Her web shook with the violence of the storm. AboveWorld roared and flashed, turning dark-time to light-time. But there was something more, something different that trembled through the strands of silk. Something she’d never felt before.

AboveWorld roared and flashed again. Then something screamed—a terrible shuddering in her web—and a piece of AboveWorld crashed into World, ripping, tearing, roaring, shrieking.

Dark Wet splashed her, splashed her web, at the same moment something struck the web near the center. Prey?

Hunger overcame hesitation. She hurried along the threads, intending to secure her meal before heading back to the safer, more sheltered edge of her web.

But the something was hard and had no meat. As she tried to sink her fangs into it, she ingested some of the Dark Wet, and that . . . filled her, flowed through her, sang inside her.

Changed her.

After cleaning off every bit of Dark Wet, she discarded the something and hurried back to the sheltered edge of her web to wait out the storm.

Chapter 2

2

Light. And a hunger. For meat, yes. But also for something more.

Leaving her web, she traveled along the Rough that stretched out over World until she reached a place where the piece of AboveWorld had crashed into World. The Dark Wet still sang inside her, almost too quiet to feel, but it was enough to guide her to more of the Dark Wet.

Fixing an anchor thread to the Rough, she spun out silk. The World trembled with anger. The air quivered with grief and despair . . . and longing.

Her legs touched the piece of AboveWorld. Hard, like the something that had struck her web. Moving cautiously, she found a place where the Hard was torn away, revealing meat—and the Dark Wet.

After consuming as much of the Dark Wet as she could, she sank her fangs into meat and pumped her venom into the spot. It would only liquefy a tiny bit of meat, but that tiny bit would feed her well.

So she spun a web as close as she could to the meat—and the Dark Wet that seeped over the meat.

Chapter 3

3

In dreams, she unfurled her wings and sailed through the Darkness—a vastness that was outside the body, and yet the body became its vessel; a power reached by heart and mind and spirit. Through it flowed the whispers of creation . . . and the silence of destruction. Her race had spiraled down its chasms and canyons and strange abysses for years beyond memory—and had understood that they would never understand this place that was, and wasn’t, a place.

In dreams, the vision of webs shining in the Darkness hadn’t dazzled and overwhelmed her mind, hadn’t blinded her to the danger of the storm, and she had reached the caves on this island that she had chosen as her final resting place. But the wounds received because of the storm were fatal, and the caves were too far away.