Twenty-One #2
from beneath the desk. I clenched my fists at how small she looked; barely five years old, her brown hair hanging in her eyes
as she gazed around with one fist in her mouth. I remembered, even after all these years, the fear I’d felt when those men
had spoken, thinking they were alone. I hadn’t understood exactly what they were talking about, but I’d known something was
wrong. And so, when I left this room, I would go immediately to Vahn and tell him what I had heard from beneath the desk.
After this night, I’d never seen those two men again.
You saved the life of the Guildmaster of Kovass that night. The cat creature’s voice shivered in my head. Had you known what you do now, would you have made the same decision?
“I was five,” I whispered. “I didn’t even know what was happening, much less what would happen twelve years in the future.”
That is not what I asked.
I clenched my fists, knowing what the creature was implying.
If I hadn’t saved Vahn, would any of this have happened?
Would the Deathless King still be buried deep in the undercity, sleeping and unknown?
Could all the destruction, death, and terror that had happened since the night Kovass fell have been prevented by the different choice of a five-year-old in this very room?
Would you still have saved him, if you had known?
“Yes,” I said, closing my eyes. “Of course I would have. And that might be the wrong choice but . . . I can’t see myself doing
anything else.”
The voice in my head didn’t answer. Once more, the scene around us faded, blowing away, until I stood on a familiar wooden
deck, the suns blazing down on me, hearing the screams and howls of a horrific abomination as it crawled over the strider.
I saw my friends darting around the abomination’s jointed legs, striking where they could, and felt the same fear as I had
on that day, watching them race off to what would surely be their deaths.
I watched myself turn from the door into the strider, from the safety of retreating inside, and sprint back across the deck.
Toward the monster who could kill me as easily as a bug.
Why did you return?
That was an easy one. Out of all the memories so far, this answer came quickly. “Because I didn’t want them to die.”
And if you had died?
“I don’t know,” I whispered. Because the easy answers—I didn’t or they would’ve carried on without me—weren’t what the creature meant, and I knew it. I was the Fateless. I was the only one who could see the loom piece, the
only one who could maybe stop a prophecy that would end up killing the goddess I was speaking to. If I had died there, what would that have meant,
for everyone?
“I wasn’t thinking about that,” I went on. “I wasn’t thinking of anything but helping them. If I’d known I would die . . .
I don’t know. I would like to think I would still go back.”
For a long, long time, the cat creature was silent. Long enough for the desperate battle with the abomination to shift and
change. Long enough to see myself scale the mast, drop onto the abomination’s head, and plunge my dagger into its bulging
black eyes. Seeing it from the ground made me realize how lucky I’d gotten that day. That I hadn’t died or been chewed to
pieces by the abomination’s huge, serrated jaws.
I blinked, and then . . .
“We’re not leaving you, Raithe!”
I spun, seeing four figures and two rock beetles in the center of a dead, ruined town. Around them, statues shuffled closer,
reaching for them with pale limbs. And even though I knew this was just another memory, my stomach still writhed in fear.
There were so many of them, closing in from all sides. If I hadn’t known what happened, I would have thought this would be
the place we all died.
I turned my gaze to the iylvahn and the image of myself, facing each other in the center of approaching death.
“My life is not important.” Raithe’s quiet voice carried to me even over the grinding of stone and shuffling feet.
“My only duty is to make sure your mission is successful. I am truly sorry for Ratuk, and we will fight as hard as we can before we fall, but you must get to the World Scar. Everything depends on you finding the piece of the loom.”
I watched myself. And I saw the moment I made the decision. Raithe would not die here. This would not be his fate.
Very well. The voice sent a shiver through me with its finality. I believe I have seen all that I need.
Once more, the sands cleared. Only this time, I was back in the chamber with Meeka and Raithe, the thread-enshrouded tree
looming in the background. I was lying on my back, staring up at the broken ceiling, seeing the noxious clouds swirling overhead.
My head felt too full, memories I had long forgotten crowding forth, reminding me of past shame and failures. Worse, I didn’t
know if any of my choices had been the right ones or if they had just damned us all.
“Sparrow.”
Raithe knelt beside me, Meeka perched on his shoulder. The jair’oa’s eyes were bright with concern as he peered down. Or maybe
it was just curiosity.
