He doesn’t point at the front of the web, as I expect him to do. Instead, he takes a few steps to the side, moving away from the main tangle of the threads. Curious, I follow him as he moves behind it and from there, I can see a few strands stretching across from an entirely separate web.
Holy shit. There are two webs.
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Two webs.
I gape, unable to stop staring as I look at the threads that crisscross between the two webs. They’re maybe a foot apart, the two webs, but each tangle seems completely separate save for a few rogue threads. There aren’t many—maybe a dozen? Maybe fewer? Each of the rogue strings are pulled taut between the two webs, and when the Spidae gestures at “my” thread, it gleams with an unnatural light and I can see where I’m connected to Aron in the other web. My thread is twined around his, as if they’re lovers. It’s very clear mine cannot be separated from his.
Fascinated, I set my football “pod” down on the ground and step forward to study the webs closer.
“He’s not actually tied to this web at all,” the Spidae murmurs. “You are what anchors him here. When your connection is severed, so is his.”
I follow my “connection” back to my own web, staring nose-height with my thread. The web for Earth—because it has to be Earth—isn’t lit up with as many colored threads as the other. There’s a deeper, darker tangle, as if billions of people are all caught up in the mix together. Makes sense. I want to ask where our gods are, which religion is right, what happens after we die, why my web is next to Aron’s if it’s two different worlds, but I zoom in on something else entirely. “Is…my thread breaking?”
I stare at my connection to the Earth web. It looks…really fragile. Frayed. Like the thing could snap at any moment.
“Your tether to your world is tenuous at best,” he agrees.
“What does that mean?”
“It means if you leave now, I can weave you back into the web of your world.” He gestures at the strand, completely taut between the two webs. He points where I’m intertwined with Aron’s thread. “If I cut here, your thread is loose and can be worked back into your world’s weave.”
I gasp. I can go home? All of this bullshit can be over and I can go back to my normal life? Back to a world with cars and phones and cheeseburgers and medicine? Where no one’s trying to kill me on a regular basis? My heart skips with joy for a brief moment—very, very brief. “You can snap your fingers and send me back?”
The Spidae inclines his head. “The veil between worlds was thin when Aron and the Aspects came through. I wove them into this web, and others were caught in the confusion. You were not the only one to cross over between worlds.” He gestures at the handful of threads crisscrossing between the two tangles. “Nor are you the only one that has found your way to the side of an Aspect. Even now, others from your world serve the gods.”
Nifty. I don’t care about them. I care about me. I still can’t help but feel that he’s giving me all this information as a test of some kind…like he’s dissecting my brain to try and read my thoughts. It feels like a trap, like if I say the wrong thing, I’m going to fuck myself over.
Or fuck Aron over.
Belatedly, I remember that Aron and Tadekha didn’t get along. I never asked if Aron and the Spidae got along. Shit. “Let’s just play a few scenarios out,” I say mildly, trying not to stare at my stretched-tight-about-to-snap thread. “What happens if I go back? To Earth?”
“I cut you free from this world.” His eyes seem more silver than ever.
I straighten, frowning. “I thought if I died, Aron died too? That I’m what’s anchoring him to the mortal plane?”
The Spidae nods again. “I cut you free…and we are down to two Aspects of the God of Storms, not three.”
My mouth goes dry. My heart hurts and all hope ends right in this moment. If I die—if my thread is snapped from this world’s weave—my Aron goes up in smoke. “He said that the Aron that’s left after all this…that he won’t be the same. The Aron I know won’t exist any longer.”