Page 2 of Fateless

As soon as my boots hit the stones, I started to sprint. The “thieves highway” spread out before me, an endless collection of flat stone walls, tile rooftops, domed ceilings, and the occasional temple spire jutting upward toward the suns.

I paused beneath the shade of a small, covered rooftop garden to catch my breath. It was now so close to Demon Hour that the heat radiating from the stones and rooftops was almost asbad as the rays of the suns. In my tunic, I found the waterskin tucked close to my body and pulled it out. It was small, holding just a few swallows, but that would be enough to keep me going. I could probably make it to my destination and back without drinking, but in Demon Hour, I wasn’t taking chances. As Vahn always said,Almosteverything can be challenged, almost every rule has a way around it. Except the twins. Do not fight them—they will win every time.

The water was lukewarm, but it still cooled my throat and moistened my lips, which had gone dry from breathing the scalding desert air. Leaning against a wooden post, I contemplated the journey still to come. The rooftop garden, with its latticed roof and sheer white curtains, provided just enough shelter for me to escape the pounding rays of the suns, but it was still unbearably hot. Sweat ran down my neck and trickled into my eyes, the burn of salt making me blink and rub a sleeve across my face.

And then, across the shimmering rooftops, I saw a figure. Dressed in light colors and a hood like me, they crouched atop a distant tower, watching the crowds below. They were so still that aside from the clothes and familiar hood, they might’ve been a statue. One of the protector beasts that adorned the walls and roofs of the temples. I stared in shock, wondering whoelsewould be crazy enough to be out in Demon Hour. No one from the guild would risk it; I knew that for a fact. So who was this?

Another bead of sweat ran into my eye, making me squint and swipe at my face again. When I looked up, the figure was gone.

Okay. Maybe I’m seeing things. Crazy heat mirages. I guess Iamthe only one foolish enough to be outside right now.

Regardless, I had work to do. Peak Demon Hour was just a few minutes away, and I still had to get to my target. Tucking my waterskin beneath my clothes, I set my jaw and then slipped into the sunlight once more.

After jogging across several more rooftops, leaping the gaps between buildings, and vaulting over a few walls, I finally reached the edge of the Garden District, one of the wealthiest areas in Kovass, second only to the Palace District. It was easy to tell when you entered the neighborhood of the merchant princes. For one, the dusty, uniform colors of the streets gave way to brilliant splashes of greenery, as bushes, vines, and even flowering plants grew from carefully cultivated plots and gardens. Many of these plants were in the shade or beneath some kind of shelter that protected them from direct sunlight, but it was a staggering amount of wealth on display. The growing and caretaking of plants simply for aesthetic purposes was seen as a frivolous waste by most, but the heads of the merchant guilds had more money than they knew what to do with and flaunted their wealth every chance they had. What better way to show up your neighbor than to plant exotic bushes alongside your house and pay a king’s ransom in special soil, fertilizer, and gardeners to keep them alive? Not to mention all the water they wasted on beautiful but useless greenery.

Sometimes, the mindset of the very wealthy made no sense to me. But the suddenly lush landscape wasn’t the only sign that I had entered the Garden District.

In the very center, the enormous Temple of Fate dominated the district in all its white-stone-and-marble glory, gold-tippedspires rising into the air and catching the light of the suns. Within, the priestesses and the Ahsani—the High Priestess of Fate—counseled all the souls bound in the Weave, helping them understand their destiny and their role in the story of the world. We all had one, and whether it was big or small, earth-shattering or insignificant, our destiny, our fate, was as inevitable as time itself. When you were born, Fate determined your place in the world. King or peasant, merchant or craftsman, noble or outcast, once Fate chose your place, the only release from it was death. What you did in between, how you lived your life, would define your fate when you were reborn into your next existence.

At least, according to the teachings.

Keeping my gaze on the huge temple, I continued across the rooftops. Fate wasn’t something I gave a lot of thought to. I wasn’t a scholar or especially book-learned, and though I knew the best escape routes in the city and could pick my way through nearly any lock, the teachings could twist my brain into a jumbled mess if I thought too hard about them. There was a saying among the lower classes:If it is your fate to be a pig farmer, be the best pig farmer in the kingdom.I knew what I was good at. And I wasverygood at what Fate had decided for me.

Dropping into a tiny private courtyard covered with a lattice, I took a few deep breaths of shaded air. My timing was pretty much perfect. Not a soul was in the streets. No animals roamed the alleyways, the merchant princes napped in beds of cotton and silk, and the guards huddled in their domed cupolas, waiting for Solasti to move on. For the next hour, the city was essentially dead.

Which made my job only slightly easier.

