SWNOVELS Ensnared: Chapter 15
“You should have sent another in your stead,” Urkot said.
“We need not repeat all that,” Ketahn replied as he set down his spear and tugged his fur-laden bag off his back.
“Each time you return, you challenge her to keep you.”
“And if I do not return, I challenge her to hunt me.”
Telok folded his arms across his chest and leaned his shoulder against the wall. “And who in her service could accomplish that? Durax?”
Rekosh chittered. “He would have to first determine how to unravel himself from the queen’s hindquarters to even begin hunting anyone.”
“If anything can pry him from her side, it is his hatred for me,” Ketahn said.
“And even then, what would you have to fear, Ketahn?” asked Telok. “Unless she were to convince me to track you, you’d never be found.”
“I would scent your arrogance from a thousand segments away, Telok. You would never catch me.” Ketahn lowered his bag to the floor and set at the knots to detach the bundle of furs from it. “Either way, it is unpleasant, but at least my returning to Takarahl shows Zurvashi I do not fear her.”
“Which only makes her desire you more,” said Rekosh with another chitter.
His small den was cramped with all four friends inside; even were they still broodlings, it would’ve been a snug fit. Ketahn and Telok were on either side of the entrance, Urkot stood before the flat slab of stone Rekosh used as a workspace, and Rekosh was lounging atop the pile of furs and silk cloth that served as his bed.
“If anyone could hide forever in the Tangle, it is Telok,” said Urkot, “but you would be the next most likely, Ketahn.”
“As always, I am bolstered by your confidence. But let the queen—or at least her interest in me—be my concern.” Ketahn hefted the furs off the bag and checked the rawhide ties keeping them bundled together. “But as to the Prime Claw…why did I encounter him on his way out of Moonfall?”
“Because the Queen’s Claw believes there is meat being brought in without going through her scribes,” Rekosh said. He had a long piece of thread looped and woven around the extended fingers of his lower hands, the taut strand creating intricate patterns in the air between those hands. “Such is the nature of webs spun of rumors.”
Ketahn glanced at Telok and tilted his head in question.
Telok freed an arm, pulled aside the cloth hanging over the entryway, and peered out into the tunnel. Once he’d leaned back and let the cloth fall into place again, he said, “Not here. But the passage was clear.”
Ketahn nodded, only realizing after he’d done so that the gesture held no real meaning to his companions. To humans, it meant yes, or I agree, or you are correct—though sometimes it also seemed to mean I am impressed, or I approve. “Durax was dangling threads to see what he could snare.”
“The Claw have been frequent visitors to Moonfall this past eightday,” said Rekosh without looking up from his silk thread. “Their questions betray their suspicions, but they know nothing as yet.”
Urkot absently scratched the scar on his side, creating a soft rasp. “I have scouted a few locations to open additional entrances. Changing between them regularly would keep the Claw’s attention divided.”
“That will allow us more time, yes, but it will be discovered before long regardless,” said Telok. “Durok and his Claws are not especially skilled hunters, but they are stubborn beyond reason.”
“As am I,” Ketahn said with a chitter.
“And all of you think I am the one with a head full of rocks,” said Urkot.
“But at least Ketahn is entertaining from time to time.” Rekosh hooked a claw under the thread where it spanned between two of his fingers to pull it back into the weave, layering another bit of complexity into the pattern.
The humor in the den wilted like a dying flower.
“Vrix who seek only to feed their families will be the ones hurt if we fail in this,” Urkot rumbled. He braced a dust-covered hand on the stone slab behind him and leaned upon it, his hindquarters tucked in the open space beneath the slab.
Ketahn clenched his jaw, pressing his tongue against the backs of his fangs. He could not ignore the plight of his kind, could not ignore the danger his friends were placing themselves in for their parts in this, and he could not ignore the guilty pang in his gut for keeping himself far from the entire situation.
This went beyond discontent with the queen’s rule. It went beyond the grumblings of hungry vrix, beyond complaints whispered in dark corners, beyond angry, fearful glares cast at members of the Queen’s Fang and Claw. The air was thick with it—tension, restlessness, bitterness, all building toward some terrible, explosive peak.
And still, Ketahn wanted only to put Takarahl at his back and return to the Tangle. To Ivy.
“Telok spoke true.” Ketahn ran a hand over his headcrest and combed his claws through his hair. “The Claw will discover this in time, no matter how carefully it is done. Especially if Durax is involved.”
