It wasn't us who broke the silence. It was the Queen.
She looked toward us, and after everything we had felt, I didn't need a human face to recognize the grief.
"What now…?"
Well, fuck. That was the question.
"We can leave," Jane said before anyone else could answer. "We're sorry."
For a moment, the only sound was the faint skittering of the Queen's remaining young.
"No?" Rowan looked around at us. "We all saw the notification, right? This is our new base. And she's our pet."
His temper was apparently recovering faster than the rest of him.
In a straight one-on-one duel, he was the strongest of us. Unfortunately, he sometimes seemed to think every disagreement could be settled the same way.
"Shut up. Please, Rowan. She's grieving."
Liora barely spoke when we were alone, never mind in front of everyone. Right then, though, I thought she was speaking for most of us.
"She's not human. Wasn't one before, either," Zach said, sounding less certain once people looked at him. "And, hey, I'm not saying we shouldn't be nice, buuut… we won. Fair and square."
"Fair?" Jane's voice rose. "We invaded her home and killed her children!"
The Queen lowered her enormous head beside her.
Jane stopped. Her hand lifted, trembling, and rested against the Queen's face.
"My young are not slaves," the Queen said. "Nor am I. Let that be clear."
Her voice carried through the cavern with a strange, almost musical resonance.
"But this world is no longer the home we knew. I would have us live together."
Rowan hesitated.
He wasn't someone who backed down easily, especially after a win. Calling it a draw probably wasn't much better.
"You don't have to give it up," Liora said, touching one of the Queen's legs. "It's your home."
"Whose side are you two on? Seriously?"
Rowan raised his voice, then winced and pressed a hand against his ribs.
Jane turned on him.
"We're druids, idiot! Magic isn't just flames and destruction!"
"If I could—"
"Magic is how we impose our will on the world, Jane," Rowan said over me. "When you give way, when you falter, so does your magic."
"Your magic, Rowan! You're not the only person here who uses it. It calls to all of us differently!"
"Guys, let's—"
"I'm not taking a lecture from someone who barely holds up in training."
"Enough! Fuck both of you!"
Sheral was doing better physically than either of them, which apparently meant she could still outshout them.
"Fuck your magic, and fuck your egos. We came in here without knowing what this place was. We fought because things were trying to kill us. Now we know more."
She pointed between Rowan and Jane.
"The System says the tower belongs to us. They already live here. From everything we just saw, they're as much people as we are, and she's offered to share. So we can stop screaming long enough to work with that."
"Sheral—" I started.
One of the Queen's forelegs touched her lightly. Sheral stopped, looking up.
Behind her, Rowan spoke quietly with Zach and Mara. I couldn't make out what they said. Eventually, he looked toward me and gave a short nod.
"Fine. We share."
Great. At least I was worth looking at once everyone had finished deciding.
"Then… let's help her young," I said, raising my voice enough for everyone to hear. "If you have mana left, use it. Potions too, if you haven't already."
I looked toward the Queen.
"You are their leader?"
Her voice was suddenly inside my head.
"It's a loose hierarchy," I said aloud.
She watched me for another moment, then turned toward her children. Our priests and druids followed.
Merlin came to stand beside me.
"You're going to hear about this from her."
"The Queen or Sheral?"
"Both, probably."
He gave me a tired smile.
"You got everyone helping, though. That was something."
"Eventually."
"Yah. Eventually."
I watched the Queen lower herself beside another injured spider.
"It must've been terrible to see what I did."
Merlin's smile faded.
"Maybe she understands killing differently than we do. I wouldn't count on that making the conversation easier."
"I know. It's just…"
"You think part of it is that you can't get it out of your own head?"
"It's a weird feeling, Merlin."
"Yah."
He didn't try to tell me what the feeling meant.
For a while, we watched everyone work.
"You can't leave those three council seats empty," he said eventually.
I glanced at him.
"There are groups forming, man. People are already looking to each other when something happens. You need to give them a way to be heard before every decision turns into that."
"But who?"
"We should vote."
"Direct vote? Ranked? Multiple votes? Weighted voting? It's not that simple. There are twenty people here, all with their own ideas about how things should work."
Merlin considered that.
"Direct vote on what kind of vote?"
I laughed despite myself.
"Sure, man."
I gave him a quick side hug, then carefully lowered myself onto the floor.
The webbing was surprisingly comfortable.
That felt like an inappropriate thing to notice.
I lay there, staring upward.
I had used demonic power again. Actual demonic blood this time, too.
I had promised Sheral.
A few minutes later, she sat beside me.
"I'm not happy."
"I know."
"You know, I've burned a lot of bridges in my day, Tero."
"You told me."
"Well, I'm not burning this one."
I turned my head toward her.
"You're like a grandchild to me," she said. "And I don't want to lose that."
My throat tightened.
"I don't want to lose you either, Sheral. I don't know where my family is, and…"
I looked back at the ceiling.
"You're my mom here."
She was quiet for a moment.
"Then I need you to do something for me."
"Sure."
"Come to the temple. With me and my sisters."
I rubbed at my face.
"You know I don't really like being in churches. Doesn't feel right when I don't have faith."
"All you have to do is sit with us and put your head down."
I could do that.
"…Alright."
"Thank you."
She rested her hand on my shoulder before getting up.
"I'm going back to help. Come join us when you're ready."
I stayed there a little longer.
There were people I needed to speak to. Decisions I needed to make.
Apparently, lying on the floor wasn't going to get either of those things done.
