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.