“His presence in this could only be due to the queen’s orders,” said Rekosh. The thread looping and crisscrossing around his hands was nearing the point of chaos—a tangle that seemed somehow far larger than it really was.
Ketahn grasped his hair that was gathered in a tie and tugged on it, producing a faint flare of pain on the back of his head. “Durax will go to great lengths to prove himself to the queen. No amount of cruelty will be too great. He will soon enough find a vrix he can break, and he will learn all he needs.”
“So what, then?” Telok drummed his claws on the hide of his arms. “We stop?”
Ketahn met Telok’s steady gaze. “No. You spread it.”
Rekosh drew his torso suddenly upright, mandibles twitching excitedly. “Spread the idea to every tunnel being deprived of meat. Convince them all they can do as we have.”
Stepping forward, Ketahn leaned down to brush the back of a finger along the silk stretched between Rekosh’s hands. “Weave a web so tangled the Claw won’t know where to begin unraveling it.”
Urkot’s fangs clacked together. “And when they decide to simply hack through the threads, how many will die?”
“She cannot have all of Takarahl executed,” Rekosh said. “Our greatest safety is found in our numbers.”
“It will not do us well to underestimate her savagery.” Urkot pounded a leg on the floor, producing a small cloud of dust, and lowered his mandibles. “But I will find out if there are more hidden pathways below other parts of the city.”
“I will whisper into the web,” Rekosh said with too much excitement.
“You will feast yourself to death on gossip one of these days, Rekosh,” said Telok.
“I have not yet had my fill, Telok. My appetite will never be sated.”
Telok chittered. “I will speak with the other hunters to determine where we may find allies beyond Moonfall.”
Ketahn grasped one of the sturdy ties fastening the furs and heaved the bundle onto his shoulder. “And I will remind the three of you that we have offerings to make. I will not allow Zurvashi to keep me understone, and neither will I be held by your chatter.”
With a chitter of his own, Rekosh swept his hands together and dipped them to free them from the thread in one smooth motion. “Without us, Ketahn, who would you ever talk to? Our chatter sustains your spirit, my friend.”
Though he chittered in response, Ketahn again felt another twinge of guilt—he had someone else to talk to, and he craved conversation with her even here, in the company of his closest and oldest friends.
“He probably speaks to the trees,” Urkot offered, pushing away from the stone slab. “All hunters do.”
Telok straightened and grasped the entryway cloth. “And how would you know that?”
“What else would you talk to if you are not surrounded by rocks all day?”
“Perhaps we should have asked Ketahn to send some of the females he’s rejected over the years to us,” Rekosh said. “Then Telok would not also have to speak to trees, and Urkot…”
“He would continue to speak to rocks,” said Telok.
Urkot chittered. “I cannot deny that.”
“I would rather speak to rocks and trees than endure the queen’s company,” said Ketahn. “Come, let us be off before I am convinced we should delve into the deepest tunnel to befriend the stone.”
The four exited Rekosh’s den and walked together to join the crowds awaiting entry to the Den of Spirits. The mood was almost the same as it had been on the last Offering Day, but there was something more in the air this time—a hint of the restlessness and anger Ketahn had sensed from his friends. The crowd was less talkative than normal, and the silence that settled over them whenever they were near a Fang seemed as motivated by frustration now as by fear.
It was impossible to miss the Claws who were posted with the Fangs; few male vrix wore anything for the sake of adornment, so the black furs on the Claws’ shoulders stood out.
Ketahn and his friends talked and jested as they slowly advanced, avoiding any mention of the queen or the discontent in Takarahl. It was pleasant to speak as though there weren’t a huge, dark shadow looming over them, as though their lives had gone exactly as they’d hoped it would when they were broodlings.
Of course, Zurvashi remained in the back of Ketahn’s mind throughout, lingering like the ache of an old wound that refused to fully heal. But this time he had something to overpower those thoughts—Ivy.
His desire to return to her intensified with each moment, wearing his patience unusually thin. More than once he was tempted to hand the furs to one of his friends and take his leave. It was only the thought of the queen’s potential fury being directed at Urkot, Rekosh, or Telok that kept Ketahn from doing so.
He would learn before long that Urkot had been correct—Ketahn should have sent someone in his stead.
They did not find Ahnset in Heartsthread Tunnel. That disappointed Ketahn despite his eagerness to leave as quickly as possible, but that disappointment was nothing compared to his confusion when he and his friends entered the Den of Spirits and looked upon the central dais.
