Goldie measured twice before spinning her silk once in constructing her web, as she tried to do consistently when she was not in a hurry to build a new home.
Normally, with the practice she had accumulated over her life in the garden, it only took her around an hour to build a basic web. But she liked to take longer. Goldie preferred to make more ornate and beautiful webs.
On this occasion, though, she emphasized function heavily, almost entirely ignoring the beauty of her creation. She was in the territory of potential enemies, and she wanted the web to protect her above all else. If it could slow down a predator for a few crucial seconds while she skittered away under a bed, that would be well worth an extra fifteen minutes of effort now.
Goldie had only the dimmest understanding of how humans lived, since her previous life was only a faint echo in her mind. Since the garden was theirs, and the palace was also their territory, she assumed she would encounter animals here, too, at some point. It was sheer luck that she had happened upon an area uninhabited by other creatures—or perhaps fear of the dominant species in the ecosystem, the humans.
In any case, she wanted to be ready for the unexpected. She crafted a web of strong and dense fibers, deliberately compromising on stickiness to a degree. If nothing disturbed her web, she would build a second one to catch prey tomorrow. She did not need to eat every day unless she exerted herself every day, and the crow she had killed that afternoon had boosted her Biomass enough that she should not need to eat for some time if she simply refrained from moving around much.
After she had set her web into place, using the wall-adjacent bedpost, the table, and the floor to anchor her threads, and leaving only a small space between the web and the ground, Goldie stepped back and examined her handiwork.
An ugly web, she thought. But densely layered and solidly constructed. Hopefully it will be as strong as it looks.
She still remembered how the King had simply pushed through her carefully constructed web outside using nothing but his bare hands—with no apparent effort. Hopefully the King was simply stronger than a normal human. She did not want this web to be swept aside so easily.
Satisfied with her work’s durability if not its aesthetics, Goldie withdrew to the empty space just beneath her web.
She allowed herself to enter the sleep-like state common to both her kind and Adon’s. All there was to contemplate was the future and the past, so she tried to keep her mind blank during this rest. Fortunately, the hours seemed to fly by. Her fears and regrets yielded to her effort to keep them at arm’s reach, and night melted into day.
As the glow of sunlight returned, Goldie sensed activity in the room and stirred from her quiescent state. The first thing she realized was that the King’s silk slippered feet were touching the floor, and from their positioning, he must be awake.
The second observation was that it was not his activity that had stirred her from her trance-like state. There was movement in the Queen’s bed. The human was moving.
She is waking, Goldie thought, a little uneasy. Will she turn over in bed and look down to where I am? And if she does, what will she do? Suddenly, her choice of locations seemed very unwise. She only wanted to stay close to Adon, but it was entirely possible the King and Queen would decide she was prey to be killed or consumed now that she had appeared in their lair.
Goldie opened up the Evolution Store. She had been considering purchasing Telepathy ever since she completed her Evolution and found that the option had become available again. She had intended to discuss it with Adon once he emerged from his chrysalis, but she was nervous that an emergency might arise before then.
She bought Telepathy I for 100 Evolution Points, then upgraded it twice, spending almost all of the Evolution Points she had obtained from killing the crow.
How did Adon get so many Evolution Points so early in his life? she wondered.
Then again, she suspected it was possible that the Adaptation cost more for her than it would have for him. Different species had different aptitudes, and earlier stages of development were probably more malleable than later ones.
She locked in the purchase, and she felt a sudden, intense, throbbing pain in her head. It felt so painful that she lost awareness of her surroundings for some time.
When she came to herself, the King and Queen were talking. He had moved to a standing position beside the Queen’s bed, his back to Goldie.
Thank the Goddess, no one has seen me yet…
“I would prefer not to leave your and her side,” the King was saying.
“A walk will do you good, husband,” the Queen replied. “Trust me. I will watch over Rosslyn while you get some fresh air.”
He leaned in close to her and whispered, “Do not stir from the room, then. We have already had one spy close to home. I fear there may be others. We can trust no one.”
Goldie heard the Queen suck in a sharp breath. She could not see what the Queen was doing, but she heard movement. Goldie guessed that the woman must be nodding, because the King leaned in closer, kissed his wife tenderly, and then straightened up and turned to leave.
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“I will see you soon,” he said.
Goldie could not suppress a stab of jealousy at the happy couple. Her mate was so recently dead, and here they were, protecting their daughter together. They had no way of knowing that someone was watching them, of course, but it was painful just then to see anyone else who had what she was missing out on.
The door opened, and the King stepped out, but the door did not close behind him.
