Page 30 of Fateless

“Like I said.” I tried to ignore the cold steel against my flesh. “It was a random attack. I was careless.”

“No.”

The iylvahn leaned close again, his eyes hard. “You are not one to be negligent,” he said firmly. “Not once in the underground city did I see you let your guard down. Luck is one thing, but youwould not have survived this long as a thief if you were careless.” His eyes narrowed to pale blue slits. “I’m guessing that you knew your attacker,” he went on, making my stomach twist. “Perhaps it was a fellow guild member. A partner in crime, maybe even a friend. And you followed them in here because you trusted them. Only to find, as is often the case with humans, that greed and desperation easily overpower loyalty. They struck you down, and they took what you had, either to sell, or for some other reward it would bring. And you’re here with me now because even though you are skilled, crafty, or even lucky enough to escape a city full of curses and horrors, you are still naive when it comes to human betrayal.”

My throat felt tight, and to my horror, there was a stinging sensation behind my eyes. I ducked my head, breathing deep to banish the tightness. I would not let this assassin see me cry. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Even though I was exhausted, in pain, and reeling from the horrors of the night and Jeran’s betrayal, I would not let him see my weakness.

There was a sigh, and, to both my surprise and dismay, the assassin brushed back my hood, letting it fall behind me. Instantly, I cringed, feeling even more exposed and helpless. Now there was nowhere I could hide, and the iylvahn’s piercing gaze seemed to stab right through my head.

“So young,” he murmured, more to himself than to me. “And likely just a puppet that the ma’jhet would use and throw away.” He sighed again, running a hand over his eyes, before looking back at me. “You don’t even know why you were sent for the soulstone, do you?”

I ground my teeth, banishing the last of the tears, and made sure my voice was steady. “I’m a member of the Thieves Guild. When they tell you to fetch something, you don’t get to ask why. You just do it. So, no. I don’t know why the Circle told me to go down into a cursed ancient city crawling with monsters, where I very nearly died, to fetch some rock for them. I guess you’re going to explain why this thing is so important that you would kill me to get it?”

The iylvahn’s jaw tightened, but not in anger. His gaze shifted to the grimy, dust-encased windows on the opposite wall, as if weighing his choices. “I don’t have a lot of time,” he finally murmured. “None of us do now. But maybe if you understood what’s at stake...” He rose and paused, then shook his head and turned to me. “How much do you know about the Deathless Kings?” he asked.

The Deathless Kings. It all came back to them, didn’t it? What the Circle wanted, why the iylvahn had been after me. It all had something to do with what I’d taken from the city of the Deathless King. “They were the rulers in the age before this one,” I answered. “Several thousand years ago. They built great kingdoms, and their cities stretched to the edges of the world. But then there was a great cataclysm. The kingdoms collapsed, and the cities sank into the sands.”

I stopped. The iylvahn waited quietly, as if he expected me to go on. “That’s all I know,” I told him.

“So, not a lot,” the iylvahn murmured. “Certainly nothing that matters.”

I clenched my fists behind my back. “That’s as much asanyone knows,” I said defiantly. “The stories of the Deathless Kings are so old, they’re mostly faery tales. Shadows and bogeymen mothers threaten their children with.” Ignoring the fact that I had just been in one ancient city of the forgotten kingdom. And the monsters there had definitely not been mere stories.

The iylvahn’s face went cold and terrifying as he loomed over me. “Then let me tell you the true story of the Deathless Kings,” he said in a deep voice that sent chills racing up and down my back. “Long ago, several thousands of years past, the lands were ruled not by one, but thirteen souls of immense power. Each of these kings, or queens, had their own cities, their own subjects, their own government. And their kingdoms, as you said, stretched to the edges of the known world.

“Back then,” the iylvahn continued, his voice almost lyrical in its storytelling, “the world was different. It was not endless sand and blasted rock—it was lush. Green. Imagine valleys not of dust or stone, but of ferns. Deep forests instead of wasteland. Hills of rolling grass, not empty dunes where nothing can survive. The Dust Sea was an ocean of water, filled with life, reaching all the way to the horizon and beyond.”

Listening to him, I felt breathless, amazement and disbelief fighting a battle within me. A world that was green and lush, covered in plants and filled with water?Thatsounded like a faery tale; I couldn’t even imagine it. But the iylvahn sounded dead serious.Hedidn’t think this was a children’s story.

“For many eons,” his voice continued, “the immortal Deathless Kings ruled their world without opposition. They were more than rulers, more than kings; they were very nearly gods. Insome very old legends, the Deathless Kings were the ones who created all the races of man, bringing to life a people in their own image, whose only purpose was to serve them. Whether or not this is true, none of the ancient people could stand against the Deathless Kings. Their power came from life itself. They drew from the life forces around them to fuel their magic, and with this power, they could do anything. But the more power they drew in, the more life around them withered and died. A single Deathless could turn an entire forest to dust if he pulled enough energy into himself. An angry queen could suck the life from her subjects in a heartbeat if she willed it, leaving nothing behind but bones and ash. All life—anything that lived, and grew, and breathed—could be taken by the Deathless to fuel their power.