The queen was not atop it.
Spiritspeakers and scribes were in their usual places along the edge of the dais and within the crowd, and there were a few Fangs and Claws standing nearby, but the queen herself was not in her customary position. She wasn’t anywhere.
Ketahn’s confusion gave way to dread. Zurvashi’s absence didn’t bode well for anyone; she’d treated Offering Day as a day of her subjects showering her in gifts and praise for many years, and would only have missed it for dire reasons.
The journey back to Moonfall Tunnel after Ketahn and his friends made their offerings was quiet. He was certain their thoughts all concerned the queen, but none dared speak those thoughts aloud in the open. With Durax and his Claws creeping around Moonfall, Ketahn couldn’t suppress a gnawing fear in his gut that the plot to sneak meat into the tunnel had already been discovered.
When they entered Moonfall Tunnel and crossed into its wider portion, Ketahn’s muscles tensed, and his hearts stuttered.
There were Fangs positioned about halfway down the tunnel. Occasionally, pairs of Fangs would patrol these outlying passageways, but this wasn’t a pair—there were six of them there. Not a patrol but a retinue.
“I knew something wasn’t right,” Telok whispered.
“This is no surprise.” Ketahn didn’t allow his stride to falter. His dread and foreboding twisted, becoming frustration that would flare into rage with enough of a spark. Takarahl was Zurvashi’s domain, but Moonfall Tunnel…this was where Ketahn, his friends, and his siblings had spent their youth. Even if it had never felt the same—could never feel the same—as it had all those years ago, this place had seemed untainted to him in many ways.
From this direction, Ketahn and his friends would reach Rekosh’s den without crossing paths with the Fangs. That was fine. He could collect his belongings and leave by a longer route to avoid the females. This did not need to end in confrontation, it did not need to become another delay keeping him from his human.
He’d not made it halfway to Rekosh’s den before a few of the Fangs looked toward him. Ketahn and his friends stopped. One of the Fangs turned to face Ketahn fully and stepped into the center of the tunnel, but she was halted by an order from another.
Even from that distance, he knew the Fang who’d stepped forward was Ahnset—just as he knew the Fang who’d stopped her was Prime Fang Korahla.
Ahnset stiffened, keeping her gaze on Ketahn for a moment, before retreating to her place against the wall and assuming the rigid stance of a vigilant Fang. Korahla and another female approached Ketahn instead, their long legs devouring the distance.
“You can outpace them,” Rekosh said. “We will leave your belongings elsewhere for you to—”
“No,” Ketahn said.
“Then we will stand with you,” grumbled Urkot.
“You will return to your dens. You need not risk yourselves in this. You have a greater purpose to fulfill. We will speak again soon enough, my friends.” Ketahn strode forward, fighting the urge to look back at his friends. He could almost sense their struggles, their longing to follow, but they knew he’d spoken true. They had to know.
A familiar calm settled over him, reducing his dread, frustration, and blossoming rage to a dull, distant noise in the back of his mind.
“Ketahn tes Ishuun’ani Ir’okari,” Korahla said as she and the other Fang drew within a few segments of Ketahn, “our queen requests your presence.”
Ketahn halted, tilting his head to meet Korahla’s gaze. “And if I refuse?”
“You are more a warrior than any male in Takarahl, Ketahn, but you cannot stand against the Queen’s Fang.”
“So, it is not a request?”
“My duty is to enforce her will,” Korahla said, clacking her mandibles. “Yours is to obey. If any respect remains between us, let this ill will be between yourself and our queen.”
Snapping his mouth shut, Ketahn released a heavy breath through his nose holes, pressed his forearms together in a brief gesture of apology, and continued forward. Korahla and the other Fang flanked him, their steps heavy on the stone floor, their metal adornments clanking with their movements.
Though Ketahn and his friends had fought primarily alongside other males during the war, they’d sometimes joined with female warriors when open battle had been unavoidable. Korahla had proven herself a dependable, skilled warrior and an effective leader. Ketahn was glad to have had her on his side.
But she’d also proven herself obedient and dutiful, following the queen’s commands without question or fail. Ketahn trusted Korahla and her word—but he did not trust the female who commanded her.
As they proceeded down the tunnel, Ketahn narrowed his eyes and raised his mandibles, and the fine hairs on his legs stood up. The Fangs had been positioned around the entrance to a particular den. A den with familiar smooth patches worn into the stone around the entryway.
