(I'm terrible at writing conclusions to plots but I try my best! I'm determined to continue/end this haha)

behest

-an authoritative order: command

-an urgent prompting

Lies are like silk strings weaving a net.

They're wisps of soft and smooth lines produced in deliberate attempts to catch the unknowing prey.

I have watched enough of my creatures feed to know the circle of life and death. It's natural in the cause of them. They don't think about their methods or kill count. All they do is feast when they need to.

Humans are much crueler than any cold-blooded creature could ever be. When we spin nets we don't aim for strict survival we aim for victory that keeps not only our belly satiated but our pride.

A fistful of anger and restlessness coils in my stomach at that tiny observation. It's all profound. Meaningless.

The lights blink and waver in the distance as I walk over the outskirts of the empty square. I get swallowed on the stones. A small figure of a woman with a heartbeat drumming against her ribcage.

Singing white rays praise the whole architecture of the upper parts of the city, iron and stone, glass, guards and guns and cameras. Feets silent, I wear flat boots and black. I tread lightly as can be.

A second I stop. Inhale the night air. The early morning smells polluted already. I love the smell of Archeon, the variety of smoke and smog and clouds that my animals soar and leap through. But I am not sure today.

If the light-drenched sky and cool air lying over my skin hold consolation, I don't receive it.

Instead, the last weeks play up in my head.

I returned to the Vipers from accusations and was followed by bad rumors.

I tried in vain to receive back status. I begrudgingly agreed to the betrothal to Samson. Not knowing I was just a package part of my fathers deal to get rid of his brother and the rest of the ghastly lot. I give him credit. He played meek and good. Waited so long. Even denied me when I tried to appeal to him. Carefully tended plans of poison.

I clung to Atara and Heron, the second fiddles that they were. The losers of the roles they had to play.

I watched Evangeline and her little red headed shadow girl. I kept eagle eyes out for any threat all while Samson scared me into oblivion with his stinging torture and Maven easily snatched my weaknesses up. Because I was viable enough for him and his mother.

My focus on revenue hatred has helped out.

And then I was invited to partake in that hide and seek game with the rebels and the red girl shooting lightning, and the night of the parting ball speaks for itself.

I'm an accomplice. By choosing, Maven said. I'm not innocent. He was right.

I don't care about the losses and the drama on a personal level. I don't care about the blood that will be spilled tonight. Or after.

They think I don't know what's happening because I only get fed bits and pieces from both Elara and Maven and my husband. I can piece it together well enough. I can piece together a profilic image of a woman that has held leashes tightly over years. On herself. Her child. Her work. Her position at the top.

I know what a whisper can do short term to your mind. Long term extermination and cruelty seems even worse.

I can see a boy with blue eyes and a throat that speaks flattery and lies the finest silk. Called a tool and a vessel. Close to burning his fingers on his own fire and that double-check with the red rebels. Still some patterns are not making sense. But I remember how he clenched the lightning girls elbow and her hand and even if I don't fully feel capable of understanding that exact feeling. That's sufficient.

One last breath in the sky. Then I walk away from the thoughts. I am just a failsafe, a backup, and I know it. Whatever the outcome tonight. Things will change.

I want to be on the side that survives and gains something out of the change.

If that means being an accomplice, fine.

Spiders' silk doesn't have a smell for humans. And lies and poison taste as colorless as that. Until you reach the aftertaste.

So poetic, a voice in the back of my head mocks. It is not a voice of reason but the spit out observations from another person. Maybe you did inherit some artistic talents from your mother after all. Even if it's not music.

It hurts. It will always hurt. He isn't subtle and never was. But he doesn't burrow deep. Instead, we overlap in my mind. It's useful to stay in touch. It's useful to know I can rely on him not stabbing me in the back or trying to dominate my focus tonight. I spoke my mind and I will earn the respect I deserve. We are partners in crime here at least.

A partnership that may bring fruition, even if we both still want nothing but scratch each other's eyes out and choke the life from each other's throats.

He keeps his distance.
He doesn't pave or wander. He is deadly still. That is his saving grace. Samson can be brash and in need for attention in his vanity and foul-tempered pride. But I call him a snake for a reason. It shows tonight when both my fangs and his mental ones drip venom in ears. And enact on the simple rule of power cemented in our ways.

A thing learned about life and work in Whitefire Palace and in general about politics.

When proxies go away, executive power changes.

The lights of the hallways never die just the same as outside. Since it is late of the night, not even early morning, the corridors aren't as busy. But just because silence embraces us doesn't mean that we are alone and undisturbed.

