Her feet could take her no farther.

The splattering of mud and travel dirt coated her once fair legs. The dress she’d fled in was now tatters hanging from her too thin frame. A decent meal would’ve saved her long ago. Harried by the King’s Hounds, she’d pushed herself until there was nothing more her body could give.

Annailessa felt her knees give out, a quick buckling of the joints, but did not feel the hard impact. Her mind was distancing herself from the moment. Preparing, she knew in a detached sense, for her impending death. The Hounds, men who were little better than dogs, were right behind her. Barking their laughs and whistling for her attention. “Where are you, pretty vixen?”

It felt like their words were whispered against her ear, trying to stir more energy. Driving her to run still, to give them a better chase than she had in her.

There was a quiet rage in her stomach that had fueled her this far, but her noble-born body could not be pushed farther.

How damning to be failed by her own physical form. Had she been born a fighter, she would face them down. Had she been born with magic to her name, she would smite them with the flames of her anger. To be cast out of her own family’s palace, to be chased through woods that belonged to her ancestors, was too much.

Her soul could bear no more insult.

But her body could carry her no farther.

She couldn’t even muster the energy for angry tears as she stared at the dusting of moss on the forest floor. Her delicate fingers were muddied from where she’d fallen when saplings and brush caught on the fabric of her skirts. Her arms were shaking, damp from the morning dew that had clung to the leaves she disturbed in her flight.

Had she been running all night? Was it only a few hours past when her new husband had banished her from her rooms? The smirk of his face, the spark of malice in his amber eyes, was ingrained. Even now she could hear him. “There’s a new family running the country, Annailessa.”

How dare he. How dare his family! Try to take what had been, for as long as the country existed, her family’s ruling! To act the snake and betray her so fully.

But it wasn’t just him. No. As she’d fled the halls, hounded by the laughter of his guard, everyone she’d known her entire life turned a blind eye. The guardsmen that had sworn themselves into service during her Father’s lifetime ignored her. The servants that had lived alongside her, girls she’d grown up with, scampered out of the way but shut their doors in her face. A whole court of advisors and councilors that had stood next to and sworn loyalty to her Mother and Father, to the Crown, quieted the halls and could not be found. Even when she’d pounded on their doors, begging for solace. For sanctuary.

An entire city that turned from her.

With her mother and father’s passing, she was the last. And would forever be known as the daughter that lost the Kingdom for her family.

What she would give…

But it was too late. Kneeling in the filth of her flight and shamed to exhaustion in her family’s forest, she would die. The Hounds were nipping closer and closer. Breath hot on the back of her neck. Her vision narrowed to her hands in the moss, to the tiny green leaves so innocently unconcerned and unaware. She’d played here as a child. Had gone on hunting forays with her father in this wood. The trees were as old as her family’s line.

How fitting they would bear witness to the end of it.

Annailessa gathered herself up. If the Hounds would find her, let them find her on her feet. Facing them. Getting to her feet was easier now that she hadn’t been running. Her breath had slowed with the knowledge this was it. There was no more flight. She had nowhere else to go.

She took that time to look at the forest that was as familiar as the halls she’d grown up in. Branches long and twisted, rough bark covered in the same moss that persisted on the forest floor. It had made for quiet, safe footfalls on her younger feet. And when the sun played through the branches, it lit up just how strikingly green everything was. In innumerable shades and variances, now starker than ever to her resigned eyes. There were small hills that created natural paths, trails that deer and horse alike took often. This was one of the safest places in the world and had been her getaway while growing up.

With the yipping and calls of the men in the forest all around her, Annailessa twisted to try and follow their direction.

“They’re very close, girlie.”

Annailessa turned at the voice, facing not one of the Hounds, but a too slender woman in an inky black dress. The creature reminded her so much of a spider, whose movements were jointed and deliberate. There was no weight to the woman, her waist thinner than Annailessa’s wrist and face too narrow to be human. The ‘dress’ drug along the moss, staining it with an oily black ichor.

“Who… What are you?”

The woman smiled, needle teeth in a tight mouth not meant for such an expression. “A friend. I could be a very good friend.”

Annailessa had been expecting the Hounds. She stepped back from the slowly circling, approaching newcomer. “I have no friends.”

