Free The Dark Remains by Mark Anthony

all, Ivalaine stood without motion. Only when silence fell again did she speak.
    “Then this is your answer,” Ivalaine said, her words cool and precise. “Even as all women are one, so are all goddesses.”
    Murmurs of assent rippled through the gathered women. Aryn let out her breath and only then realized she had been holding it. It was like Lirith had once said; it seemed as if some of the witches did not like the name
Sia
anymore, that they believed she was a goddess followed by only hags and hedgewives. But it wasn’t so for all of them, was it? Aryn could still hear Mirda’s soft words.
Sia bless you
. Certainly Mirda was no hag.
    Once again silvery bells rang out. Aryn shivered and turned her face forward. Lirith had said this first meeting was to be only a welcoming, that the real work of the coven would not come until later. All the same, instinct told her something was about to happen. Something marvelous.
    “The moon is full in Her darkness,” Senrael rasped in her ancient voice.
    “From darkness will Her light be reborn,” Cirynn said, her voice only slightly unsteady.
    Ivalaine took Senrael’s hand in her left and Cirynn’s in her right. Then Cirynn and Senrael joined hands—one smooth, one withered—closing the circle: Maiden to Matron to Crone, round and round.
    “Now let us all weave together as one,” Ivalaine said in a chantlike voice, “so that our circle may never be broken.”
    And Aryn forgot everything as two hundred shimmering threads coiled around her.

9.
    Lirith was dreaming again, but she didn’t care. The dream was far too beautiful to resist, so she let herself sink into vibrant swirls of color, let them draw her on.
    She was on the common green beneath the castle again, strolling among the Mournish wagons, gazing at their fantastical shapes. Then she saw him—Sareth—standing beside a gilded wagon carved like a lion. He was more handsome than she remembered, clad only in his vest and billowing trousers. With a look he beckoned her.
    As she drew near he held out his hand. On his palm lay a spider charm like the one she had found. Except this one was not bronze but gold. She reached out to take it, but before she could it started to move, scurrying across his hand as if it were a living thing. Even as she watched, she saw tiny, gold pincers sink into his flesh, and a drop of blood welled forth, glittering like a small ruby.
    Sareth screamed. A hole appeared in his hand where the spider had bitten him. As Lirith watched in horror, the hole spread outward. His entire hand vanished into nothingness, then his wrist, his elbow, and his shoulder. Then his scream ceased as, in a heartbeat, the remainder of Sareth’s body blinked out of being. Only the wooden peg of his false leg remained, clattering to the ground.
    Lirith turned to flee, but from the shadows of the trees to either side gray threads sprang forth and spun around her, tangling her limbs, muffling her cries. She was caughtin a web—a great, tangled web—and the more she struggled against it the more tightly it held her.
    The wagons vanished as everything went dark. The only sound was a faint clicking that grew rapidly louder. Straining against the web, she turned her head, then saw them: gold spiders. Hundreds of them—no, thousands. All scuttled toward the center of the web where she lay entangled.
    But there was something more, something lurking in the dimness beyond the golden spiders. It was gigantic, its terrible bulk weighting down the very web that supported them all. From the shadows it stared at her with eyes like black voids while ichor drooled from its open maw. It was hungry, this thing, so terribly hungry, and Lirith knew with perfect certainty that no matter what it consumed, it would never be sated. She tried to scream again, but this time sticky globs of web filled her mouth, choking her.
    Then Lirith felt the first sharp pricks of pain.

10.
    Lirith sat up in bed, clutching a hand to her