I bathe in the little cover I can get, moths and other creatures hiding me from certain angles as they peel over the lenses of some cameras. I walk slow and careful. Just in case. My caution and paranoia can't be cured.

Elara, whisper queen, has given me easy tasks that stack. Her reasoning is easy as the things I was told. If I get caught, everyone can make assumptions. People didn't see me with her or Maven. They know I hate my whisper husband and they know Atara and her bunch of the family treated me indifferent when I was her companion and chaperone.

I'm viable and easy for her to use. Because while I am very close to making it further ranks, I am inconspicuously little in comparison to say her son or my cousins. People are used to me spying and running wild midnight. I'm unsociable under the bows and courtesies. Why would I not be here after what I did and witnessed today? Daliah Viper snooping in your business and gritting teeth in the background is not something new.

At two in the morning, I am a liar again. The lying is easier than breathing. I subtract truth and hide away facts.

I have a bundle of discriminatory evidence in my pockets.

Falsely but pretty convincingly crafted evidence of sorts. I don't get to look at the words long. I try. But more than two words and the voice in the back of my head snaps at me.

All I see is the different sigils and colors mixed in official documents and references to sums of money. I take in the forged bribery and lies that talk about treason. Treason, hm? How funny. I would say whatever I do is more treason than the poor secretary or the charges and proxies from Iral and Lerolan and Macanthos ever had in their mind.

I have to admit though, the fact I plant this envelope in the desk of that poor secretary Macanthos is a nice bonus.

Ellyn may dead. I still get to ruin the reputation of her family further. It seems fair after they ruined me.

The last laugh in this game they call life is always the best one. And I am the one laughing now.

Of course, I'm not really laughing. That would be counter-productive to stealthily hiding between doors and behind corners.

My spiders keep me safe from being spotted. My way of breaking into rooms is easy. I have half of the keys and security bypassing needed from my peeking habits and half the others from the voice in my job head supervising me about the commotion. It's remarkably easy to navigate when you're two observers instead of one. And when half the palace waits to let you slip through doors.

I'm in the middle of proceedings in the matter of stashing and taking things, moving them carefully in the secretarial office, eyes overflying a few words about lost war efforts when the connection between us turns static again and the cord rips. Meaning he must have either dropped it or overstretched reach.

I duck half behind the wood and wait. My breath is shallow.

My control flings over to the nearest insect or spider let loose, clinging to the wall more silent than I ever could.

I can't see anyone. The hallway is empty. The air circulates lazy around my critter. But no reaction. Just the low feeling of a threat and I take it seriously. Because I don't have to be caught.

And then, in the corner of my senses, the connection flickers and reestablishes.

For once in Samson's miserable existence, I encourage his ability to send me warnings and words. I'm almost thankful.

With a stinging pain of an incoming migraine, I get the flash of an image, the momentum of a figure moving. Dark hair with silver threads, sharp eyes, dark skin, silent feet.

Ara isn't sleeping as well, it seems.

As fast as the flash image has come, as fast as the alarm has come, it is gone again.

I am not surprised. Ara kept herself covered since the shooting, but she has many more eyes than I can have with an army of spiders. She is slippery, powerful and careful.

I just helped to prepare to get her whisked and locked away in some silent and fast process later on, as it happens (you disappear, you don't get any choice, but the further your reputation is damaged, the better)...but her presence is unwanted.

I distracted her before. I can do it again if necessary.

What choice do I have?

I certainly can't fight her openly. Not only would she probably mop the floor with tired me. A physical fight would put me in an unwanted spotlight.

Tonight isn't the night of the panther. Or the merry widow.

I will have to keep an eye on her in the hours to come.

It is three in the morning. I am tired of sneaking around and walk bellowing for a moment. Sitting below the archway that looks over seats in an arena, night sky still unrecognizable. Light radiates on my backside. I let a moth flutter over my finger before it drifts away, grey and wordless. It reminds me of Larentia, and I remember that if I walk down two or three of the long hallways into another complex, I could knock on Evangeline's door. But what tell her if not lies?

I could disturb her privacy with one of my critters. The idea has a certain amount of comfort, but I have to collect myself and keep my strength for later.

Something cracks beside me, slow steps. And then a slender figure chooses to sit down beside me.

Shadows hang low between us. They paint an eerie resemblance to his ashenhaired mother and my husband a moment. Then it disappears and instead of sinister Maven looks tired and haunted. We have that much in common at least. No rest for the wicked is what they say, well here we are.

He's a boy to me. But what does it matter when we are children learning already to kill and enact that sooner or later. And he's not just some boy, like my red boy. This one right here is silver and he's half Merandus even if he doesn't have his mother's name.

"It's not often we meet in person here," he says.

