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

I poured two bowls for the spiderlings first and let them eat while I waited for everyone to get their fill. I slurped down as much of the soupy stew I could stomach before setting back with content. Tegen and Cheira cuddled into me while everyone made polite conversation. With nothing to add myself, I took out the strange rock I'd acquired from the shade and twirled it around my palm, marveling how it shone even without a light source.

"How much?"

At the sound, I looked up to see Adam leaning over on the stump, staring intently at the rock in my hands. I held it up. "How much for this?" I asked.

He nodded, his head bobbing back and forth like it was attached to a string. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. How much do you want for the core?"

"This is a core?"

"Sure is!" he said, practically bouncing in his seat. "Do you know how valuable they are?"

I didn't have a clue. I had heard of cores before; they were prized trophies that lucky members of the Hive procured from slain monsters, but I hadn't ever actually seen one before and didn't know the first thing about them. Adam seemed overly excited about it, and even if it was exceedingly valuable, I had no use for it, so I tossed it over to him. In his surprise, he almost dropped the small core.

His eyes widened as he palmed it. "I can just have it?"

"Sure. I have no use for it, so I don't see why not."

"Wow, thanks!" he said and took out a nearly transparent crystal, and with a long string of guttural words, a glowing blue circle made of light appeared in his hands just under the crystal. He brought the core close to the now-glowing crystal, and before they could touch, the core absorbed into the clear gem, turning it black.

"Where'd it go?" I asked, bewildered.

Adam laughed and scooted over on the log to show me the crystal. "This is a summoning crystal; they're used to store the cores of monsters and the like."

"So you used the shade’s core and the summoning crystal to do what?"

"Just watch," Adam said.

He stood up from his seat and walked past the fire while I watched and waited. The others didn't so much as stir from their food. Once Adam had gotten about fifteen feet away, he tossed the crystal in the air.

"Come forth," he called, and the darkness burst from the crystal and rained down to form three individual shades. They took the form of humans and stood still, like they were waiting for something. I jumped to my feet as fear ran through me, but Adam just laughed and told me to calm down.

"They're under my control now, and they won't hurt you. Now, my shades, return from whence you came!"

In unison, they bowed and flowed into a single mass of flickering shadow before returning to the crystal. Adam called the gem to his hand and stowed it away. "Awesome, some new toys to play with."

I had to agree; it was awesome. Sam said Adam was good with creatures, but I've never seen anything like that before. "So you have to use a summoning crystal to store cores?" I asked.

Adam shook his head. "Not technically. You can use any gemstone, but they're usually inferior to summoning crystals, which is why they cost so much."

Gil's booming voice shouted over to us. "Hey, Adam, if you're done with the summoning lesson, let's get going. We still have a long way to go, and those storm clouds are getting darker."

After that, we cleaned everything up, dowsed the fire, and set off again, trying to outrun what was quickly turning into a monsoon. Wind swept at our backs for over two hours as we kept up a frightening pace; none of us wanted to get caught in the storm.

But for all our might, we were nothing compared to Mother Nature, and mountainous thunder was the harbinger of the storm. It rolled over us and pelted us with rain the size of rocks. The storm was so fierce, it whipped up debris around us, and we could not press on without fear of injury. We huddled in a close cropping of trees while the wind and rain hounded us for hours. We couldn't even make camp or take shelter under our tents without them getting soaked with water, so we leaned against the trees and suffered under the rain.

At least we were all clean now.

It was approaching twilight when the rain finally let up. The rain drizzled to a stop, and the dense cloud cover faded into the cool evening. I stood from the soggy ground and shook well over a pound of water from my clothes, in definite need of a change of clothes.

Gil spoke up from the next tree over. Both he and Makenna were dripping with just as much water as I was, and they looked miserable. "Why don't we set up camp here tonight? I'll doubt we'll find a better spot, and I'll get a fire going while you girls go and change."

That sounded like a fantastic plan, and I quickly climbed to my feet, as did Makenna and Evelyn. I told the children we'd be right back, and the three of us headed into a nearby thicket to change. After pushing through some thick underbrush, we entered a small clearing just wide enough for the three of us to move without bumping into one another.

I wasted no time in stripping from my soaked clothes, though the leather corset had straps that I couldn't reach on my own, and I struggled for a second before Makenna came over and helped untie me.

"Here, let me," she said as she placed her hands on my back.

"Thank you very much."

"It’s no trouble," she replied and got