I pushed myself upright, wincing as my ribs objected.
Jane was kneeling beside one of the white spiders. Green light spread beneath her hands, following a crack along its slender leg.
Walking over to her was harder than it should have been.
"Thank you, Jane."
She looked up.
"You did well. Helping her, I mean. What you and Liora did…"
I wasn't making this sound any better.
The look she gave me was difficult to read.
"Thank you, Tero."
Then she turned back to the spider.
I stood there for a second, trying to find something else to say.
Nothing useful came.
Rowan saved me the trouble of starting our conversation.
"We shouldn't have settled."
He was sitting with Zach and Mara, one hand still resting against his side.
"I don't know, man. You have to think about the spiders."
"I am. The same way I'd think about humans, so don't start."
He shifted, grimaced, and kept looking at me.
"Being weak isn't a virtue, Tero. It doesn't mean someone automatically gets whatever they want. We shouldn't have to give up everything we won because we feel bad."
"Okay. But the Queen isn't our pet. Fuck the System. It's what did this to them in the first place."
Rowan glanced toward her.
"Yah. Calling her that was out of line."
That was more of a concession than I'd expected.
"But I still mean the rest."
I looked toward the surviving spiders. Even injured, several were helping the healers, feeding small amounts of mana into their spells.
"They're casters, right?"
Rowan waited.
"What if we invite them into the guild? As actual members."
"And if they don't want to join?"
I hadn't got that far.
"Then… we figure out what to do."
"Before promising anything else?"
"…Yah."
"Okay, Tero."
He turned back toward the others.
That left one conversation.
Unfortunately, it was the one I least wanted to have.
The Queen had just finished examining one of her young when I approached.
"Um. We should probably talk."
"Yes."
She moved away from the others.
I watched her go for a moment.
"Should I follow you?"
"Yes."
Right.
I followed her deeper into the raid, through an opening into a room so thick with silk that each step gave slightly beneath my feet.
She adjusted her legs, then lowered herself to face me.
Even resting, she was at least nine feet tall.
I tried to stand a little straighter.
"So. Names first?"
"I have no name. What is yours?"
"Tero."
She was quiet for a moment.
"You may call me Thessari."
"Thessari?"
"She was the wife of the mage who kept this tower, centuries ago."
I nodded.
"It's nice."
I had no idea what else to say about that.
For a few seconds, neither of us spoke.
"I'm sure you've realized…" I started. "The things you hunt. Your own spiders, too. What the System did to all of you."
"I have."
She settled a little farther into the webbing.
"I believe it to be the will of God. If God wills such a thing, then it is so."
"God?"
"What else would you call a power capable of this?"
"But you resisted it. You're here. You're yourself."
"Am I?"
I opened my mouth, then stopped.
Something had brought us into this world. Something had split their lives across layers and put instructions inside their heads.
Maybe it was a simulation. Maybe we were all in the fucking Matrix.
Assuming we weren't, though…
"We're here because it allows us to be," I said. "Okay. Fair."
That wasn't a thought I wanted to sit with for very long.
"I felt your struggle, Tero."
My eyes lifted toward hers.
"With what you did to my young."
There it was.
"I'm sorry."
The words came out too quickly.
"Seeing that must have been… I just… I couldn't see another way."
Thessari remained still.
"My children are dead," she said. "I do not know that what you did was more terrible than taking their heads. Or crushing them slowly beneath stone."
I swallowed.
"You seem…"
I stopped, then somehow decided to keep going.
"You seem less bothered by how it happened than I expected. Sorry. That's a horrible thing to say."
"It pains me."
One of her legs shifted against the silk.
"But I have spent my life fighting, Tero. Hunting. Losing young. With enough food, I can bring hundreds into the world in a week."
I remembered the small spider struggling to climb the wall.
The strand its sister had laid for it.
"I cannot keep every one of them alive."
I looked down.
Her answer hadn't made the memory any easier.
For a while, I let the silence stay.
Then I did what I apparently always did when I couldn't figure out what to say.
I found something practical.
"My guild. We're all mages."
"The others with you?"
"Yah."
"All of you use the source?"
"If you mean mana, then yah."
"Are there only twenty?"
"For now."
She waited.
"I want to invite you to join us. You and your young."
Thessari lifted herself slightly.
"I would require your protection. And our independence."
I nodded, listening.
"We may share the tower. But I will not promise to fight your wars. I will not make children for you to send to slaughter."
"Yah. I can agree to that."
I could already imagine Rowan having questions.
"You'd all become Magisters. That's the ordinary member rank. Then there's the Magisterium, which we haven't actually—"
"I need to rest, Tero."
I stopped.
"We will discuss the rest another time."
"Oh. Yah. Of course."
I took a step backward.
"I can send the invitations. You don't have to do anything with them yet."
"Very well."
"Okay. Um… sleep well."
I made my way toward the doorway, trying not to look like I was hurrying.
The guild menu opened easily enough.
For once, I knew what to do with it.
[Guild Invitation Sent: Thessari]
[Level: 50]
[Guild: The High Order]
I sent invitations to the surviving young as well.
Before I could close the menu, another notification appeared.
[Guild Invitation Accepted: Thessari]
[Membership Pending: Incompatible Creature Type]
[Evolution Available: Arachne Queen]
[Awaiting Recipient Confirmation]
I stopped at the doorway.
Behind me, the silk shifted.
[Confirmation Received]
[Evolution Initiated]