Seventeen
“So, your magic caterpillars are all dead now?” Halek said, gazing at Meeka, who was still perched on my shoulder. Behind
him, Kysa stood with Rhyne and Ratuk, the two rock beetles saddled and waiting impatiently to go.
“Not all yet,” Meeka answered. “Soon, though. Soon grubs will be . . . dead.”
“I guess I’m trying to understand the problem,” Halek went on, scratching the back of his neck. “A grub is basically an insect.
If a jair’oa can eat a grub, it can eat other things, right? Plenty of spiders, scorpions, and centipedes live in the desert.
Have you tried chomping on one of them?”
“That is not the problem, Halek.” It was Kysa who answered, stepping away from the rock beetles and looking at Meeka as she
came forward. “The star grubs are the jair’oa’s source of magic,” she said. “The life they sacrifice to gain power. Once they
are gone, Meeka will be unable to use that magic. Is this correct?”
“Meeka not know,” Meeka said from his perch on my shoulder. His tail beat an agitated rhythm against my collarbone, tickling
the skin. “But dead grub has no magic. No energy from creator king. Meeka could taste nothing.”
“I guess the question is, do you have to consume the star grubs to survive, or can you eat other things?” This was from Raithe, sitting against a rock a few steps away. “You’ll lose your ability to do magic, but staying alive is preferable to the alternative.”
The jair’oa wrinkled his nose, then slumped against me, ears drooping. “Meeka will try,” he said, sounding glummer than I’d
ever heard before. “Once star grubs all dead, Meeka will try . . . other things.” He sniffed and bared his front incisors
in a silent grimace. “Meeka has no choice.”
“Hey, it’s not all bad.” Halek grinned at him. “One of the best things about wandering the world is all the different foods
you encounter. You haven’t really lived until you’ve eaten a slice of fresh honey melon from Tahveena. Or tasted Daggerpoint’s
famous cactus blossom wine.”
He was trying to cheer Meeka up, but the jair’oa settled down on my shoulder, curled his tail tightly around my neck, and
closed his eyes. I felt bad for him. Halek didn’t understand. It wasn’t about having to eat new things; it was about losing
something that had been as natural to the jair’oa as breathing. The jair’oa were small, but their ability for magic made them
unique, even powerful. Without it, they were as vulnerable as any creature living in a harsh, unforgiving world of predators
and prey. I could understand his fear; I had felt like prey myself on more than one occasion.
The chill of the night faded quickly. Even before Solasti had risen fully over the horizon, the air was already shimmering.
Against the haze, the World Scar mountains loomed, ominous and threatening.
As we got closer and the mountain range became clearer, they resolved themselves into a line of jagged black peaks scraping the sky.
For some reason, looking at them sent a shiver crawling up my spine.
The sharp, uneven spires didn’t look natural.
They looked like they had been forcibly pulled from the ground and dragged into the air, pointed and arranged in the most threatening way possible.
“They might’ve been,” Raithe said, after I voiced this opinion out loud. “After the Deathless broke the loom, they didn’t
want anyone finding the missing piece, so they turned the land around it into an inhospitable wasteland. Maybe they were the ones who pulled up the mountains, to further separate the loom from everything.”
I shivered. Before the rise of the Deathless King and the fall of Kovass, I would’ve been hard-pressed to believe that. It
was difficult to imagine anything having that kind of power. Now I wondered what kind of horrific things we would encounter
once we crossed into the mountains. If the Deathless had made the land impossible to survive, how were we going to get to
the temple, much less find the loom?
Queen Sahmessyia was one of the Deathless who broke Maederyss’s loom and hurled the piece to the earth, I thought. She was here when they changed the land to keep it hidden. In the thousands of years since, did she forget what they did?
Or does she know exactly what we’re about to face, and didn’t warn us?
I did not voice those thoughts out loud. It wouldn’t have made any difference. I trusted Raithe with my heart, my soul, and
everything I had. I was not so certain about the queen he served.
Demon Hour crept close, and we set up camp, pitching the tent and the shelter for the rock beetles. Ratuk seemed more morose than usual, half-heartedly chewing the sticks I offered and not responding when I scratched his horn.
“He is missing being able to fly,” Kysa said when I asked the rock beetle what was wrong. She looked up from where she was
adjusting Rhyne’s saddlebags, and a worried frown crossed her face. “I warned you this might happen. Rock beetles are creatures
of the land, but also creatures of the air. Flying is how they fight, how they travel, how they push themselves as warriors.”
