Chapter 8: The Widow of the Abyss

We’d been riding for three days straight. No pursuit, no soldiers on our tail, no sign of Lyra’s shadow on the horizon. If anyone had tried to follow, Serine’s plan had bought us enough distance to make them choke on dust. I had to give her credit: the girl had thought this through. She’d outplayed the palace—and possibly Lyra herself.

Not that we’d talked much since that night. She hadn’t brought it up, and neither had I. I wasn’t about to remind her of how close she’d pressed herself against me, sobbing out feelings she probably wished she could shove back into whatever corner of her heart they came from. I didn’t mind—gods know I’ve had worse confessions thrown at me—but Serine… she was proud. She didn’t want me treating her like some fragile, lovesick child. So I gave her space.

The days were far from comfortable. Cold winds sliced through our cloaks, and the forest’s mist clung to our skin like a second, wetter layer of clothing. We weren’t exactly traveling with the right supplies either; palace runaways don’t get to shop for camping gear. But complaints were useless. Whatever misery we endured here was nothing compared to what was waiting for us.

Because to get anywhere at all, we had to pass through the Mist Caves.

A name that should’ve warned us off, if we had the luxury of turning back. The stories said adventurers wandered into those tunnels and never walked out again. Whole companies of mercenaries, gone. But if we managed to cross them, there was a small settlement on the far side—a mountain village called Cinabar. Not much more than a cluster of roofs clinging to the stone, but enough. Adventurers stopped there to resupply before heading north, and so would we. There, we could plan. Or at least, pretend to.

By dusk on the third day, we reached it: a massive, gaping maw in the side of the Meridional Range. The entrance to the Mist Caves. The view was breathtaking in the same way standing at the edge of a cliff is breathtaking—beautiful, but with the promise of broken bones if you’re stupid enough to step forward.

“At last,” Serine whispered, sliding off her mare, her legs trembling. She was exhausted, poor thing. This had been harder on her than on me. Court girls don’t usually spend their days on horseback—unless “on horseback” means sitting sidesaddle in a parade.

“It’ll be dangerous with the horses inside,” I said, loosening my stallion’s girth. “We’ll have to free them here.”

She didn’t argue, didn’t even hesitate—just copied my motions and unbuckled her own tack. We took what we could carry and left the rest. Then, with nothing but stone and shadows ahead of us, we stepped into the caves.

Hours passed. We walked in silence, boots slapping against damp rock. I’d expected worse—collapsing tunnels, labyrinthine twists—but so far, the way forward had been surprisingly clear. Every so often we found scratches on the stone, left by earlier travelers. And when the path forked and the marks disappeared, I still knew where to go. Instinct, maybe. The air itself told me which way was safe and which was death.

During one of our short rests, Serine finally broke the silence.

“Rissa,” she said softly, “this isn’t your first time here, is it?”

I looked up, caught off guard. “What? Of course it is. You know where I’m from—a village so small it doesn’t even have a name. I never left until I was seventeen. Why would you think otherwise?”

Her frown was sharp, offended. “Don’t treat me like a child. I know you hide things from me. You think I don’t see it, but I do. And now… now you expect me to believe this is your first time? Impossible.”

I blinked at her, baffled. “Serine, I’m telling you the truth. Why would I lie about this? What would I even gain from it?”

“Then explain how you know exactly where to go. Every time the tunnels split, you just walk straight toward the right path like you were born here.”

I stared at her for a beat, then shrugged. “Half the time it’s obvious. The rest? Signs left behind.”

She shook her head furiously. “Not those times. I’m talking about the moments when there are no signs. When you walk forward as though the stones themselves are whispering directions in your ear.”

“Oh.” I tilted my head. “Well, yeah. Isn’t it obvious? Can’t you feel it? The stench, the air turning foul and rotten down the wrong paths. Like breathing in a dead man’s lungs. You don’t sense that?”

Her face went pale. “No.”

I froze. My eyes widened as the thought slammed into me. She couldn’t smell it. She couldn’t sense any of it.

“Wait,” I breathed, a grin tugging at my lips as I grabbed her hands, pulling her closer than was probably polite. Her cheeks flamed instantly.

“W-what are you doing?” she stammered.

“Don’t you see? This is it. Finally. After years of failed experiments in the palace, after all those useless trials… here’s a clue. I can feel something in the air. A compass no one else has.” My grin spread. “Serine, we can test it. Right here, right now.”

Her hands trembled in mine. “But… deliberately walking into danger? That’s madness.”

“Come on,” I said, flashing her a wicked smile. “It’s called fieldwork, my dear. If we figure out what I am, what I can do… maybe we can even turn back. Maybe I won’t have to keep running.”

That last part wasn’t just bait for her, though I admit I dangled it like a carrot. My curiosity burned hotter than my sense of self-preservation, and right now, that fire was in control.

After a moment, Serine nodded, though fear still clouded her eyes.

We pressed on, deeper into the stone labyrinth. Soon we reached a narrow fissure in the rock. Cold air gusted out of it—rank, suffocating, thick enough to make even my lungs burn. It was the strongest yet.

“Here,” I whispered, almost reverent.

Serine’s legs shook. “Rissa… even I can tell that’s a bad idea.”

