It rushed through her, sank deep, unravelling her from within. On instinct, Barbarthara retaliated — jammed her thorn deeper, tried to force her own venom into the chitin. Pushed with everything left.
Two beings of toxin, locked together in agony.
But only one was dying.
Barbarthara’s poison was weak, forced into an impenetrable shell. The arachnid’s venom corrosive, overwhelming. It flooded her. It came without ebb, without rhythm. It rooted itself in every thread of her being, every pulse, every synapse. It smothered her senses and suffocated her mind. It drowned her. The pain unmade her. There was no counter. Barbarthara had no will left to shape it and no shape she could hold. She could no longer climb. Could no longer strike. Could not run.
And the dark pressed in — silent, endless.
Oh, but Barbar thara knew PAIN
And she knew POISON.
Oh,
but Barbar thara knew PAIN
And she knew
POISON.
She knew the inside of agony, the slow unravelling of a body from within. When nerves convulsed and screamed, when the self became a twitching vessel of venom and suffering.
She knew THE DARKNESS too — not the lightless depths that filled the mountain’s lungs, but the other darkness. The one that bloomed inside when everything withered and burned. The kind that screamed through nerves, that twisted every sense into madness when the venom seeped too deep.
The last decade of her life had been shaped by it, all that she was ever twisted by poison. Barbarthara had been bled into, bitten into, and drowned in toxins. Soaked, scorched, spell-ridden. The Shaira had made her a vessel for affliction. They had poured spells into her spine, venom into her veins, apparent medicines into her marrow, hexes into her head.
Hours. Days. Weeks.
Each time the choice: rot — or grow.
And she had grown. From corrupted flesh, she had reformed. Sometimes crooked, but always harder.
She had chosen growth.
Always.
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