“Human fell down,” Meeka said. “Fell down and stared at sky. All right now?”
I blinked, testing out my limbs and mind to make sure they worked properly. “I think so.” Raithe grasped my hand and gently
pulled me into a sitting position, placing his other hand on my back to steady me. I rubbed my suddenly dry eyes and looked
around. “Where did the creature go?”
“I am here.”
The cat monster sat beneath the tree, surrounded by limbs and swaying threads. Her eyes were closed as I approached, Raithe and Meeka behind me, but when I stepped beneath the limbs, those eyes opened, pupilless and bright blue, staring into my soul.
I shivered, but forced myself to take a few more steps, until I stood before the great cat monster.
“Did . . . I pass?”
Those eyes didn’t blink. “One test remains,” the monster intoned, and my heart dropped.
“Or, perhaps, one choice. Power cannot come from nothing, and so a sacrifice must be made. You have a decision, Fateless. Two companions stand beside you.” Her empty blue gaze shifted, landing on Raithe and then Meeka at my side, and a terrible fear lanced through me as those
pitiless eyes observed them without emotion. “I will take one of their souls and return it to the Weave,” the monster said, “thus granting you the power of the loom. But you must make the choice, Fateless. Here and now. Which is the one that will die?”
The ground dropped out from under me. I took one staggering step back from the monster, shaking my head, as horror, shock,
and despair spread from my heart to every part of my body. “No,” I whispered.
“This is the only way.” The monster stared down at me, her gaze merciless.
“Life for power. Sacrifice for salvation. Choose your sacrifice, Fateless. The long-lived iylvahn whose thread is tangled with death? Or the small, short-lived jair’oa with depthless potential?
I know there are others outside this temple—the Fatechaser, and the one who is bonded to a noble insect.
But they are not the souls who stand before me now.
Your choices are behind you. Simply say their name, or point; it makes no difference to me.
When their soul is bound into the Weave once more, only then will I relinquish the power of the loom to you. ”
My legs gave out, and I sank to my knees in the sand. Heat seared my palms as I curled my fingers into the dust. We had come
so far and fought through so much. But this decision would be the one that destroyed me in the end. “Please don’t make me
do this,” I pleaded. “I can’t . . . make that choice.”
“Sparrow.” Raithe knelt in front of me, but I closed my eyes, turning my head so I wouldn’t see him. Was this what the Deathless queen was talking about? The thought made me sick with horror. The fate that had finally caught up to
him . . . would be by my own hand.
“Don’t even say it, Raithe,” I choked out. “I know what you’re going to tell me, and I can’t do it. Besides . . .” I peeked
up at him, and his soft gaze nearly broke my heart in two. “You made me a promise. You swore you would try to live.”
He brushed my hair back, his expression still unbearably soft. “My entire purpose,” he said, “was to get you here. To do whatever
it takes for you to defeat the Deathless King. I’ve kept my promise. I’ve done my best to keep us both alive. But now you
have to make the decision.”
“No.”
“I’m not afraid.” His voice was a whisper now.
“I’ve never feared death. When I’m gone, my soul will return to the Weave, and when I’m reborn .
. . I will look for you again.” His knuckles brushed my cheek.
“But I want a world to return to, Sparrow. A world where my people are safe, where the Deathless King’s shadow doesn’t touch those I care about.
A world where I can find you again, because I know that you’ll be free.
If my death can give you that world, then everything I’ve gone through
in this life will have been worth it. But you have to let me go.”
A sob finally broke free. I collapsed against him, clutching his shirt, and his arms wrapped around me, drawing us together.
I closed my eyes, listening to the beat of his heart against my ear as memories flickered through my head, mingling with what
I had just seen. Our first meeting in Kovass. Fighting the abomination on the strider to save him and everyone else. That
first kiss under the moonlight in Damassi. Every instance where Raithe had stood between me and danger, protected me with
no thought for his own life, and believed in me when I doubted myself.
Reaching up, I placed my palm over his heart, feeling the steady thump against my skin, every beat telling me that he was
still alive. His fate was literally in my hands. I bit down a hysterical laugh at the irony of it all, fearing that once I
started, I wouldn’t be able to stop.
“Human.”
The lightest touch brushed my knee. Opening my eyes, I saw Meeka standing there, one tiny paw resting on my leg. His bright