Yes, her conscience whispered.
No, Erik and Matthew had counseled without fully understanding what it was she faced. To them, fighting the gift was the better way to deal with it.
Araña closed her eyes. Candlelight danced on the back of her eyelids, sinuous, like the movements of a snake.
Even without the flickering, she was aware of each place where fire drank the oxygen and fed on wax. In the close confines of the room, it had its own voice. It sang to her, telling her she had only to call and it would come to her.
A shudder went through her, the remembered screams from the maze blending seamlessly with those she’d heard the last time she called the fire to her.
She crossed her arms. Hugged herself but failed to find comfort in it.
She longed for the feel of Tir’s touch. Ached for the caress of his hands and lips.
The spider nestled in the scarred flesh of the brand, and she thought about the demon Abijah becoming the scorpion he wore. How, trapped in the vision place, her insubstantial form felt spiderlike.
More than once she’d had the fleeting sensation that without the hindrance of flesh she could live forever in the heart of the flame, endlessly weaving lives together to create the pattern the future would take. Only in that place was there a unity with the mark—and only then until the pain started, forcing her to do the very thing that burdened her with guilt.
What would it mean to willingly enter the vision place? To accept the demon gift that had caused her so much suffering? Would she gain control of it if she did?
The image of Rebekka holding the child in her arms as she walked away from the ambush wreckage rose from Araña’s conscience. Many would have left the child, or abandoned him as soon as they reached the city. Just as most would have denied her shelter the night she ran from the settlement, a mob at her heels and bearing a brand on her hand.
She regretted never asking Erik to help her find a way to gain control of the demon gift, for never telling Erik the full truth of the visions. He’d guessed there was more to them.
How many times had he let her browse through books of magic before surrendering them to the rich patrons who’d paid to have them stolen?
How many times had she fought back the urge to unburden herself, to seek absolution for the pain and suffering she’d caused?
Too many to count. And always she’d avoided talking to him by telling herself she didn’t want to burden him with the knowledge—when the truth was so much more frightening for her. She hadn’t wanted to face the inevitable question. Had she touched the strand that was his life? Or Matthew’s? She’d been terrified of losing the family of her heart, the only home that had ever offered her safety and love.
Coward, she called herself, opening her eyes and going to the fireplace, crouching on the floor in front of it. Behind her she heard the soft whisper of flame dancing on wax, begging for her to turn and look at it, to use the gift that came with the demon taint to her soul.
Araña’s hands balled into fists, and though she didn’t feel it move, the spider reappeared on her cheek. Did it choose the position to remind her of Tir pressing his lips to it, brushing his fingers over it, unafraid? Was its intent to summon her courage and urge her to face the flame freely?
She lifted her hand to her cheek and traced the outline of the spider with a fingertip. Even without a mirror, without any change in the texture of her skin, she could trace it exactly.
Her hand dropped from her cheek, going instinctively to one of the knives. By touch alone she knew it was Matthew’s.
Araña’s stomach churned at the thought of going to see Annalise Wainwright, of asking a witch for help with her gift. By Levi’s description, Annalise wasn’t one of those at the bus stop, but with little money and all of it necessary to survive, Araña knew she’d have to bargain the use of her gift for any training the witch might be able to give her.
Her other hand settled on the second knife, Erik’s, and the now-familiar pain of loss clogged her throat. If she ever encountered the witch from her long-ago vision, the old woman who’d sent them to the place where Erik and Matthew were killed, she didn’t think she’d be able to still her hand.
What could the witch do to her? Her soul was already damned to the fires of Hell.
A shudder went through her as the image of the demon Abijah rose in her mind, only to slide away with memories of Rebekka ushering her into the tiny room at the brothel, offering the use of her bed and her clothing.
That night the demon gift had shown her Tir. Ultimately it had led her to the ecstasy of knowing another’s touch.
She glanced once more toward the window and the quickly approaching night. And then, before her courage deserted her, she mentally called the flames licking at candle wax. Directed them to consume the wood in front of her.
The fire caught with a whoosh, filling the silence of the room with the crackling of burning lumber. Araña’s hands tightened on the hilts of the knives, drawing strength and comfort from their having belonged to Matthew and Erik.
With a thought, she found the spider positioned over her rapidly beating heart. I am not a coward, she told herself, holding Rebekka’s image in her mind as she looked into the fire and sought its dark heart.
It welcomed her instantly and held her for long moments in the black of a void filled with utter silence. Phantom flames buffeted her, tracing limbs that didn’t exist, as if trying to force her to face the full truth of her nature by licking over the same spidery shape she’d traced with her fingertip.
In the unseen distance, where demon place and physical world met, she thought she could feel the wild pounding of her mortal heart trying to summon her spirit back to her body. But the silence and the darkness held and she willed herself not to fight it.
If she had any hope of undoing the harm she’d already caused Rebekka, then she had to keep her mind clear. She had to act quickly, before the pain rose and she grabbed wildly at the threads in order to make it stop.
Silence finally yielded to the rushing blend of a thousand whispered voices. Black nothingness became an endless choice of color.
Doubt filled her. Panic threatened to follow.
Araña struggled to remember the exact color of the thread that was Rebekka’s life.
Too late she realized she should have faced the painful memories arising from her previous visions. She should have examined each of them and tried to understand better the array of colors, why these souls were the ones she could easily touch.
Now that she’d willingly entered this spidery place of power, she sensed there was an order to it, as if the kaleidoscopic swirl of color was already loosely woven into a pattern. One she was a part of.
A thread caught her attention. Various shades of brown with a swirl of gray. Elation gripped her and she mentally reached for it, thinking it was Rebekka’s. But as soon as she’d made it her choice, the brown and gray fell away to reveal tawny gold underneath, as if the healer’s touch had masked the truth of the underlying soul.
Mixed in with the gold were thick strands of dark brown and black, a lion’s mane. And Araña knew instinctively it was Levi’s life she would forever alter.
A wave of panic rose and with it the first hint of pain. She fought to accept demon place and dark gift rather than fight against them as she always had.
The pain subsided. She expected to slide deeper into the vision, to become a ghost to Levi’s soul and experience the world as it was for him. Instead she remained in the heart of the flame, surrounded by choice, by the whispered voices of a thousand souls.