Page 246 of The Spider Queen

We arrived at a stone archway with a tympanum. There was only one sculpture, and the scene was clear. It was a man, wearing a crown of spiders, holding a judgment scale. On one side was a glowing golden orb that was a soul. On the other side of the scale was a mound of spiders.

Well, that’s clear advertising.

Thane laughed aloud, startling the silence. And then he chanted in the language I didn’t know but felt like I was close to understanding. The mist behind the archway cleared to reveal a long stone bridge that seemed to stretch on forever, disappearing into the fog and smoke.

“It ends,” he said, answering my question I’d asked through our bond.

We trekked forward, and I immediately felt the vastness of the space, like an expanding universe with no beginning, no end.

It made me dizzy to think about.

“What happens if you walk off the end of the bridge?” I asked. Would I fall forever?

Thane smiled. “Try it.”

“No way.”

With a mischievous glint in his eye, Thane set down the golden cage and then took off. He ran to the edge of the bridge, didn’t pause, and then leapt into the air.

Before Thane even had a chance to fall, black silken threads shot through the mist and smoke to catch him.

I threw my head back and laughed. His spiders had woven him a web. There was no danger here.

“Your turn,” he called out.

I darted forward before I even made the conscious choice to follow. And then I was soaring through the air. I landed in the web, safe and secure at Thane’s side.

Chapter 58

“How do we get back to the bridge?” I asked.

Thane leaned up on an elbow, chanted in the unknown language, and then we were catapulted from the web. I expected to crash onto the bridge, but there seemed to be a magical parachute attached to me, and I gently floated to the ground.

“There are some pretty great perks to being with you, Thane. This is better than a ride at Disneyland.”

“Thanks. I think.” He looked down at the cage. “Just the first of many. Might as well get on with this.”

I nodded and instinctively stood back when Thane reached for the cage.

He gave me an amused look. “They’re souls.”

“So? Like I know the rules?” I waved my hand at him, signaling him to continue.

Thane unlatched the cage door, and the souls flew out, circling around us, pinging around the space like pinballs. One by one, they dove off the bridge. Silken threads that shimmered black and opal caught them individually, freezing them in place. I watched one particular soul as thread wove around it like a cocoon. The soul’s golden light disappeared. The cocoon pulsed and then cracked to dust and revealed the soul that was now pitch black. It tainted the space around it, turning it gray.

“A corrupted soul that has to do penance,” Thane explained.

The soul floated for a few more seconds, and then it blasted apart, like an apple obliterated by a laser. There was nothing left of the tarnished soul, not even black smoke to signify where it had once been.

My gaze drifted to another soul being weighed. It was cracking through its cocoon. Most of the soul remained golden, but there were a few black blights. It blasted apart, just like the first one.

“That one belongs in Heaven. Even though it had black marks on it, it was generally good.”

Only when all of the souls had been weighed and dispatched, did I look at Thane. He was watching me with casual calm. “Questions?”

“So many,” I breathed in awe. “What happens when an immortal dies?”

“Heaven and Hell are for mortals, Poppy. Human beings. Your cousin, your parents, they will eventually come here to be judged. As for immortals, each has their own death ritual, their own afterlife.”