He looked at Ahnset, who was standing across the tunnel from the entryway, her posture rigid. Though she maintained her hard stance, her eyes softened when they met his.
“Inside,” Korahla said, striding past Ketahn to sweep aside the silk hanging in the entrance. She did not look at him as he moved past her to enter the den.
Something constricted in Ketahn’s chest as he crossed the threshold. This den was so familiar to him that he could almost sense every piece of it, every carved alcove, every crack, every bulge in the stone, as though it were all touching his hide at once. But it was also strange—as strange as the place where he’d found Ivy, if not more so.
All the belongings and decorations were different. The air itself was different, carrying the scents of vrix he did not know.
The cloth fell back into place behind Ketahn, and he turned to look deeper into the den. His chest constricted as his eyes fell upon the female standing in front of the far wall. It would have been unsettling to see any female in the place his mother used to stand all those years ago, but seeing Zurvashi there…
It was crushing, and infuriating, and it only rekindled his long-burning hatred of her.
“Your broodsister says this is the den in which you were raised,” Zurvashi said, turning her amber eyes to Ketahn. Reflections of the glowing crystals on the walls danced along her gold and gemstone adornments as she stepped toward him. “It reminds me of the den in which I was hatched. Just the same as all the rest.”
Ketahn curled his hands into fists. “I thought you were spawned from the loins of some fiery monster.”
Zurvashi waved a hand. “Such insults are unbecoming of you, little Ketahn. They demonstrate your courage, yes, but also your foolishness.”
“Perhaps I am a fool. I returned to Takarahl today, after all.”
“Durax would have thrilled in a chance to hunt you.” Zurvashi turned toward a loom on the wall, where countless silk threads were stretched. The tails of her long silk wrap whispered over the floor. “I would say he is a greater fool than you, but you both seem equally eager to rush to your deaths.”
The space between Ketahn and Zurvashi felt far too small; she could cross those five or six segments as quickly as he could blink, and though he knew he was faster than her, he had nowhere to retreat but into a tunnel full of Fangs.
“Why me, then?” he asked. “Why a common fool to sire your brood?”
The queen brushed the backs of her fingers down the strands, making them vibrate and produce soft, tiny sounds. “Because there is potential in you, Ketahn. There is strength, courage, and brilliance, though the latter must be coaxed out of you by circumstance. Were you hatched a female, you might well have been the only one to prove a true rival to me.”
She stilled her hand, keeping her gaze on the threads. “Your broodmother was a weaver, was she not?”
Ketahn forced his straining mandibles down. “She was.”
“I would have liked to have met her. I understand that the rest of your brood is dead, along with your broodmother’s first two broods, but the legacy she has left behind…” Zurvashi turned her head to settle her gaze upon Ketahn again, shifting her body a moment later to face him in full. “Between your broodsister and you, Ishuun has left the most fascinating offspring. Two of Takarahl’s greatest warriors—hatched by a weaver.”
Zurvashi’s scent struck him then, overly sweet and strong, dominating his breaths. Unbidden, his body stirred.
Ketahn stilled, muscles stiffening as he fought that response. “I was to be a weaver, also.”
“And what a waste that would have been.” She extended a foreleg, setting its tip down beside Ketahn, and swept it aside, forcing him away from the exit.
He turned, putting his back toward the corner, and Zurvashi turned with him. Her mandibles twitched. Ketahn raised his arms and forelegs as instinct smashed into his fury.
“Little Ketahn,” she purred, “are you challenging me?”
Her scent only strengthened, threatening to cloud his mind, to rouse even deeper instincts that he would not be able to resist.
He growled, “Until one of us is slain.”
Zurvashi’s eyes flashed an instant before she lunged at Ketahn. He wanted to fight despite his many disadvantages, wanted to finally end this, one way or another, wanted to put this behind him forever—whether forever meant the rest of his life or eternity in the realm of spirits. Only one thing stopped him from acting, and it also happened to be the one thing capable of battling back the power of Zurvashi’s scent.
Ivy.
One of the queen’s large hands clamped around Ketahn’s throat, and she caught three of his wrists in crushing grips. She lifted him off the floor and slammed his back against the wall, jolting the breath from his lungs.
“Your defiance is no longer necessary,” Zurvashi snarled, leaning her face close to his and spreading her mandibles wide. “You are the only suitable mate for me in Takarahl. The only one worthy of siring my brood. Your disrespect and disobedience has held my attention for a long while, but now it is time for you to submit to my will, Ketahn.”
