Three #2
My arm grew hot, radiating heat from fingers to elbow. Beneath my blood-drenched sleeve, my skin crawled. I could feel wounds closing, blood being drawn back into my body, the punctures in my arm shrinking. It felt like needles being pushed
back through my arm, sealing the skin behind them. I hunched over the ground, holding my arm to my chest, clenching my jaw
to keep the gasps contained. Vaguely, I was aware of Halek leaning close and his garbled words of encouragement, but I couldn’t
focus on anything except my arm turning inside out.
Finally, the pain faded. I took a shuddering breath and sat up, wincing as the world spun around me. Halek grabbed my shoulder,
keeping me upright as I swayed. The queen lowered her arm, looking as calm and unruffled as she had when she first appeared.
Then again, making a sixty-foot abomination explode without even touching it had been nothing for the Deathless. I wondered
how much power that had cost her, and where she had taken it from.
Almost against my will, my gaze went to Raithe.
He still stood in the same spot, unmoving, but his gaze was on me now.
For just a moment, the eyes beneath the hood were bright with worry and regret, his face shadowed with pain.
Just for a heartbeat—or maybe it had been my imagination, because in the next blink, the emotion was gone and his eyes were only for the queen.
“It is done.” The queen gave us all one last look, then began to rise into the air. “I would take you all into the city, but
that would require more sacrifice, which I am certain none of you wish to offer. So I will leave you now, but fear not. The
paths are clear, the roads safe, and my kahjai knows the way.” She nodded to Raithe, who bowed his head. The queen smiled
down at me, and it was like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. My breath caught at her beauty, even as I bristled
at myself in protest. “Goodbye, Fateless. I await you in Irrikah.”
A ray of sunlight passed through the canyon, making me blink, and the queen was gone.
Halek pulled me to my feet, holding me steady as the ground tilted. Regaining my balance, I raised my arm and carefully pushed
back my tattered sleeve. My forearm was a mess of blood, both sticky and dried, smeared across my skin. But the holes in my
arm had vanished, leaving behind smooth, unbroken skin. Even the swirling green tattoos of the Scarab Clan looked untouched.
The iylvahn queen is a Deathless. A Deathless just saved my life. And Raithe . . .
I clenched my fist and looked up. The hooded figure of the iylvahn stood where his queen had vanished, watching me.
“Sparrow.” Kysa’s firm voice snapped me out of my glare. “What of Ratuk, warrior?” she said. “Look to your mount.”
Ratuk. Oh no.
I hurried to where the beetle had fallen. He still lay on his back and was trying valiantly to right himself. His legs scrabbled
and waved in the air, but he was so heavy that he couldn’t turn over. I put my shoulder against his shell and heaved, but
it was like trying to move a boulder.
“Halek, help me,” I panted, and the Fatechaser also put his back against the downed rock beetle and shoved.
“Oof, nope, that’s not going to work,” he grunted after a moment. “Does anyone have a really long lever?”
“Step aside,” Kysa ordered, and gave a sharp whistle that brought Rhyne lumbering over. The other rock beetle dug his horn
beneath Ratuk’s shell and slowly walked forward, pushing him until Ratuk finally flipped over onto his feet. Ratuk snorted,
shaking his head, and buzzed his wings like a dog shedding water. I gave a sigh of relief as he turned to me with a huff;
the rock beetle seemed indignant and slightly disoriented, but not badly hurt.
My relief faded as I saw Kysa staring grimly at Ratuk, shaking her head. “He’s injured,” she stated, making my stomach clench.
“Look at his wing. The left one.”
The rock beetle’s wings were normally hidden under their shell.
Heart pounding, I turned back and gave Ratuk the order to open them.
The rock beetle obliged, splitting his carapace and spreading the inner membranes, and my heart dropped.
The shimmery green curtain of his left wing had a huge rip in the center, splitting the membrane nearly in two.
“He won’t be able to fly with that,” Kysa said, sounding graver than I’d ever heard, as if she had to announce the news of
someone’s death. “Thankfully, it wasn’t torn off completely. The membrane should heal on its own, but it’ll take time.” She
glanced at me, dark eyes narrowing. “You’re going to have to be very careful with him from here on out. Another injury to
that wing might cripple him forever. And if that happens, the kindest thing to do is to put him down.”