“I said only that I could be.” The wasp of a woman remarked, still closing in. Slowly, making her way around Annailessa and forcing her to turn to keep her in sight. “The men will find you. Would have by now if not for me. What do you think they’re going to do to you, girlie? A pretty, newly wed Princess.”

“What do you want?” She said it with more bravery than she felt, and stood her ground as the creature came within arm’s reach.

“To help you. Like any friend would.” The woman was whispering, telling a secret in the suddenly too quiet woods. “I can help you.”

Annailessa crinkled her nose in disgust as the smell of decay hit her. It reminded her of the carcass she’d stumbled upon once. The dead deer decomposing in the nook of a tree that, for the first time, took on a sinister light. Like the roots had been leeching life from the deer. “What can you do?”

That smile returned. Sharp teeth set in black gums. “We can kill the Hounds. Take your kingdom back. I can help you repay the treason threefold. From being the betrayed Princess to a conquering Queen.”

Annailessa wasn’t inclined to believe it was possible, but if it were… If she could truly return to rule, but what’s more, do something her Father never did? “How?” There was no more fear, only curiosity. She was but a single, noble born with no one loyal to her name. Even if the spider lady was magical, there seemed little possibility of taking over so many people. “Do you have an army?”

The hissing sound out of the woman startled Annailessa, but she realized it was mirth. The woman’s black eyes were glittering above the wide, gruesome smile. “I will show you, Princess. I will kill the men that hunt you, and we will be the best of friends.” The woman held out a slender hand with boney fingers smeared with the black ichor. Her nails were chipped and blackened at the tips like decay had set in. “Take my hand. I want you to see.”

Annailessa hesitated only a moment before placing her dirtied hand on the deathly chill palm extended to her. Rather than snatching her up, as was feared, the long digits slowly curled around her own. The woman was impossibly cold.

“Come,” she insisted, but did not move to pull Annailessa. The spider woman waited until she was ready to move before turning to lead her through the forest. What had once been familiar and bright with the onset of morning had become dull. Diluted and suddenly foreign. The birds ceased singing, the bugs likewise quieted. No wind stirred the leaves and the rays of light that cut through the gaps lost its warmth.

The call of the Hounds was close. Annailessa feared to move toward the men even with the supernatural lady leading. The desperate terror of earlier seized her steps, made her stumble and clutch to her new found support.

The spider lady said nothing as they walked, but she paused every time Annailessa did. Helped her up when she stumbled. Her quick steps were steady and, though her body frame seemed so thin and fragile, there was real strength in the hand that led her. Never once did she waver when Annailessa clutched to her. More solid than the trees around her.

The Hounds appeared quite suddenly. Jogging down one of the winding paths in shimmering mail armor. Swords attached to their hips. They didn’t seem too hurried, slowing as they seemed to sense attention on them. As a group, the four men turned to face Annailessa and the Spider Lady. Though they either did not notice or care the other woman was present.

“Came out of hiding, pretty vixen?” The lead teased, starting his way up the gentle slope of moss covered ground.

Annailessa tensed before the woman reacted. The warmth of Annailessa rushed out of her, seemingly sucked out of the hand presently cradled in the woman’s whose attention was rapt on the men.

The forest darkened around them and a chill breeze stirred the leaves. Annailessa, already cold from whatever the woman had taken from her, shivered. But even the men paused and looked around. The shadows on the forest floor began to move, twisting and writhing like so many snakes. The darkest shadow cast by a rather large tree actually rose up, it’s head wedge shaped like a reptile and it’s neck vanishing back into the shadows. The men backed away and drew their blades.

The snake kept growing. Thickening, widening. Another head rose up from the shadows, then another and another. Until six in total lifted from the forest floor and rose up toward the canopy. The snake’s bodies twisted together until something wholly unnatural lifted itself up out of the forest floor. Not the body of a snake any longer, but a muscled, scaled torso of some beast the woman had summoned, the likes of which sprouted the 6 wedge shaped, fanged heads that looked more reptilian than snake like.

“My gift to you, Princess,” the woman said with her too wide, too sharp smile.

Annailessa watched the beast with fascination and found herself smiling in kind.