“Fortunately, it was difficult to be worshiped in an empire of dust and bones, and the Deathless Kings were careful to balance their power with the need for life. But with that much power, and that many godlike immortal beings sharing a world, the kingdoms were only a breath away from destruction at any time. And eventually, that is what came to pass.

“The Deathless Kings began to war with each other. No one remembers how this war started, but it soon escalated into a nightmare of death and chaos. The kings rained calamity down on the other kingdoms. Mountains crumbled, forests burst into flame, seas rose up to swallow whole towns, and horrific creatures that none had seen before clawed their way out of the earth, destroying everything in their path. The people, of course, perished by the thousands, only to reappear as undead soldiers in their king’s army, denied release even in death. Theland withered as the warring kings drew in more and more life energy to fight their endless war. Deserts replaced forests. Wasteland supplanted once-vibrant fields. The sea itself drained away through a massive fissure one king opened beneath a rival’s city. And yet the Deathless continued to war with each other, until one day, they looked around, and there was nothing left. No life. No subjects. Nothing but sand, and dust, and emptiness.

“And then the Deathless Kings discovered the truth about themselves: That without life, without the energy to fuel their power, they were no longer immortal. And so, like the very lands they had scoured to nothing, the now mortal Deathless Kings withered away until they, too, were nothing but dust and bones, and faded from existence.

“As the Hourglass of Time turned, and the suns set over the once flourishing world, the age of the Deathless Kings finally came to a close. And very slowly—because even after the world ends, there are always a few survivors—life returned. The land would never heal. The kings had drained it of everything, and it could not return to the green landscape it once was. But humanity’s will to live is ever constant. The survivors built new settlements on the bones of the old kingdoms, and gradually, some of those settlements became villages, then towns, then cities. Wars were fought, new monarchs struggled for power, kingdoms rose and fell, and the Deathless Kings were eventually forgotten.”

My pulse was racing like I had just run through the district with a trio of guards on my tail. Sweat had gathered under my clothes, and a terrible fear had lodged itself somewhere below mystomach. I had never heard this story, and I suspected that the worst was yet to come.

“But that is not the end of the tale,” the iylvahn continued, before I could take a breath. “The age of the Deathless Kings might be past, but that does not mean they are truly gone. In the final days of the war, one of the kings realized he could not win against the others. So he decided to seal a portion of himself, of his soul, into a special container. As long as the seal was not broken, his consciousness would remain, even if his body withered and died. With the last of his power, he then buried his own city and its subjects deep beneath the earth, so that no trace of him would remain on the surface. And so the king slept for generations, waiting for the day when he could return to the world. The knowledge of where the king hid his soul container was lost for many years, but it was rumored to lie somewhere deep below his palace, protected by guardians and ancient curses, so that his enemies could not come and destroy it.”

The assassin paused, looking down at me, and ice spread through my veins as I realized what he was saying. That the stone I’d taken from the crypt held the soul of one of the Deathless Kings. An immensely powerful godlike being who had, long ago, played a part in destroying the world.

“Do you understand now?” the iylvahn asked quietly. “Why I could not allow you to take the stone? Why it should never have been returned to the surface?”

“I’m starting to,” I said, making him frown. “I think I’m missing something, though. Assuming this story is even true, what does it matter if the stone is taken from the city? TheDeathless King hasn’t come back, so I’m guessing he can’t just pop out whenever he wants.”

The iylvahn sighed. Clearly, he found my ignorance trying. “I forget that the other races have virtually no memory of the Deathless Kings,” he murmured. “Am I correct in assuming that you do not know who the ma’jhet are, either?”

“Yes,” I answered. “I mean, no. I don’t know who they are.”

He shook his head. “The ma’jhet were the closest confidants and advisors of the Deathless Kings,” he explained. “They served the kings, but they were also allowed to rule over the commoners and make choices when the kings couldn’t be bothered to. I suppose they were the closest thing to nobles within the Deathless courts.

“When the kings fell, the ma’jhetvanished,” the iylvahn continued. “Perhaps they knew they would be hated in this new world without the kings. No one knew what happened to them, but there were always rumors that they lurked on the fringes and underground of society, waiting for the day the Deathless Kings would return. And, in many stories, working tirelessly to bring them back.”

A terrible, yawning pit opened in my stomach as finally, all the pieces clicked into place. “The Circle,” I whispered. “The Circle are the ma’jhet. And they sent me to retrieve the soulstone...”

---