Ketahn grasped her forearm with his only free hand, but he knew without trying that he could not break her hold. “My defiance…dies only with me.”
The queen tightened her grip on his neck, shifting closer still, filling his vision as thoroughly as her scent filled his nose. “Together we can craft a legacy to surpass that of the gods themselves.” She released one of his lower arms and cupped her hand over his slit.
Ketahn’s mandibles opened wide, and he forced his claspers firmly against his pelvis, refusing to relent to the allure of the pressure at his core.
Zurvashi only pressed harder before dragging the pad of a finger up along his slit. “Our offspring would be the pinnacle of our kind, the greatest vrix to stride this world. And my name will be the first in a new dynasty to span a thousand generations. I will eclipse Takari and her worthless descendants.”
By the Eight, the smell she was emitting was as close to a mating scent as he’d ever detected from her, from any female. He could no more ignore it than he could ignore her forceful touch or her crushing grip—or how the unwanted pleasure she was causing him threatened to part his slit.
But he wanted Ivy. Her scent was the sweetest, and only her touch sparked true excitement within him. Ivy’s fragrance was a delicate lure, coaxing him closer as it sank slowly deeper and deeper into him, as it caressed his instincts and roused real desire. Zurvashi’s was a stone hammer, bludgeoning him into submission, inflicting damage until he could do nothing but relent.
And he had not forgiven Zurvashi for all she had done. He could not.
Drawing in a choked breath, Ketahn chittered. It was all he could do to maintain his tenuous self-control, to keep his body’s responses from growing strong enough for her to notice. He chittered in the queen’s face, and her eyes darkened.
With a roar, Zurvashi swung Ketahn aside and threw him. His legs dragged across the floor for an instant before he landed on his left shoulders, tumbled, and crashed into the far wall. Pain burst across his torso and throbbed in his arms and neck.
“These games are through, Ketahn. The flood season draws near, and with it the High Claiming.” She stalked across the chamber and lifted a leg, jabbing its thick end against his chest and pinning him against the wall. Her claws pricked his hide. “You will return to Takarahl and perform your duty. You will show the vrix of this city that you desire me, and you will outperform every other would-be mate who attempts me. You will bring me the finest gifts, you will spin the finest web, you will dance the finest dance.”
The queen leaned on Ketahn more heavily, forcing the air from his chest. He clamped all four hands on her leg, but she was too heavy to move. He flared his mandibles as he stared into her burning eyes, his body thrumming with unreleased anger, with bristling defiance.
“You will obey your queen, little Ketahn, or you will pay a high price.”
“I…do not…fear…death,” he rasped.
“Not your own,” she replied.
Those words hung in the air, heavier than the queen herself, more solid and imposing than all the stone in Takarahl. Ahnset, Rekosh, Urkot, Telok—she knew of all of them, knew of his connections to them.
But there was one thread of which neither the queen nor any other vrix was aware. There was one thread she could not knowingly sever—but her demands would cut it all the same.
Ivy. She needed him the most, and she would not survive this world without him. He could not abandon her. He would not abandon her.
But he could not risk the lives of his friends and broodsister, either.
Zurvashi shoved away, briefly crushing Ketahn even harder against the wall. She turned and strode toward the entryway. “It is time to set aside your foolish notions, Ketahn, and become what you were meant to be.”
She tore the hanging cloth aside and exited the den.
Ketahn’s head fell back against the cold stone wall as he sucked in another breath. The air was still laden with Zurvashi’s overpowering scent, but it couldn’t command his focus anymore. Pain pulsed through his body, and his new aches would likely plague him well into the night.
She’d been right; he was a fool. He had been for a long while. Zurvashi was not a problem he could ignore. He could not play this game in which he split his life between the Tangle and Takarahl, could not pretend that everything was fine the moment he emerged from understone.
Though he’d not yet fully caught his breath, he spread his legs, flattened his hands on the wall, and struggled his way upright. Zurvashi was forcing him to choose, just like he’d always known she would.
He staggered through his first few steps toward the entryway, catching himself on the stone frame and halting before he passed through. There were voices in the tunnel, accompanied by the sounds of heavy legs striking stone and metal jingling.
Ketahn had to return to the Tangle. Had to return to Ivy. He knew neither would bring him solace today, but he would not be able to think here…
And the longer he lingered in this place with a barbed spear in hand, the more dangerous his thoughts would become.