The deeper we went, the more the cavern seemed to swallow us whole. The walls closed in, jagged and slick with condensation, their edges pressing like teeth ready to snap shut. The air grew heavier with every step, as though we were wading through a thick, invisible fog. My lungs ached with the staleness, a cloying miasma that clung to the back of my throat. The smell hit next—putrid, like rotting flesh mingled with rusted iron and stagnant water.

The passageways twisted into narrow throats of stone, forcing us to move in single file. My shoulders brushed the damp walls, icy moisture soaking into my sleeves, while the ceiling dripped steadily onto our heads. The ground betrayed us at every step: sharp pebbles wormed their way into our boots, grinding against skin until it felt raw, while the slick stone beneath them turned treacherous, as if daring us to fall into the dark.

It was suffocating. My ears rang with the pounding of our steps, with Serine’s uneven breathing. We walked for what felt like hours until, suddenly, the space yawned open. A vast chamber swallowed us whole, wider than anything I had expected. Our footsteps echoed off the unseen ceiling, the sound multiplied, thrown back at us like mocking laughter. A faint breeze whispered through the cavern, but it carried only more of that choking, fetid stench.

“I can’t see a damn thing,” Serine murmured, her voice trembling as though it might shatter against the silence. “Let’s light a torch.”

“Agreed,” I replied. If some beast decided to ambush us, at least the flame might double as a weapon.

When the torch flared to life, its glow unveiled the truth beneath our feet. And the marrow inside my bones froze.

What we had been stepping on wasn’t stone.

“This is…” Serine’s voice broke, her eyes wide, brimming with tears.

“Yes,” I whispered.

Bones. Countless bones, piled upon each other, stretching across the floor like an ocean of death. Some still wore the tatters of clothing, others clung to scraps of rotting flesh, their sinews blackened with time. I could make out bestial skulls among them, jaws twisted into eternal snarls—but far too many were human. Their hollow sockets stared back at us, accusing, pleading, warning.

“Rissa, let’s get out of here,” Serine begged, panic spilling into her voice. “I don’t care what made this—I don’t want to know.”

I raised my head slowly, my mouth dry. “No need to wonder. I already know.”

For the first time since entering these cursed caves, real terror lanced through me.

Above us, from the cavern’s unseen heights, thousands upon thousands of silken cocoons dangled like grotesque fruit, swaying in the unseen air. And descending from the abyssal dark, strung on a gleaming thread from its abdomen, came the monster responsible.

A spider. A colossal, black-furred abomination, its limbs longer than horses, its bloated body glistening with filth. Its mandibles clicked as it descended, each “crack… crack… crack…” sharp enough to rattle the bones already littering the floor. A thick, yellow slime drooled from its maw, sizzling as it struck the stone. The reflection of our torchlight painted its many red eyes in an infernal glow.

“Whatever happens,” I whispered, my voice trembling, “don’t scream. Don’t run. Don’t move away from the torch.”

But what could we do? Nothing. This thing was faster, stronger—it could shred us to ribbons in a heartbeat. My chest burned with frustration. Idiot. I had brought Serine into a deathtrap.

She collapsed behind me, paralyzed with fear.

I cursed myself, cursed my arrogance. My fists clenched uselessly. The spider was nearly upon us now, looming, its shadow devouring us whole.

“RUN!” I screamed, shoving myself in front of Serine. But she didn’t move.

“Fucking beast! Why don’t you just explode!” I spat, desperate for some miracle—some burst of power like before. Anything.

But what came wasn’t fire, nor lightning. It was… darkness.

An aura spilled from me, black yet shimmering, spreading outward until it engulfed the chamber. It crawled over me, over Serine, and over the endless sea of corpses beneath our boots. Then, as the spider lunged, the ground erupted.

A wall—no, a fortress—of bones and rotting flesh surged upward, fusing together into a macabre barricade. The spider slammed into it with a sickening thud, its screech splitting the air as it collapsed, stunned.

“What’s happening?” Serine gasped, her voice raw with terror.

“I don’t know,” I admitted, equally shaken, as the bone wall crumbled. But then—oh gods—then the corpses moved.

One by one, the skeletons rose. Skulls locked back into spines, ribs clicked into cages, hands snatched up rusted blades from where they had fallen centuries ago. Human, beast, things in between—the dead stood tall. Some bore the robes of long-rotted magi, others still clutched shields split with scars.

My heart dropped into my stomach. If they turned on us, we were done. Not even ashes would remain.

But they didn’t.

The horde surged, not toward us, but toward the spider. What followed wasn’t a battle—it was an execution. Spears and swords tore through its legs, skeletal beasts latched onto its abdomen with snapping jaws. The spider shrieked and thrashed, but it was smothered under sheer numbers. Flames of necrotic sorcery erupted as skeletal mages raised their bony hands, reducing the beast to nothing but blackened ash.

Serine and I stood frozen. To see one undead was rare, a nightmare spoken in hushed whispers. But this? This was an army. A legion. Enough to raze kingdoms.

And then—gods help me—one of them turned toward us.

A robed skeleton, far more ornate than the rest, its bones etched with strange markings, jewels still hanging from its tattered garment. Its jaw creaked open… and promptly fell off, clattering to the ground in ridiculous fashion.

Still, a hollow voice rattled from its chest cavity:

“Thank you, mistress… for granting us the chance in death we were denied in life… to avenge ourselves upon the Widow of the Abyss.”

I blinked.

Serine gaped at me, her face pale as death.

What. The. Hell. Was happening?