Hive Queen by Sinclair, Grayson (ereader iphone .TXT) 📗

that’d been inside the shade was by my foot in the mud. I picked it up, wiped the muck off and squeezed it gently, my fingers indenting it. What is this? I turned it over and found a slight tear in it—something shiny lay at its center. I tore it open, revealing a single black ball in the center, about the size of a marble. It twinkled even under cover of clouds. I took it from the external casing and stood.

I walked over to the others, who were staring at me with a mixture of emotions. Pride came from Gil and Makenna, while Adam eyed the bauble in my hand with greed, and Evelyn looked quite disappointed.

"Good job, Eris!" Makenna said, beaming at me.

"Good job? That was abysmal. You have literally no technique. I expected that blockhead you call a lover to at least teach you something of fighting, but it was foolish of me even to expect that much," Evelyn scoffed, her tone reproachful.

I couldn't even argue with her; I knew I wasn't a fighter. That was only my third fight and my first where Sam didn't help me. If I didn't have my magic, I'd be dead right now. I needed to get stronger, so I had to muster up the courage to ask. "I know I'm not skilled at fighting, and I know that I need to get better and fast. So would you be willing to teach me, Evelyn?"

She sighed at my request but nodded. "I'll have to. I'm not going to babysit your ass." She gave me a half-smile. "Besides, not like you can be a worse student than Duran."

"You taught Sam?" I asked.

"Of course, though he'd developed a few bad habits with the sword, and I had to retrain him from scratch, so you'll be a breeze compared to him."

"Thank you," I told her, but she brushed me off.

"Save your thanks. I just don't want your ineptitude to get us killed. Now, round up those kids of yours and let's get a move on. We still have a lot of ground to cover."

"Right!" I said and headed off in the direction I had last seen them.

Finding the spiderlings was easy thanks to their acute hearing. I barely had to call their names before they came bounding out from the underbrush, covered in mud and twigs.

Tegen smiled wide at me, holding up a six-foot snake he’d caught. “Look what I found, Aunt Eris!”

“I see that,” I said, taking the snake and releasing it back into the marsh. It slithered off as Tegen groaned. “Sorry, Tegen. But we can’t take it with us.”

“Told you,” Cheira said, ruffling her brother’s fine brown hair.

I couldn't help but laugh as I knelt to brush what filth I could from them, though we were all dirty. I need a bath, but there isn't any clean water around that I can tell. With so few insects around, I couldn't use them to pinpoint any freshwater. So I settled in for staying grimy for a while.

I held their hands as we made our way back to the group; everyone was already on their horses by the time we got back. I helped Tegen and Cheira onto Lacuna and was about to hop on myself when Gil called out to me and tossed me something. It was my backpack and cloak that I'd discarded by the trees.

"Thank you," I said, hastily donning my pack and tying my cloak around me. From the look of the clouds overhead, it was going to rain soon. The breeze that blew through the gray marshes began to pick up, so I climbed on Lacuna, and we quickly picked up the pace. The rain would do wonders to wash all the muck off us, but I didn't want to be stuck in the deep mire if it started to flood.

We sped through the damp as quickly as we could, but it still took another hour of riding before we exited the worst part of the marsh. Dying reeds and mud gave way to a breath of greenery as we took a path that, according to Gil, would lead us out of the worst of the Salted Mire.

"The only route to this road is through the deep marsh, but we should be out of the worst of it for now. We're headed to a small town on the outskirts of the Salted Mire about twenty-five miles away, so we have a lot of ground to cover," Gil told me as I kept pace with him.

I was just thankful to have a breather from the salt-laden wetlands. We were finally on somewhat stable ground. The scent of salt was still present, but it was almost as an aftertaste. Another hour of riding, and my stomach was screaming at me for food, but I didn't want to be the first one who complained. So I suffered for a while longer until Makenna spoke up and saved me.

"All right, guys. I'm seriously about to gnaw off my own arm here. Let's break for lunch, shall we?"

I heaved a sigh of relief when Evelyn nodded, and we found a decent spot to build a fire and get some food cooking. While Gil dealt with setting things up, Makenna and I carried heavy pieces of deadwood from the edge of the marsh to the fire pit along with some decent kindling. Once we had the fire going, Gil took out a large cooking pot and metal stands to set it over the fire. He poured in a generous measure of water along with salt and spices and let it rise to a boil.

When the stew was finished, we all gathered around the fire and let the damp dry out of our clothes. The storm clouds had been steadily increasing throughout the day, but the rain held off as we filled our