“Put him down?” Horror clutched my heart with icy fingers. “Just because he won’t be able to fly? He’d still be able to walk
and do everything else, right? If he’s not in pain . . .”
“And what happens when he tries to fly?” Kysa asked softly. “If the membrane is torn off, it will not grow back. He won’t
understand why he can no longer do something that was as natural as breathing is to us. Are you going to let him struggle
and crash into things as he tries over and over to figure it out?” She paused and looked at Ratuk, her normally stoic expression
shadowed with concern. “A rock beetle whose spirit is broken won’t fight for you,” she went on. “It won’t follow commands.
Sometimes it won’t even eat. Such rock beetles become hollow versions of themselves. In battle, they’ll refuse to fight, simply
letting the enemy tear them apart. Or worse, they’ll flee from conflict entirely.” She shook her head, her eyes sympathetic.
“That is no existence for a warrior. Should the worst happen, it is kinder to end their suffering than let them linger on
in pain.”
“I . . .” My heart twisted. Ratuk hadn’t been with us long. I had just barely learned how to fly with him. But he had saved us from the abomination, and he had never shown any fear or hesitation. What Kysa wanted me to do . . .
Her jaw tightened. “You don’t have to make that decision today,” she said. “His wing should heal, given time. But the welfare
of the mount is the responsibility of its rider. You must decide what is best for him.” She paused, both her voice and her
expression softening. “This is the worst fear for any warrior of the Scarab Clan,” she said. “I would not trade Rhyne for
anything. But I know that, one day, I might be forced to make this decision. And I pray that I am strong enough to carry it
out when the time comes.”
My vision blurred with tears, and I squeezed them back, feeling buried under a landslide of emotion. Too much had happened
all at once; I wanted to slip away from everything, find a dark shadow, and hide from the world until I was no longer drowning.
For a second, I missed my old room in the Thieves Guild. It was humble and small, but filled with trinkets and things I had
collected over the years. It had always been my corner, my private haven. There was no place I could feel safe now.
“Sparrow.” Halek put a hand on my arm, smiling as I glanced up at him. “He’ll be all right,” he told me. “He’s just as tough
as Rhyne, but even more importantly? He’s got you as his rider. How many rock beetles can say they’re carrying around the
Fateless?”
I sniffled. “It didn’t help him today.”
“Or maybe it did,” Halek countered, his smile still in place. “That abomination would have killed us all. Do you think the queen of the iylvahn would’ve popped in for anyone but the Fateless?”
Mention of the queen sent a chill down my spine and caused my stomach to turn wildly. I staggered back from him and looked
at Raithe, who had come forward a few paces but was still watching us in silence.
“When were you going to tell us, Raithe?” My voice shook as I glared at him. He didn’t answer, and I stalked forward. “When
were you going to tell me that your queen, the one you convinced me to speak with, the one I ran away from Kovass to meet . . .
When were you going to tell me that she was a Deathless? That seems like a pretty big thing to leave out.”
“I, too, would like to know,” Kysa echoed behind me. And though her voice was calm, I could sense the anger directed toward
the hooded figure before us. “You know my clan’s history with the Deathless,” the rider went on. “You know our thoughts on
magic and its uses. You brought Sparrow to us to shield her from the Deathless King’s servants. And yet you deliberately led
us here, knowing we would eventually meet one of the very creatures we have been fleeing this entire journey.” She took a
step forward, her boots crunching over the rocks, to stand beside me. “If there is a viable reason for this secrecy, iylvahn,
I should like to hear it.”
“I don’t have a good answer for you.” Raithe’s voice was hollow, and he wasn’t quite looking at any of us. “Not one that you
would accept. I made a decision, knowing I would have to face the consequences when we got to Irrikah. For what it’s worth,
I’m sorry.”
I clenched my fists. “I watched Kovass fall, Raithe,” I said.
“I watched the Deathless King destroy everything I ever knew, and you were right there with me. You saw what he did, you heard everything, and you still never told me. Even when I asked you about the queen, numerous times, you never said anything.”
“You lied to us, iylvahn.” Kysa’s voice sent a shiver up my back. She took another step forward, and I saw she was gripping
her spear tightly. “Nearly half my clan was destroyed fighting the abomination the Deathless King’s servant brought down upon
us,” she went on, staring hard at Raithe. “They died willingly, to protect the Fateless from the Deathless King. And now I