Spider Wars: Book Three of the Black Bead Chronicles by J.D. Lakey

Author:J.D. Lakey [Lakey, J.D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wayword Books
Published: 2016-04-10T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Cheobawn stared at her Truemother. Mora sat in her chair behind her desk, her face a perfect mask, the wall filled with golden spheres behind her like a grotesquely huge diadem above her head. Her icy blue eyes betrayed nothing of what she was thinking. Cheobawn remembered to breath; then she remembered she was holding a dampening box and her hands were growing numb. Well, there was no lie that would get her out of this one. She turned and climbed the step stool, standing on her toes to slide the box back in place next to the other dampened stones. Hopping down, she stowed the stool and shook the feeling back into her hands. Mora was still staring at her when she turned back towards the desk.

“How much did you hear?” Cheobawn asked. And more importantly how much did the stones behind Mora sync with her own and rebroadcast the other side of her conversation with Bohea?

“What comes at us from the Waste?” Mora asked.

“What?” Cheobawn said, not sure of the context of her question.

“You warned the First Prime of a threat coming at us from the Waste,” Mora said slowly, each word pronounced with surgical precision. “Were you referring to the smoke leopard when you said that?”

“Oh, that,” Cheobawn said. “I had forgotten I told him that.”

“Oh that? Is it a lie, then?” her Truemother asked, only the slight rise of her brows betraying her annoyance.

“No, no,” Cheobawn said, the memory of her emotional outburst bringing an embarrassed grimace to her face. “It was true when I said it.”

“But now it is not? What has changed?”

“I took care of it,” Cheobawn said with an insolent shrug.

“Did you?” Mora said, her eyes narrowing. “By what right?”

“Right?” Cheobawn asked, half to herself. She suddenly remembered the hot words exchanged between Connor and Hayrald only a few hours earlier. “By right of omission, I guess. You and all the other Elders look the other way when it comes to Blackwind’s business. Can you blame us if we have become self-directed?”

Mora considered her silently, a hard glint behind her eyes. Cheobawn waited for the anger and the harsh words but they did not come.

“I know of these Spiders you talk of,” Mora said after a long moment, again startling Cheobawn with her sudden redirection of the conversation.

“Do you?” Cheobawn asked carefully, wishing for just a moment that she might peek into Mora’s mind and scry out the secrets she kept there. “Do you know that they have opened up a doorway into this world so that they might seed the earth with their young? Bohea knows now. He will put a stop to it for us. You can thank him next time you talk to him.”

“Be careful who you side with in this conflict. All is not as it first seems. Spider’s story is written in the books of the Chronicles of the World,” Mora said, resting her head on the back of her chair, her eyes half closed. “It is required reading for every First Mother.

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