One #4
an iylvahn guiding you. Outsiders won’t be able to find the entrance, no matter how hard they search.”
“Ah,” said Halek, nodding. “That makes sense. Also explains why the iylvahn city has remained hidden, even after all this
time.” He stretched and glanced at the two rock beetles waiting patiently behind us. “Well, the day’s not getting any longer,
and we’re wasting suns’ light. Shall we go? I’ve always wanted to see Irrikah—there are so few stories about it, and I want
to see if it lives up to its mysteriousness.”
I suppressed a wince. There were so few stories about Irrikah because everyone who visited the mysterious iylvahn city forgot nearly everything about it when they left.
According to Raithe, the only memory any non-iylvahn would keep of Irrikah was that it existed, somewhere in the Maze.
But everything within the city—the layout, the people, what it looked like—would fade from memory and be lost.
It was all part of the magic the queen used to keep her people safe. And yet another reason to fear her.
Raithe glanced at me, and perhaps he saw the emotion in my eyes, for his brow furrowed and he stepped closer. “Will you be
able to do this, Sparrow?” he asked. “Can you fly us to the edge of the Maze?”
I took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes,” I told him. I had promised myself I would stop running, even from things that terrified
me. Besides, I was tired of the uncertainty. I wanted to know, once and for all, if I was the Fateless or just the insignificant
thief I had been all my life. Meeting the iylvahn queen wouldn’t be nearly as frightening as confronting the Deathless King.
At least she wasn’t trying to kill me.
I hoped.
Kysa made a sharp clicking noise, and the two rock beetles stopped what they were doing and turned, huffing, to face us. “Let
us go, then,” she said, and swung easily into Rhyne’s saddle. “I know I said that flying a rock beetle for long periods of
time was impractical, but we can at least get a head start on the twins.” Glancing down at us, she held out an arm. “Fatechaser,
you’re with me.”
Halek grabbed the arm and swung into the saddle behind Kysa. “I guess now isn’t a good time to admit I have a fear of heights,”
he said with a wry grin.
Kysa shook her head. “Not at all,” she replied. “It won’t change anything. If you start to feel queasy, I suggest closing your eyes.”
I swung into Ratuk’s saddle and felt Raithe settle easily behind me. His arms wrapped around my waist as he leaned close,
his calm, steady breathing comforting against my back. Across from me, Kysa gave a single nod. At our spoken command, the
rock beetles rose into the air, their wings a constant drone in our ears, and we flew off toward the distant mountains.
Thankfully, despite my secret fears that Ratuk would decide to shake us off or ignore the commands of his new, incompetent
rider and go flying back home, the journey to the Maze was uneventful. The Barren Steppes stretched out before us in all their
flat, empty glory, an endless red wasteland of clay and rock, broken up by jutting crags and sparse vegetation. I caught fleeting
glimpses of life, even out here. Flocks of stonebeak birds, flightless and long necked, roamed the scrubland. Distant columns
of smoke, drifting into the sky, signaled the presence of other clans that called the steppes their home. On the horizon,
the hazy mountains loomed closer, marking the end of one journey and the beginning of something new.
Namaia soon followed her sister’s ascent into the sky. With the arrival of the second sun, the heat became an almost physical
thing, pressing down from above, searing my shoulders and the top of my head. Even through the hood, I could feel the relentless
glare blazing into me. Our voyage consisted of short bursts of flying followed by a period of walking to let the beetles recuperate.
Still, it was far faster than having to trek all the way across the Barren Steppes on foot.
The mountains grew larger and larger, until we finally reached the base of the massive line of cliffs, crags, and sheer walls stretching high overhead.
The Maze, as it was appropriately called, was once a range of unbroken mountains, until an earth-shattering quake from the War of the Kings had fragmented them, turning the entire range into a labyrinth of narrow cliffs, deep chasms, and canyons soaring to dizzying heights.
All sorts of creatures, benign and terrifying, were said to wander the Maze, and, according to Raithe, there were depths of the labyrinth no one had ever set foot in.
And somewhere deep within the Maze, sequestered from everyone, was Irrikah, the hidden city of the iylvahn, and the queen
who waited to speak to the Fateless.
Demon Hour had just reached its peak when we ducked beneath an enormous slab of rock lying against one of the cliff faces.
It looked like part of the cliff wall had broken off and fallen against another rock face, providing much-needed shelter from
the suns. I breathed a sigh of relief as I slid from the saddle, grateful to be out of the relentless glare of the twins.
Halek dug a canteen out of Rhyne’s saddlebags and took a long draft before sliding off Rhyne. “You know,” he said cheerfully,
“I’ve heard some very, very old legends from distant lands that claim there used to be only one sun in the sky. Can you imagine?
A world with no Demon Hour, what would that be like, I wonder?” He shrugged and sat down, tucking the waterskin beside him.
“Of course, they also said the world used to be green and lush and filled with water. That would’ve been a sight to see.”
I glanced at Raithe, remembering something he’d once told me. That the world had been green and lush during the age of the Deathless Kings. Before they’d started fighting. Before the war essentially destroyed
the world, turning it from vibrant kingdoms filled with life to the sun-blasted wastelands that were all anyone had known
for thousands of years.
It was hard to imagine such a world. It was even harder to imagine what one insignificant thief, Fateless or not, could do
against the limitless power of a Deathless King.
I supposed I would have to meet Raithe’s queen to discover if I was expected to do anything at all.