Two figures stepped into the door frame instead. Goldie could only see them from their feet up to the bottoms of the long skirts they wore, but by the fabric of their clothing, she could tell instantly that they were not members of the royal family. The spider knew fibers intimately, and the material the pair’s clothes were made of was more like the crude silk she had used to make her current web than the elegant, high quality fabric that the King’s clothing and the royal bed linens were made of.
Subjects of some sort, she thought.
Then one of the women spoke.
“Your Highness, since the King has stepped away, may we give the chamber a quick seeing to? We of the staff had no expectation that this room would see so much use in these, um, circumstances. We would appreciate the opportunity to bring the room closer to the royal standard. If it would please Your Highness, of course.”
“I know you want to see how Princess Rosslyn is doing, Celeste,” said the Queen. Goldie could hear a smile in her voice. “You may enter. Both of you. Do not mind me. Oh, if you could send for Lady Margay after you finish here, I would appreciate it. I would enjoy some company, as my stepdaughter remains asleep. Perhaps the Lady might read to me.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Thank you, Your Highness!”
The maid’s emphatic voice rang through the air clearly, and she and her companion entered the room. The maids’ dark figures moved across the space in front of Goldie, and one of them seemed to be moving toward her web. Quick, decisive strides carried the woman forward, and Goldie began to worry that she had been seen. Her whole body stood on edge as she wondered what was about to happen.
Then she needed to wonder no more. The maid reached for something behind her. What looked like a thick branch with a thick coat of bristles at the end. The woman lifted the branch, and the bristly part cast Goldie and her web entirely in shadow.
And there was a crashing sound directly overhead as the large bristly endpoint of the branch collided with her web. The blow shook the web and even the table it was attached to, but to Goldie’s satisfaction, it failed to tear through the web.
It had fulfilled its purpose. It was tough enough to last these key moments.
As the maid pulled the broom back and prepared to smack it down on Goldie’s web a second time, the spider made a mad dash for freedom. She skittered under the Queen’s bed, making a beeline for the open doorway.
A voice behind her shrieked, “It’s a spider! Kill it!”
And Goldie ran faster, while also formulating her very first message to send telepathically. Somehow, she had an intuitive knowledge of how to use this ability she had only just now acquired. She dodged around another blow of the broom and jumped through the door, and she sent her message.
Please do not kill me! Goldie projected to the nearest human, both maids having given chase. I am friends with the caterpillar. Ask the King!
“Who’s talking?” asked the maid whose voice Goldie had not heard as much.
They continued moving toward Goldie, and she gave up on trying to make herself understood. She simply ran, chased by two pursuers armed with cleaning tools.
They chased Goldie in the opposite direction from which she had entered, so she found herself dashing further into the palace, down the hall, toward what looked like a fence of some sort with gaps in it.
The broom smacked down beside Goldie, and she threw herself to the side and rolled forward to get away.
A moment later, another long cleaning implement smacked down beside Goldie, and she began to think she was not going to make it to the end of the hall. That was a shame, because she thought the gaps in the fence looked like something she could fit through.
The next slap of the broom hit her but only dealt Goldie a glancing blow. It failed to stun her, and she pulled free from the painful bristles and ran with an even greater speed born of sheer desperation.
She weaved to the side now, a rudimentary plan in her mind.
Goldie moved close to an armored boot, and an implement swung down at her body with great force—missing and striking the boot! The armor rattled loudly with the blow, and several pieces tumbled to the floor around Goldie.
The maids had to slow down for a moment to navigate the fallen pieces of armor, and in that second, Goldie regained a small lead. The little fence at the end of the hallway was only roughly one human body’s length away from her now. She made a mad dash, trying to sprint that last bit of distance.
Broom and implement both swung through the air, aiming to capture or crush her before she could escape.
Goldie threw herself through forward, leaping with all her might for a gap in the fence—and she saw something strange. The hallway ended with a series of steps. Small changes in altitude. As she successfully passed through the gap in what had seemed to her a fence—but was actually a stair railing—she found herself facing a much larger change in altitude.
The spider dropped straight down, passing almost instantly from the second floor to the first.
Happily, the landing was not as painful as being struck with a broom had been, and although the maids rushed down the stairs to chase after her, she had a definite lead now.
Goldie darted under the closest door she could, compressing her body easily to fit underneath. She found herself in a room lined with attractive star patterned wallpaper.
But she could not afford to take any time to enjoy the sights.
She quickly examined the room, found a small gap between the floor and the wall, and thrust herself through it, as hard and as far as she could push herself.
Whatever happened, Goldie did not want the humans to find her. Not until she could talk to the King, who might decide that if the caterpillar was worth keeping around, so was his friend the spider.
Goldie could hear the two women opening the door behind her, so she forced her body further into the tight space, heedless of any risks, desperate to get away.