Morning in the Jade Reach changed the color of the threat.
The bioluminescence faded as the sun tried to pierce the canopy, turning the world from neon blue to a suffocating, sickly yellow. The mist thickened, smelling of sulfur and wet rot.
Mirabelle woke up with a crick in her neck and a spider the size of a tea saucer sitting on her boot.
"Don't move," Revas said calmly from his perch on a higher root. He was eating a piece of mysterious, purple fruit he had plucked from a vine. "It's a widow-weaver. If you startle it, the venom will liquefy your calf muscles."
Mirabelle froze. "Get. It. Off."
Revas flicked a finger. A tiny puff of wind knocked the spider away into the undergrowth.
"You're welcome," he said, taking another bite of the fruit. "We should move. The humidity is rising. My hair is starting to frizz. This is unacceptable."
