Nes­ryn awak­ens to the sen­sa­tion of Falkan, a small crea­ture, bit­ing at the silk bind­ing her body. Dis­ori­ent­ed and nau­seous, she finds her­self in a dim­ly lit stone pas­sage, its walls pol­ished and cov­ered in ancient carv­ings. Near­by lies Sar­taq, uncon­scious and sim­i­lar­ly wrapped in silk, his face crust­ed with blood. As Falkan works to free her, Nes­ryn scans their sur­round­ings, not­ing the eerie still­ness and the strange, smooth rock for­ma­tions that sug­gest they are no longer in the famil­iar moun­tain pass.

A men­ac­ing spi­der, larg­er and dark­er than the oth­ers, emerges and engages Nes­ryn in con­ver­sa­tion. The spi­der speaks in a lyri­cal voice, ques­tion­ing their pres­ence in the for­got­ten place. Nes­ryn impro­vis­es a sto­ry about being sent by a mer­chant to trade, hop­ing to buy time as Falkan con­tin­ues chew­ing through the silk. The spi­der dis­miss­es the idea of trade, reveal­ing a dis­dain for its north­ern kin who inter­act with mor­tals, and instead boasts of its kind’s preda­to­ry nature. Nesryn’s hands trem­ble as she strug­gles to main­tain the ruse, fear­ing for Sartaq’s life.

The spi­der reveals that its kind waits for the return of their queen, point­ing to a carv­ing on the wall depict­ing a cloaked fig­ure. As Nes­ryn squints to make out the details, the spi­der brush­es away dirt to reveal the image of a woman with flow­ing hair and a dress. The spi­der declares they await the Queen of the Valg, who is known in this world as Maeve. This rev­e­la­tion shocks Nes­ryn, as it con­tra­dicts the ear­li­er assump­tion that the spi­ders served Erawan, anoth­er dark fig­ure.

The chap­ter ends with the spider’s chill­ing procla­ma­tion about Maeve’s return, leav­ing Nes­ryn to grap­ple with the impli­ca­tions. The encounter under­scores the spi­ders’ loy­al­ty to a far more ancient and ter­ri­fy­ing pow­er, while Nes­ryn and Falkan remain trapped in a des­per­ate race against time. The ten­sion builds as the spider’s pres­ence looms, and the carved gate on the wall hints at a loom­ing threat beyond their cur­rent predica­ment.