The queen appeared in the nest at long last.

She was not what Kaelen expected. Not the bloated, many-legged horror he had braced himself for. She was something else entirely. Something almost... human.

Her body was tall and slender, covered in chitin that gleamed like polished obsidian. Her limbs were long, jointed in places that shouldn’t have been possible. She had six arms—each one ending in a hand with too many fingers, each finger tipped with a claw that dripped venom. Her lower body was different. More spider-like. But her torso, her face, her posture... they were unsettlingly familiar.

Her face was the worst part.

Smooth, symmetrical, features that might have been beautiful on a woman—high cheekbones, full lips, large eyes—except her eyes were black. Entirely black. No iris, no pupil. Just two voids that seemed to drink in the light.

And atop her head, where hair should have been, a crown of smaller eyes blinked and swiveled, watching everything at once.

Kaelen stood in the center of the chamber, his chest heaving, his claws dripping with silk and spider blood. In his right hand, he held the severed head of one of her children—a hatchling he had torn apart moments before she arrived.

The queen saw it.

Her black eyes went wide. Her lips peeled back from rows of needle-sharp teeth.

She let out a deafening shriek.

It was not a sound that traveled through the air. It traveled through bone, through blood and through the very essence of every living creature in the chamber. Kaelen’s vision went white and his claws flew to his ears, but it didn’t matter. The sound was inside him.

He almost collapsed. His knees buckled and his scales vibrated but he managed to barely remain standing.

Before he could react—before he could raise his claws or dodge or even breathe—the queen’s tail lashed out.

She had a tail. He hadn’t noticed it before, long, segmented, tipped with a barb that glistened with venom, it moved faster than anything Kaelen had ever seen.

It slammed into his chest.

The impact lifted him off his feet and hurled him across the chamber. He crashed against the wall with a sickening crack—his bones, not the stone. Pain exploded through his ribs, his vision darkened at the edges. He slid down the wall and landed in a heap, gasping for air that wouldn’t come.

"She’s leagues above me," Kaelen realized.

"I can’t... I can’t even touch her."

He forced himself to look up.

The queen was already turning away from him, her black eyes scanning the chamber. Her six arms spread wide, her tail swayed behind her like a snake.

She was looking for Caelus.

Caelus was hidden. He had positioned himself in the shadows near the ceiling, wedged between two stalactites, his hands still in his pockets. He had no heartbeat, no heat signature, no scent.

He was a vampire—technically dead—and he had spent centuries perfecting the art of not being found.

But the queen could sense him.

Her black eyes locked onto his position. Her lips curved into a smile.

Kaelen watched from the floor, his chest burning, his ribs grinding together with every breath.

"How?" he thought.

How can she see him? He’s invisible and has no heat signature.

Then Kaelen realized.

The egg.

The queen had laid an egg in him. Caelus had destroyed it—Kaelen had felt it dissolve—but the impact was still there. The connection, the queen had been inside his body, even for a moment. And that moment was enough especially since it granted her access to some of his traits.

She could sense anyone who had been her host at this her current evolved state.

There was nothing Caelus could do about it.

The queen charged at him with disgusting speed.

Her six legs—no, her feet—pounded against the stone floor as she ran, her body low to the ground, her arms reaching for the ceiling. She moved faster than something her size should have been able to move.

Caelus raised his hand.

Blood manipulation.

The queen’s body jerked to a stop. Her limbs locked, her muscles seized. She had assimilated some of his traits—he knew that—but she hadn’t assimilated all of them. At least not yet.

She struggled against his hold.

One leg moved, then another, then another.

She was breaking free gradually.

Caelus wasn’t fazed because he had expected this. He leaped from his perch, his body twisting in midair, and sent a flying kick toward her head.

The impact was devastating.

A shockwave rippled through the chamber—visible, tangible, a ring of distorted air that shattered nearby cocoons and sent debris flying. The force of the kick should have caved in her skull. It should have sent her crashing to the ground and ended the fight.

But the queen had hardened the muscles on her head.

Chitin thickened beneath her skin. Her neck braced. Her jaw locked.

She didn’t even stagger.

Caelus’s eyes widened. Just a fraction. "Hooo? Impressive."

Her hand closed around his ankle.

She swung him like a club—not toward the wall, but into it. The stone cracked on impact. Dust exploded outward.

But Caelus didn’t crash.

He stopped centimeters from the wall, his body hovering in the air, his hands still in his pockets. His red eyes were calm. His expression unchanged.

Kaelen stared from the floor. How?

Blood manipulation. He had stopped his own momentum and redirected the force of the impact, turning the queen’s strength against her.

The queen tilted her head. Her black eyes studied him.

Then she raised her six arms.

The dead hatchlings—the ones Kaelen had killed, the ones Caelus had neck-snapped, all of them—began to twitch. Their bodies convulsed. Their blood—dark green, almost black—rose from their wounds like living serpents.

The queen had learned on the spot.

She had watched Caelus use blood manipulation. She had felt it in her own body. And now, for the first time, she was using it herself.

The blood coalesced into a single mass—thick, roiling, hungry. Then it fragmented into a hundred projectiles, each one sharp as a blade, each one aimed at Caelus.

"PALE SKIN!" Kaelen shouted.

The projectiles launched.

They crashed into Caelus’s position in a wave of crimson and shadow. The sound was deafening—a thousand impacts happening at once. The wall behind him shattered. The ceiling above him cracked. Dust and debris filled the chamber, obscuring everything.