Page 35 of Fateless

Seeing the calm, stoic assassin like that should have shaken me to the core, but I couldn’t feel anything. Now that we were away from the immediate danger, everything I’d just experienced crashed down on me all at once. Jeran was dead. Vahn had killed him to bring the Deathless King back to life. He would have done the same to me. Without thought. Without remorse. Everything I thought I knew about him was wrong. I didn’t know what to think, or feel.

I did know one thing. This wasn’t Raithe’s fault.

It was mine.

“What do we do now?” I whispered.

The assassin shook his head wearily. “There is nothing wecan do.” He sounded resigned. “At least, not here. You cannot slay a Deathless—not even the kings of old could destroy one of their own. They draw life energy from everything around them. Only when there is no life left do they become mortal.”

I shuddered. Only now, when it was too late, did I understand. Why Raithe had been so determined to stop the summoning. Why he would track someone through an ancient underground city filled with monsters and curses. Why he would kill to prevent the soulstone from being disturbed. The Deathless King couldn’t be slain. There was nothing that could stop him from doing whatever he pleased within Kovass.

And all of this could have been prevented, had I never set foot in the undercity. .

“I... I have to get home.” On the floor, Raithe stirred and pushed himself to his feet. “I have to get back to Irrikah and warn the queen that... that I’ve failed.”

“Where is home for you?” I asked.

“Very far from here.” Raithe took a breath, and some of his composure returned as he straightened. “Across the Dust Sea and over the Barren Steppes is Irrikah, the city of my people. It’s time I returned.” Raithe paused, and his pale blue eyes slid to me, narrowing. “You need to come with me, Fateless.”

I recoiled. There was that word again.Fateless. “Why?”

Another tremor went through the floor, shaking dust loose and sending several pebbles plinking down around us. Raithe’s expression hardened. “Because this city is doomed,” he told me. “Do you want to stay here when the Deathless King makes himself known?”

“I’ve survived this long,” I said, feeling almost hysterically stubborn. “That’s all I know how to do, really. I’ll keep surviving, by myself.” Vahn’s face swam before me, smiling and amused one moment, cold and blank the next. A stranger. Jeran, laughing and full of life, dead in the next heartbeat, dark eyes staring up at nothing. “If this taught me anything,” I went on thickly, “it’s that I can’t trust anyone but myself. I probably will end up leaving the city, but I’ll do it alone.”

“No, you will not.” Raithe took a step toward me. I tensed and cast a quick glance at the stairs, judging the distance between us. “Don’t run,” Raithe warned. “You won’t make it far.”

I glared at him. “What are you going to do—tie me up again and stuff me in a sack?”

“I would prefer not to have to do that.” Raithe clenched his jaw, then, to my surprise, lowered his head and pushed back his hood. His face, fully exposed, was beautiful and haunted as he met my gaze.

“Sparrow.” His voice, low and feather-soft, sent a shiver racing up my back. “I don’t want you as my prisoner, or my enemy. But you must return with me to Irrikah. Our queen will want to meet you. Because you are the Fateless.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” I demanded. “Vahn and the Circle said I was Fateless, too.” I remembered the robed figures pointing at me, hissing at Vahn that the Fateless had to die. And Vahn raising his crossbow in my direction, his eyes hard and cold. “They were going to kill me because of it,” I went on. “Why? What does it even mean?”

Raithe hesitated. I could see him struggling with what to say.Whatever the Fateless was, he didn’t want to reveal it. “It’s not my place,” he said at last. “The queen is the best one to explain it.”

Which meant I had to go with him to the iylvahn city across the Dust Sea. Away from Kovass and everything I’d ever known. Dread filled me. I had dreamed of leaving, but not like this.

Another tremor shook the ground, and this time, it didn’t stop. The walls of the basement swayed, more dust and stones raining down from the ceiling. Cracks appeared in the walls as the earthquake continued to rumble. I staggered and winced as a large clay pot fell from the shelf and smashed to the floor, shattering into a thousand fragments.

Raithe and I rushed up the stairs. I cast a glance at the tavern as we sprinted for the doors, hoping to catch a glimpse of Rala. But the bar was empty as we passed, the tables deserted. As we ducked outside, I sent up a quick prayer to Maederrys that Fate would be kind to Rala, that whatever else happened, she would somehow survive what was to come.

Though I had the horrible feeling that many would meet their fate this day.

The district was in chaos; people were scrambling through the streets and coughing in the haze, which had been stirred into a nearly impenetrable fog. Dust stung my eyes and clogged my throat, and Raithe quickly pulled up his hood. The air had reached the thick, searing temperature that heralded Demon Hour. Shielding my face, I gazed at the sky, squinting through the haze and the dust, and my stomach turned. The color was an ominous orange, and my vision filled with swirling clouds that blotted out the suns.

Someone slammed into me, knocking me back with a grunt. They continued to stagger down the street, not even looking where they were going. I winced, rubbing my bruised shoulder, and saw Raithe’s eyes narrow.

“We need to get to higher ground,” he said, and took two steps back, gazing up at the large building across the street. “I’m going to the roofs. Will you be able to keep up?”

A tiny spark of my old defiance emerged, fighting through the horror and the numbness and the fear of what was happening around me. “I could ask the same of you,” I answered, and darted across the street. I vaulted onto the stone wall of the building and dug my fingers into the cracks between loose bricks, finding handhold after handhold until I finally scrambled onto the roof.

Raithe, of course, was right beside me, and together, we straightened and gazed over the rooftops of the city. The heat beat down on my head, but the scene before me drove anything else from my mind.

From the docks to the Temple of Fate to the palace high on the hill, the entire city was surrounded by a whirling sandstorm. I couldn’t see the horizon line, or the desert beyond; I couldn’t see anything beyond the city’s edge. The howling storm, massive and impossible, encompassed all of Kovass, blotting out the light and turning the air red.

In the center of it all, floating above the rooftops, was a figure with bronze skin and eyes like the Void, jet-black hair snapping in the wind. My stomach twisted at the sight, and I heard Raithe draw in a sharp breath as the Deathless King slowly turned, surveying the city around him.

---