"I don't feel like being a spider tonight," I shrug. He doesn't know what I have thought about an hour or so ago.

He tilts his head a little. "How does that feel?"

"It's a nice diversion if you're not getting trampled or hurt," I explain and sit as tall as I can beside him. "Since spiders are built for instincts and not for emotions. Not like humans. A spider decides between prey, enemy and familiar. And that is it. Imagine an emotional spider."

"A faulty spider would make a bad spy, I'm sure." His long pale fingers crossed, he looks almost lost a moment before his eyes turn towards me again with the usual expression. Studying and not lost at all.

I still can't fill that gap in the pattern. He does not seem like he's regretting anything. He doesn't threaten or flatter me right now. But he's thinking hard about something. I held Evangeline that monologue about the fluttering heartbeat on the shooting range. I wonder what his answer would be.

But that question would be deflected anyway. A waste of breath to ask.

"Can I ask you something about your first husband, Lady Viper?" Maven Calore surprises me. My heart throbs and falls like a stone into an acid pit.

"You already do," I simply nod him forward through the process and be done.

"I am not foolish enough to assume you would love Samson. Not after what I saw and what we talked about in the past. But I wonder." He pushes his brow together."Did you love Macanthos? "

"No." The answer is quick. "No, I did not."

He doesn't seem fazed or too surprised by that. He simply looks at me again before pushing his eyes away to the window. I study the way he sits now, half attentive, half harmless.

He is not half bad at reading people. I assume you need to be good at that in his position. He did read me very good. He de-escalated the scorpion threat and pulled me over again, after all. He de-escalates this situation again now.

"I am very happy I wasn't," I mutter. Not really a secret. Samson knows of my soft regret for not being kind. This can't hurt me. "I liked him, that was dangerous enough. And he sometimes looked at me like he was smitten. So we made a deal. I slept with him as I saw fit for duty. No kisses. No attempts to try and sway me."

"You liked him," Maven repeats.

"Yes," I admit. Evaporated corpses can't hurt me anymore. I am ascending over the dead bodies of my enemies and lost ones. Over my past. It isn't a burden. It will be my forte and shield. "That happens with human beings, sometimes, I am not sure why. It is better not to try and like people. They aren't as useful in their purpose as animals anyway. Too stubborn."

That makes us both scoff softly.

We both know it is easier not to get too attached to something.

I huff at that and stand up. "Not that it matters."

"You're right," he agrees, face blank. "It doesn't."

"I'll see you in the morning," I say as a farewell. "I have to check if someone left a window open. Maybe take a rest. Somehow I'm a little twitchy."

"Take care of yourself, maybe a rest, or early breakfast," is the inconspicuously coded answer.

I bid a bow and sneer a little.
"A nice idea, but you know both our hunger is more of the metaphorical kind."

First, it was dirty work in case something goes amiss. Next, off it is more violence, one way or another. The gun is heavy in the holster as I turn half away from Maven.

I wait two more, long breaths, feel the flashes of light behind my closed eyelids.

Then my feet carry me away hastily.

The rubber band of the connection inside my mind snaps back and forth as I tread over, forward, somewhere into small safety of hiding.

My husband is a shallow form of melted white and blue in the more dizzy lights. He keeps away from brightness just as I do.

At almost four in the morning, I am an easy accomplice to murder. It's funny almost. I don't feel anything watching someone spill their secrets and fears over their cracked, dry mouth before ending themself.

I should be scared. My butcher husband is very efficient, and he doesn't feel anything at this.

I am not scared. Not of the situation. I don't feel horror tonight. Only a slight, fidgeting restlessness, because my work tasks have only just begun. And I realize something viable while I watch him squeeze words out of the man.

It is a loose end. We care for loose ends to disappear tonight.

But he has been caring for loose ends for a lot longer than I have. That is why I haven't seen him around. I get flashes and images in my head while he works in a satisfactory manner. I watch beads of sweat on a forehead and then it is over because a whisper doesn't make their hands dirty, he just lets you end yourself. We leave no evidence of our blank existence.

No one will ever know why a lonely moth crept over the outskirts of a watchful lense. All the while two silent frames walk through the night like a shadow and her bright poltergeist haunting people.

We haunt and walk through the night, enact some words, leave something, take something, threaten someone, watch someone. And then we open that door. That window. And we wait.

I wait in the shadows. Watch an infiltration that is not an infiltration at all. Red rebels that sneak into Whitefire. When in truth they can walk in because we let them.

It seems Heron was right. I am less Viper and definitely not Samos tonight. My heartbeat still strums and heaves against my ribcage and vibrates in my bones. It reminds me I am still alive. Otherwise, I might forget.