Read Online Spider Wars: Book Three of the Black Bead Chronicles by J.D. Lakey - Free Book Online

hint of regret in his voice.
    She stared at him. What did
that mean? The minutia of the moment tumbled slowly across the
surface of her mind. A thousand facts were considered and discarded
until what she needed to know emerged whole from the mix. This was
Mora’s doing. This was Mora’s way of testing her. Pushing her
into the deep end of the pool, waiting to see if she sank or swam.
And because Blackwind Pack had chosen to align themselves with her,
they too, had joined her in the deep, black water. No one would save
them but themselves. They were alone.
    So, she thought, as things
tore and she began bleed from the old wounds in the center of her
heart. Just so. Blackwind Pack’s feelings of isolation were not
paranoia then, but a very real result of the Elder’s intentions.
Connor was more right than he knew.
    “ You cannot look in his
eyes and tell him he is wrong. Do you wonder, then, at his rage?”
she asked softly.
    “ Do not judge me. You know
nothing of what I must …” Hayrald grimaced, the things unsaid
swallowed back down inside him like a bitter dose of medicine.
    “ Tell me then, so I do not
grow to hate you,” Cheobawn said, her teeth chattering though it
was not the cold air that had sucked all the warmth out of the world.
    Hayrald flinched, her words
finding their mark deep inside him. On any other day she might have
felt guilty for causing that pain.
    “ Patience, I beg of you,
Little Mother,” Hayrald whispered raggedly, his face suddenly
averted from her stare. “Do not be in such a rush to grow up.”
    Cheobawn opened her mouth
but found nothing to say to this. It seemed a nonsensical thought,
that she could influence her own growth. Her thoughts and her psi
were not her own to keep small, just as she could not keep her brain
and her body from growing, as much as she wished otherwise. Was she a
plant, to be stunted by binding her roots or denying her light?
    She shook that dark thought
from her head. This was Hayrald, whom she loved with all her heart.
Perhaps this was just her Da’s strange way of saying he was worried
for her. Perhaps that explained the sadness in his eyes when he
thought she was not watching him.
    “ It cannot be helped, you
know. Do not grieve so much,” she said gently, reaching out to pat
his knee.
    “ What cannot be helped?”
he asked, turning to meet her eyes. She smiled encouragingly.
    “ I don’t mind being who
I am; doing what I have to do. It only looks hard if you are on the
outside looking in.”
    Hayrald swore softly as he
clutched her hand and brought it to his lips to hide the emotions in
his eyes. She let him keep the hand for a moment as she listened to
the echoes in the empty space around him. Was it her imagination or
was she getting better at piercing the walls the Elders erected
around their minds? Mora had him bound to silence more tightly than
she could imagine if, even in this moment, he could not speak the
words of love that weighed so heavily in his heart. It was a terrible
thing, being Mora’s Husband. She opened her mind and said the words
that needed saying, hoping to comfort him, though she had no
conscious idea as to what they might be.
    It surprised her when she
spoke not to her Da, but to the warrior, the First Prime.
    “ My mount’s alarm was
not without reason. Something comes at us out of the Waste. The
bennelk know it but can put no name to it nor see it well enough to
give it a face,” she said. “It is not even looking in our
direction. It is like slab snow clinging to the mountains waiting for
the right moment to let go and come tumbling down. There is no intent
to hurt us but like the avalanche, hurt cannot be helped if we stand
in its way.”
    Hayrald looked up, alarm
replacing all else in his face.
    “ How long have you known?”
he asked urgently. “Who else have you told?”
    “ I only just realized it
now. You are the first.”
    “ Do not repeat this to
anyone until I consult with the Coven. If you see the threat,