“But he’s injured.” Gazing at Ratuk, I gave him the command to open his wings. He did, revealing that the rip in his membrane
was still there. It was definitely smaller, so it was healing, but he certainly wouldn’t be able to fly without risking permanent damage. “He’s still hurt,” I said, as Ratuk closed
his shell again. “If he flies, he could tear the wing further.”
“I agree,” Kysa said, nodding. “But he doesn’t understand that.”
“What do I do, then?”
“Sadly, aside from getting into a battle, I’m afraid there is nothing we can do.” Kysa gave Ratuk a sympathetic look. “Hopefully,
he will come out of it, but if his spirit is waning, he will sink further into depression. If he stops eating or starts ignoring
commands, that is when you should worry.”
“I’m already worried, Kysa.” I gazed at Ratuk, a lump growing in my throat. My rock beetle was unhappy, and I didn’t know
how to help him. “Is there really nothing we can do to cheer him up, even a little?”
“Rock beetles require only three things to be content,” Kysa replied. “Food, structure, and battle. They appreciate companionship, but they are warriors at heart. Challenges and battle nourish their spirit like nothing else.”
“So they’re happiest when they’re eating or getting into a fight.”
“Essentially.” Kysa glanced upward, checking to see where Namaia was in the sky. It was getting unbearably hot, even under
the rock beetles’ shelter. The sands around us were rippling in the heat. “Come,” she said, stepping away. “We’ve done all
we can for them now, and Demon Hour is upon us.” She paused, then put a gauntleted hand on my shoulder. “I would not worry
about your mount too much yet. It takes a great deal to break a rock beetle’s spirit completely, and Ratuk is strong. Once
we reach the World Scar, I assume things are going to get much more dangerous. Finding a fight there should not be hard.”
I grimaced. “I thought getting into fights was something we should try to avoid,” I said. “Especially in a place like the
World Scar.”
“Agreed,” Kysa said amicably. “One should always try to avoid fights. But, as we learned with the kahjai’s land of possessed
statues, that does not mean we will be successful.”
She had me there. I wondered what sort of creatures roamed the boundaries of the World Scar, if anything lived there at all.
Raithe had said the Deathless had tried to make the land completely inhospitable; did that mean nothing could survive there?
Or would we discover that they had filled the land with unspeakable monsters, to further make certain nothing would reach
Maederyss’s loom?
As I stepped from beneath the shelter, I was immediately hit with the intense heat of peak Demon Hour, the suns’ rays scorching the top of my head even through my hood.
Quickly, I started for the tent, following Kysa across the molten desert sand.
Halek was nowhere to be seen; he had likely already retreated inside, but Raithe stood near the entrance, watching us approach.
Silently, he pushed back the tent flaps, holding them open so Kysa and I could duck inside.
The insect rider did so immediately, giving him a curt nod as she passed.
I smiled at him gratefully and retreated into the welcome darkness.
The inside of the tent was warm enough to cause sweat to trickle down my back, but it was better than being out in the heat
of Demon Hour. Inside, Halek already sat against one wall, legs crossed and gazing in concern at Meeka. The jair’oa crouched
in a corner, peering intently into his satchel, which sat on the floor in front of him. His ears were pressed flat against
his head, and his whiskers were trembling.
“Meeka?”
The jair’oa looked up at me with wide black eyes. Without a word, he lifted the satchel and upended it on the floor of the
tent.
A pile of dead grubs tumbled from the pouch, flopping limply to the ground, their glow completely gone.
“Star grubs all dead.” Meeka looked from the pile of insect corpses to me, his eyes black and watery. “Star grubs gone. Magic
gone.”
I knelt beside him. “What does this mean, Meeka?” I asked.
“Meeka still has a little magic.” The jair’oa looked at his paws. “Meeka can blink maybe once, maybe twice. Maybe more. But magic will be used up, and Meeka has no way to get more.” He stared at the grub pile, his tail waving slowly behind him. “Meeka feels strange,” he said.
Alarm spiked. Was the jair’oa sick, too? Did he have to consume star grubs or he would die? “Strange how?” I asked. “Do you
feel weak? Does anything hurt?”
“No.” The jair’oa shook his head, making his ears flop. “Meeka doesn’t hurt. But Meeka feels . . .” He blinked. “Meeka does
not know what this is. Meeka feels . . .”
“Sad?” Halek offered.
The jair’oa cocked his head at him, then looked at me. “What is sad?”
I blinked. I had no idea how to answer that question. Had the jair’oa never felt sad or scared or anxious before? I remembered