Page 38 of Fateless

“Sparrow.”

I felt Halek’s presence beside me, right before a gentle touch pressed into my back. “Easy there,” he murmured as I pantedand tried to compose myself. “This is probably not the best time to mention this, but you should try not to waste any liquid. It’s going to get really unpleasant in a couple hours.”

Blinking away the last of the tears, I looked up, and my stomach threatened to rebel once more.

The endless expanse of the Dust Sea surrounded us all the way to the horizon on every side. Dust eddies swirled along the sand, dissolving into nothing before forming again. Heat waves shimmered off the surface, making the air look like water. No matter where I turned, I couldn’t see anything but shifting sand and dust, stretching on and on until it touched the sky.

And then I saw Solasti, directly overhead, and I realized what Halek was talking about.

Demon Hour was coming.

Dread filled me. There was no shelter out here, no shade, nothing to protect us from the burning glare of the twins. The air on the Dust Sea was already like an oven, thick and oppressive; once Demon Hour hit, we would be like meat on a skillet.

As Halek said, things were about to get really unpleasant.

I glanced at Raithe, sitting on the edge of the skiff with one foot braced on the bench, and found the iylvahn watching me. “Any ideas?” I asked weakly. The inside of my mouth felt rancid and dry; I desperately wished I hadn’t vomited precious liquid over the side.

The iylvahn closed his eyes. His face, I suddenly noticed, looked haggard beneath his hood. “Pray,” he said, opening his eyes. “And hope that the winds of Fate blow a little harder in this direction.”

We drifted.

The Dust Sea stretched on, endless and eternal. Unchanging. Time was measured by the appearance of Namaia, poking her head over the horizon, and how far she had climbed to join her sister overhead. When Namaia first appeared, the heat was unbearable. By the time she was halfway into the sky, I knew we weren’t going to survive the next hour. Eventually, our boat would be found bobbing in the waves somewhere, with three baked, shriveled corpses lying in the bottom. Halek, Raithe, and I worked together to take down the sail, positioning it so that it cast a bit of shade over the boat, providing a little relief from the glare of the twins. But it wasn’t enough, and as Namaia climbed ever higher, it was all I could do to lie motionless on the deck, Halek and Raithe beside me, expending as little energy as I could.

It was hard to breathe. The air scraped my throat, passing over lips as dry and cracked as a brick wall. I couldn’t summon any saliva to wet my lips; my mouth felt like a desert, filled with dust. On either side of me, Halek and Raithe lay like the dead, Halek on his stomach with his face buried in his arms, Raithe on his side, facing away from me. The skiff was small, so we were crushed together, but there was nowhere else to lie, and sitting on the edges of the boat was impossible. Occasionally, I felt one of them shift, or heard a breath that told me they weren’t dead. Idly, I wondered when that would change. When their movements would cease and there would be a pair of lifeless bodies lying next to me. Or would I be the one they tried to rouse and couldn’t?

On my left side, Halek shifted so that his face was turned toward me. My hood was pulled down as far as it could go to protect me from the sun, but even without seeing him, I could hear the faintest grin in his voice. “Fate has... a funny sense of humor, I’ve found,” he whispered, his voice coming out raspy and dry. “Escape the literal fall of a city... only to be roasted alive on the Dust Sea. But I can’t... cry about it—literally—so I... have to laugh.”

He was trying to cheer me up, but smiling would split my lips open, which would be painful. Besides, I didn’t think I would smile again for a long, long time. Maybe Halek could laugh in the face of death, but when I closed my eyes, I could still see Jeran bleeding out on the altar, and Vahn’s flat, emotionless stare. I could see the city crumbling, crushing thousands, including the people I’d known all my life. And I could see the black soulstone hovering in the air above the pedestal. If I had simply turned around and left it where it was...

Beside me, I felt Halek raise his head a little more, though how he had the energy to do even that, I didn’t know. “Hey, kahjai,” he called weakly. “Raithe, was it? Are you dead?”

There was a pause, long enough to send a ripple of fear through my stomach; maybe the deadly iylvahn assassinhaddied and I was lying next to a corpse. But then there was a breath, and Raithe’s voice drifted up, raspy and hoarse. “No.”

“I feel... we got off on a bad foot,” Halek went on. “This might not be the time but... if it is my fate... to die here on the Dust Sea, I want my conscience to be clean.” He took a breath, as if gathering the remains of his energy. “I... appreciate thatyou helped Sparrow,” he went on, “and that you?.?.?.?didn’t kill me when you had the chance. So?.?.?.?thank you.”

Raithe made a tiny sound that might’ve been a sigh. “Save your strength, Fatechaser,” he said, not unkindly. “If it eases your conscience, I am not your enemy. I appreciate that you came by when you did, though I fear the end result will be the same.”

I’m sorry.My eyes burned, and I squeezed them shut. I had no tears to cry, even if I wanted to.All the death, the fall of thecity?.?.?.?it happened because of me. I was the catalyst for everything.

Now Kovass was gone. And I was going to die here, on a lonely boat in the middle of the Dust Sea. It seemed my luck had run out at last. Maybe the Weaver had finally gotten tired of my hijinks, but Raithe and Halek didn’t deserve this fate.

Somehow, Halek gave a raspy chuckle. “Maybe we’ll be?.?.?. eaten by a dust serpent,” he wheezed, referring to the legends of the enormous snakes that prowled the Dust Sea. “It would be over fast, I would think. At least then?.?.?.?we’d be out of the suns.”

Raithe hesitated. I could sense him struggling with himself, debating whether or not to say something. “If?.?.?.?you like,” he began at last, “if you want the pain to end, I can make it quick.”

My stomach twisted. He was offering to kill Halek, to end his suffering quickly instead of letting him die a lingering death. For just a moment, it was tempting.

But Halek gave another painful-sounding chuckle. “Much?.?.?. as I appreciate the thought, assassin,” he rasped, “it’s against the Fatechaser code?.?.?.?to orchestrate your own death. For good or ill, when our fate does come for us?.?.?.?it’s because it wasmeant to happen. Trying to stop it, or hurrying it along?.?.?.?goes against the entire ideology of a Fatechaser.”

Raithe didn’t say anything to that, and another moment passed in silence. “Sparrow?” the assassin murmured after a few heartbeats. “Are you awake?”

I nodded, knowing he would feel it, not trusting my voice at the moment.

“I am sorry for Kovass,” he went on, making my throat close and my eyes burn even more. “And your friends. I know that’s of little comfort now.”

He wasn’t expecting an answer, and talking seemed like too much effort. His next words, though, caused my stomach to twist and sent a clammy chill up my spine, despite the heat.

“I suppose not even the Fateless can escape everything.”

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