, now closed, and the Queen’s bed. She turned her eyes to get a better angle on the top of the Queen’s bed, but nothing stirred there. Just the Queen, tucked carefully into a comforter that went up to her neck, her chest slowly rising and falling as she slept.

The spider turned to the right and saw the Princess in much the same condition, though Goldie now noted that the Princess’s eyes were covered in bandages.

And then she noticed the shape on the other side of the Princess’s bed. Goldie almost jumped when she saw the large, dark figure was moving.

Then she heard the low, rumbling noise again, coming from that figure, and her mind began to put together what she was seeing.

The King. She was relieved to realize that the dark body was just the figure of the King, shrouded in greater darkness than his wife and daughter, turning in his sleep. He had never left the room, which explained why she did not hear him go. He simply put his feet up and laid down on the couch he was sitting on before and went to sleep. And although Goldie did not know the word for it, he was snoring.

Why do I recognize that sound? There was some dim memory lodged in her brain, of a life when she must have been human, and a lover or a family member had snored, but it was irretrievable.

In any case, her whole body relaxed as she realized that there were no predators here but the humans themselves, all asleep.

She tried to leap onto the bottom part of the Princess’s bed cover to explore the room from a higher vantage point, but she failed to gain purchase with her feet the first time. After a couple of tries, she managed to climb onto the top of the Princess’s bed and look around.

The room was almost empty, besides the beds and couch, a dresser, the bedside table with Adon and his plant, and a large mirror that hung on the wall opposite the Princess’s bed.

There is truly nothing to be afraid of, she told herself. What are you, scared of the dark now? What would Adon think if he could see you? Or Red?

That last thought sobered her up. This whole place was a predator’s dwelling. What happened to Red occurred because the wasps’ queen wanted to establish a connection with these humans—because they, not any of the insects Goldie had faced before, were the ultimate predators in this ecosystem. It would not pay to lower her guard and forget that.

Without much further thought, she crossed over the comforter until she stood at the head of the bed, beside the Princess’s sleeping face. At rest, she looked much younger than Goldie had realized before. Her unlined face was soft and vulnerable. She could understand why the King felt guilty about sending someone so young into harm’s way—even setting aside that this was his own daughter.

She will forgive you, she thought, directing her attention to the sleeping King for a moment. Even if you were as foolish as you made yourself out to be earlier, the bond between parent and child cannot be broken as lightly as that.

Then the spider stepped from the covers up onto the wall. Her feet found easy purchase on the surface, and she walked up the side diagonally until she stood above Adon, his plant, and the glass case that had been placed around them.

The case was open at the top, probably not intended to trap the butterfly-in-progress but to protect him. It would be easy for Goldie to pluck Adon out. It might even be possible, with some carefully applied silk, to lift the entire small pot out of the glass case and remove the plant back to the garden. She could replant it in a different spot, somewhere the King would be unlikely to find it.

She stared down at her friend’s chrysalis, hesitating at the moment of decision.

Why do I suddenly feel uncertain about taking him out of here? I was just thinking that the humans are dangerous…

As she tried to work up the resolve to remove him, her mind came up with reason after reason why she and Adon should stay here. They had wanted to be permitted into the palace anyway. These humans did not seem inclined to dissect Adon or eat him. When the King kidnapped him, he at least did not harm Goldie or Adon physically. He only separated them.

Goldie was a species that might naturally seem dangerous to a human, and he might have believed she intended to prey on Adon.

But the crux of her change of feelings was Goldie’s experience of listening to the King talk to his daughter. It sounded as if he felt incredibly guilty. Somehow, he desperately hoped the chrysalis by the Princess’s bedside might do something for her.

The Princess had expressed her own interest in Adon, so Goldie could believe the humans truly thought he could do something special for them. Heal the Princess with his magic, or restore her sight if she had gone blind from the assassination attempt. Perhaps he could do something.

Goldie realized she had begun to empathize with the King despite herself. Though he had been her enemy that morning, now he was just a fellow parent trying to take care of his daughter.

All right, she said to herself softly. We will stay. For now. She shook her head at her own sensitivity. I guess I am beginning to understand some of what Adon sees in these humans.

Goldie slowly descended the wall and began to contemplate building a new web in the space between the Princess’s bed and the table Adon’s plant rested on. If she was going to be here for longer than the time it took to sneak out, she would need a new home base.

She looked back up at Adon’s chrysalis and wondered once more if she was making the right decision, but she realized she could not know. No further thought would shed any additional light.

Hopefully I will not come to regret this.