"Stop it! He's mine. He's mine."
Drina coughed for the millionth time that night. She couldn't stop. She couldn't sleep.
Her sickness was getting worse, and she knew it. And she knew that it couldn't be healed. It didn't terrify her, like it should. Instead she felt a scary calmness, and deeper down, rage at the world for cursing her.
She looked up and out through her bedroom window, staring at the moon. It was startlingly close, and illuminated the room. Spiderwebs in the window swayed gently in the tiny breeze coming through. Drina's heart grew even more bitter when she remembered that she couldn't leave her room. She couldn't build sand castles with her brother, Shane, like they did when they were younger. She couldn't walk through Stetriol's gardens. All she could do was sit in her bed and wait for death.
Just like father.
The Bonding Sickness. It was what condemned her father, her mother, and herself. A terrible disease with almost guaranteed fatality. It terrified the entire world. Why? The fact was that it wasn't genetic, or contagious, or contracted.
It came with bonding to a spirit animal.
Drina saw something move in the corner of her room, a dark shadow that stared at her with eight lifeless eyes. When the light in the room shifted, it illuminated a huge string of spiderwebs that stretched from two corners and onto the entire ceiling. A stillness came over her when her mind repeated the truth over and over again.
I have a spirit animal. And it's the worst, most terrifying spirit animal to ever live.
Drina had seen all sorts of strange animals being brought in and eaten by her spirit animal. Insects. Birds. Birds as big as her head. Small mammals, like rats.
It was bad enough that her spirit animal was a spider, much less a spider as big as a young human, and with legs as long as she was tall. He was all night-black, save for yellow markings on his abdomen. Drina had never seen a spider like him before, and she didn't want to ever again.
She pondered a question for the thousandth time. Why a spider? Spiders have no compassion, no care for life. They build webs, they catch prey in them, they eat it, and repeat for the rest of their lives. What's in a spider?
Her spider skittered onto the ceiling, stopping every once and a while to reinforce his web, his long legs knitting the thin material. He started down the wall, dangerously close to the end of her bed. Drina watched him without moving an inch, afraid to startle him. Despite everything she hated about spiders, she felt a string being pulled inside of her. This spider was her spirit animal, and she was bonded to him, whether she liked it or not.
"This is my home too, you insect," she grumbled. "I'd rather you not get your webs all over my bed."
To her surprise, the spider looked up and stared at her, completely still. His alien eyes were unblinking. Drina's gaze turned thoughtful. "I guess I should name you, as well. Do spiders have a concept of names?" The last part was mostly her talking to herself, but the spider opened and closed his fangs, looking almost offended at her comment.
"I'll call you Iskos," She said, not giving her spirit animal much of a choice. Iskos was the name of a spider in a book her mother used to read to her. Ironically, the book character was the villain.
Iskos looked away and continued his web work. Drina began to doubt that the spider had even heard her at all. Then she began coughing.
Today, the castle's maid, Magda, visited Drina. She walked in and started brushing spiderwebs away from the doorframe like she usually did.
Nobody went near Iskos, or even looked at him with anything but horror and fear. But Magda was strange. Unlike every other person in the castle, she was not afraid of Iskos at all. Perhaps she was even more fearless than Drina herself was. Drina wanted to know her secret.
"You aren't afraid of him. Why?" She sat up in her bed, addressing the maid.
Magda was carrying a box of Drina's things, moving it so that she could clean. But she stopped moving at Drina's question, not facing her.
Then she turned and smiled at Drina. "I've dealt with spiders," she said, and then glanced at the spider in question, who was sitting still in the corner of the room. "And he's quite interesting, isn't he?"
"Interesting .. ?" Drina repeated, and started to understand. Perhaps he was interesting. After all, she had never paid so much attention to one simple spider before. Iskos was truly one of a kind.
Magda went back to cleaning. Drina was left with blossoming doubt. Was having Iskos as a spirit animal really a terrible thing? She imagined the awe that he would strike in every person in Stetriol.
She imagined the fear.
In the coming months, Drina's sickness got worse and worse. The coughing was almost constant. She started to cough up a black substance more often than not.
But she endured it, not willing to give up as easily as her father.
The sun was setting in Stetriol when something strange happened once again. Like before, Iskos had crawled near her and sat, staring, listening. Drina began to talk to him. She knew that it was insane, but she figured that she didn't want to die without having a conversation with a spider.
"What's it like now? Outside." Drina asked the spider softly. Iskos regularly left the castle to "hunt", or do whatever a spider wants; because nobody would stop him, of course. When she thought about Iskos attacking and frightening Stetriolan peasants, she felt a laugh rise in her throat. She knew it now: her spirit animal bond was not a burden. It was power. It was a tool in her arsenal.
Iskos stared with his eight eyes, rubbing his legs together. Of course, Drina didn't expect an answer.
"Hey, next time Shane comes to visit me, you-" She began, but her words died when she saw something was wrong. Iskos became agitated. He began to back away, his abdomen shaking.
Then he reared, his legs in the air, and fangs fully extended. He lunged at Drina with astonishing speed. Drina wanted to scream, to protect herself, to call for help, but she did nothing but wait for Iskos to inject poison into her blood and kill her - slowly -
But nothing happened. Drina felt the spider go past her shoulder instead of attacking her. In a split-second, Iskos had scurried away and started making a horrible hissing noise. In shock, Drina suddenly realized that the spider held a scorpion in his fangs, using his legs to push the insect into his mouth. He ate it whole. The hissing stopped, and Iskos was still.
Drina couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. She was so sure that she was going to die that she could hardly fathom that she was alive. Iskos hadn't killed her. The scorpion could have.
She was alive because Iskos saved her.
Without any warning, she started to weep. Sobs wracked her body, from fear, from despair, from gratitude. Her face burned from the tears that she had held in for so long.
Why did this happen to her? Why would she summon spirit animal? Why did she deserve Iskos? Why was she condemned to die for bonding to him? Why had she suffered the same fate as her parents, while Shane was granted life?
Anger rose inside of her. She wouldn't die. She couldn't. She couldn't bear it; she couldn't bear giving up and leaving Iskos alone.
Despite her emotions, Drina slept soundly that night. She dreamed of spiders and scorpions and spiderwebs. She dreamed of fear. Poison. Death.
And the next day, Shane visited her. He held a vial of yellow liquid in his hand.
The hunt was about to begin. And when Drina was involved, the fear of spiders was going to be the least of her enemies' worries.