From the top of one of the tallest buildings, I surveyed my target with a growing sense of dread. Not a home, not the abode of a fat merchant prince, surrounded by luxury and wealth. My target loomed before me, glimmering spires nearly scraping the clouds, almost daring the foolish to attempt the unthinkable.

The Temple of Fate itself.

My heart beat faster, even as I tried not to think about what I was doing. No one could cheat Fate. Fate knew all. There was no sneaking up on it, no pulling the wool over its eyes. It knew you were coming, and what you were going to do, before you even considered it. I was good at what I did, probably the best in the guild, but even I had my limitations. This task bordered on blasphemous. I wouldn’t even be here if not for Vahn and our strange conversation the night before.

“Hood down, Sparrow.” Vahn gestured to my head as I stepped through the door of his office. The Guildmaster stood behind his desk, lamplight throwing shadows over his weathered face. He had thick dark hair and even darker eyes. He wasn’t young, he wasn’t old, handsome, ugly, or anything. He was just Vahn. His most distinguishing features were the tiny scar on his lip and the missing third finger of his left hand.

“You know the rules,” Vahn continued. “Hoods down in my office. I want to see your eyes when I’m talking to you. Take it off.”

“Yes, sir,” I muttered, pushing my hood back. Instantly, I felt exposed, as if every eye in the room was turned on me, thoughit was just me and Vahn. I didn’t like taking it off, because then everyone could see me—the real me. I couldn’t hide anything. I expected that was the very reason for Vahn’s “no hood” rule when he was talking to any of us.

“Good.” The Guildmaster nodded, and a rare, faint smile quirked his scarred lip. “It’s nice to glimpse your face every once in a while. Every time I see it, it’s like you’ve gotten older.”

I grinned. “Is that why you called me in here?” I asked. “To make sure there’s not a withered old crone beneath my hood? I bet you don’t even know how old I am now.”

“Seventeen years, four months, thirteen days,” Vahn said automatically, as I’d known he would. “Not counting the weeks you weren’t with the guild, of course.” Vahn had found me as an infant in a gutted, abandoned house, with the shriveled corpse of a woman, presumably my mother, lying motionless nearby. He had taken me into the guild and trained me himself, and the guild members had adopted me as their own. From before I could remember, I had been raised among thieves, learning their ways and their secrets, until I joined the ranks as one of their best.

“I have a job for you,” Vahn continued. “A solo mission, this time. No teams—you’ll be working by yourself. I trust you’re up to the task.”

“Of course.” I perked up. In the guild, what you did—or stole—on your own time was your business. As long as you paid your dues and didn’t draw attention to yourself or the guild, you could pretty much do what you wanted. Actual jobs from the Guildmaster were a different story, and solo missions were uncommon. Depending on the size and complexity of the job,guild members normally worked in teams of two to five. Which was why I was often sent on assignments with Jeran, who had also grown up in the guild. His father had been a guild member but was caught while on a job and dragged away to prison. Jeran hadn’t seen him in years. We worked well together, though lately our missions had turned into friendly competitions to see who was better at whatever we were attempting. There had been a couple of close calls, which had resulted in a warning from Vahn to start taking our jobs seriously. I wondered if that was why I would be going solo this time.

My stomach felt sour. Vahn had never shown me any direct favoritism within the guild, treating me as a highly competent thief and never making excuses for my mistakes, but I had always been more than a simple soldier or a guild asset. I remembered his smiles, his patience when explaining how to pick a lock or move without making any noise, the nods of approval when I completed a challenging task. He had never been overly affectionate, but I knew I made him proud. Especially when I started to complete jobs even the most experienced guild members balked at.

In the past couple of years, though, he had become colder. Distant. To the point where he barely said a word to me that wasn’t mission-oriented. I didn’t understand it. Was I not performing well enough? Was he disappointed in me? Maybe I had to step up my game. I’d tried. Over the past several months, my ventures had gotten more risky, my targets more and more dangerous, as I’d attempted to show Vahn I was the best. Several times, I should have been caught, and it was a miracle that I’dmade it out unnoticed, but nothing seemed to impress him. Even the other guild members had begun to whisper. I was unnaturally lucky, they said; no one could tempt Fate that often and get away with it. But Vahn only drew further and further away.

This was the first time in months that he had called me into his office alone. Whatever this job entailed, I had to do it well.

“Sparrow.” His voice sent a small shiver up my back. His eyes pierced a hole through me, as if peeling back invisible layers to find what lay beneath. “You’ve been with the guild a long time now,” Vahn continued. “I’ve raised you, taught you our ways, and over the years, I’ve watched you and your talents grow. You’ve become quite the profitable asset, and the guild is pleased.”

My heart pounded, warmth spreading through my stomach, but I couldn’t reveal how much that meant to me. So, I fell back on what I was good at. “Thanks,” I said dryly. “Being a profitable asset to the guild is all I live for.”

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