Four #4
When I hadn’t brought a sleeping god to the surface and accidentally unleashed hell on the entire world.
“I don’t know what this queen wants with me,” I said, gazing down the hall, where the chancellor said the throne room waited.
“Raithe wouldn’t tell me anything, only that she wanted to speak to the Fateless. But Vahn was willing to sacrifice anything,
even his own daughter, to serve the Deathless King.” My throat closed, my mind involuntarily remembering Vahn’s last moments,
when I had looked my Guildmaster in the eye . . . and killed him. “If the queen tells Raithe to do the same, I can’t trust
that he won’t,” I whispered. “I have to assume that he’ll obey.”
“Well, as the troblin would say, ‘Don’t jump into holes you don’t know how deep.
’ ” Halek stepped forward, smiling gently to soften the words.
“Like you said, we don’t know what the Deathless queen actually wants.
It could be that she hates the Deathless King and wants to protect you. We won’t know until we speak with her.”
I nodded, and Halek put his hands on my shoulders. “You’re not alone here, Sparrow,” he said. “You still have me and Kysa.
We’re not going anywhere.”
“Unless the queen decides to kill us all,” I muttered, purely to be contrary. But Halek just grinned.
“If it’s my fate to die in the palace of a Deathless queen, I can think of worse places,” he said easily. “But that’s not
going to happen. Because you’re the Fateless. Death just can’t seem to catch you, no matter how hard it tries.”
“We’ll see how true that is now that I’m actually in its house.”
Halek chuckled and stepped back. “Well, we still have a few hours till suns rise,” he said. “If I’m going to meet a Deathless
queen in the morning, I should probably not come in smelling like a dung beetle.” Pausing at the narrow door of his room,
he pushed it open a crack, and his face lit up like a glowstone. “And they do have baths—this place has just become one of my favorites. I haven’t had a proper bath in months.” He shot me a look over
his shoulder. “If you need me, I’ll be lying naked in a warm pool of water until suns rise, so . . . uh, hopefully you won’t
need me. See you tomorrow, Sparrow.”
I smiled back. “Good night, Halek.”
He slipped through the narrow door, leaving me alone in the hall. Swallowing, I gazed around the corridor, suddenly feeling
very small. Without Halek’s gregarious presence, the palace of the Deathless queen seemed to loom over me. Bemused about the
dusty intruder in its midst.
As I walked through the narrow door into my quarters, the feeling did not subside.
The room was grander than any place I had seen: polished walls and floors, flowering plants in every corner, a bed with silken sheets.
I ran my fingers over the coverlet just to be sure and repressed a shiver at the softness.
Near the back of the room, a raised platform led down to a steaming pool of water, petals and fragrant leaves floating on the surface.
They filled the air with the scent of flowers, and coils of mist danced over the water, ethereal and tempting.
I had never taken a bath. In my world, baths were reserved for kings, nobles, and merchant princes who had the gold to waste
on submerging themselves in the most precious of resources. I hovered warily at the edge of the platform. A robe sat on a
stone bench beside the pool, a stack of gold-trimmed towels beside it, but the thought of being completely vulnerable in the
palace of the Deathless queen made my stomach clench in fear.
Turning from the bath, I jumped at the sound of a soft tap on my door. Kysa didn’t bother knocking on doors, and Halek usually
announced his presence before entering a room, so it wasn’t either of them.
Raithe?
Heart pounding, I crossed the room, hesitated a moment in the doorframe, then pulled the door open.
A slender iylvahn—not Raithe—peered at me across the threshold. He held a platter in both hands, filled with a colorful assortment
of nuts, cheese, berries, and fruits I didn’t have names for. The smell was intoxicating and made my stomach growl.
“Good evening, Fateless. The chancellor thought you might be hungry after your long journey.” The iylvahn swept into the room and placed the platter on a small table near the wall.
From a deep pocket, he withdrew a long-necked bottle of what was probably wine and set it on the table as well, before turning to me with a bow.
“Please enjoy. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to call on any servant within the palace, and they will do their best to attend you. I wish you a good night.”
He bowed once more and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
My stomach growled again, but as I looked at the platter, a prickle ran up my spine. Not because of the food or the wine,
but because of the sudden presence in the room. Silly of me, thinking he would knock on the door first.
I took a deep breath and turned to meet the pale eyes of the kahjai standing beside the pool.