Twenty-One #3
black eyes were solemn as they peered up at me.
“Meeka is small,” he said quietly. “Small body. Small soul. Small fate. Not like Fateless.”
Horror washed over me as I realized what he was saying. “Meeka . . . no. Not you, too.”
“Meeka promised to get Fateless to goddess loom.” He sat back on his haunches, gazing down at his paws. “But magic is gone now. Meeka cannot help anymore.” His ears flattened as he looked up at me again. “This is something Meeka can do. Not afraid.”
“Curse you both.” My words came out broken. I reached down, placing a hand on Meeka’s head, feeling the soft fur under my
fingers. The choice loomed before me, paralyzing and impossible. When I left this room, I would have the power of a goddess.
But one of them would not be coming back with me.
I can’t do this, I thought in anguish. How can I choose which one of them has to die? Why am I suddenly the arbiter of their fates?
Life for power. One soul for the blessing of a goddess.
A calm rippled through me, sudden and shocking, as I realized what I had to do.
“Raithe.” Very gently, I pulled back from him, meeting his eyes as I withdrew. “Do you trust me?” I whispered. “Would you
stand with me against the Deathless King, even if I wasn’t Fateless?”
“Always.”
The simple, genuine response nearly made my vision fill up again. Closing my eyes, I pressed my forehead to his, feeling his
hand against my cheek. “Then I hope you can forgive me for what I’m about to do.”
I rose, turned swiftly away, and walked toward the monster and the choice that would change everything.
The cat creature waited for me beneath the limbs of the tree, silent, eternally patient. The half-ruined face tilted as I approached, blue eyes piercing me. “You have made your decision, Fateless?”
“I have.”
“Then whose soul shall I claim?”
“Neither.” There was no reaction to my statement; the cat creature didn’t move at all but continued to observe me with flat
blue eyes. “I will not make this decision,” I went on firmly. “If this is what it takes to claim the blessing of a goddess,
I don’t want it. Trading life for power . . . that’s what the Deathless do. That’s what started this whole unbalanced mess.
But even more than that. . . . it’s not my place to decide anyone’s fate. Big or small. If I unravel their threads because
I am Fateless, then so be it. But I will not make the choice to end someone’s life. Not like this.” Raising my chin, I met
that ancient, depthless gaze and spoke as clearly as I could. “I will face the Deathless King as I am; no magic, no power,
just me. And if I am truly Fateless, maybe it will be enough.” I paused a moment, then shook my head. “It will have to be
enough.”
For several heartbeats, the great cat stared at me, unmoving. I stifled the fear coiling through my insides and continued
to meet her gaze. I sensed Meeka and Raithe behind me, but I didn’t dare glance back at them. My stomach twisted, and I wondered
what the great cat was weighing, deciding. What Raithe was thinking of me at this very moment.
The great cat rose, flaring her wings with a snap. Despite my resolve, I couldn’t help but flinch as she took a step toward
me, her eyes blazing with blue fire.
“That . . .” She loomed over me, wings fully flared and gaze terrifying. “Was the correct decision.
“No mortal deserves the power of a goddess,” she continued, as I nearly collapsed to the sand in relief. “No mortal should be the arbiter of another’s fate. Those who try to claim this power for themselves, with no thought to those
around them, would only be corrupted by it. You chose to preserve the lives of your companions rather than cutting them from
the Weave, thus you are worthy to take on this responsibility. But beware, Fateless. The loom will truly grant you the power to alter the fate of every living soul you see. Remember that every thread is connected,
in some way, to the rest of the threads in the Tapestry. Changing one will alter the whole in ways you cannot imagine.”
I trembled, as the weight of what was being offered threatened to crush me. But I took a deep, steadying breath and looked
up, meeting the gaze of a goddess. “I understand.”
“Then may your decisions be wise, Fateless.” The avatar of Maederyss sat back once more, folding her wings behind her. “And may your choices change the Weave for the better.”
A shudder racked the great cat’s body. Through the rents in her fur and flesh, I saw the glimmering strands start to withdraw,
sliding back as they returned to the cocoons wrapped around the tree. The light in the piercing blue eyes dimmed, and the
flesh of the cat creature withered, shriveling away like a hundred years were passing in a blink, until nothing remained but
bones. I staggered as the skeleton of the once great feline collapsed with a dusty rattle, feathers spiraling lazily through
the air, and silence fell over the chamber once more.
I took a step back and felt strong arms catch me, making my heart leap.
Turning, I flung myself into Raithe, who held me close.
Leaning into him, I closed my eyes, and we stood like that, our hearts beating together.
The clenched fist that had been squeezing my heart loosened, relief spreading outward until it engulfed me.
He was alive. We were all alive, and I had passed.
Somehow, I had solved the avatar’s impossible riddle and made the choice that mattered.
A rustling sound filled the air. Pulling back from Raithe, I looked up to see that the threads wrapped around the tree were
moving. The cocoons were unraveling, uncoiling, the strands growing shorter, as if being drawn back into the tree.
Meeka stood tall on his hind legs, ears pricked, twitching this way and that. “Meeka senses something,” he said. “Feels like
magic.”
Raithe looked up as well; his brow furrowed slightly, as if he could hear the faint hissing of the threads around us, but
it was obvious he didn’t see them. “What is happening, Sparrow?”
“I don’t know, exactly,” I whispered back. “But the threads around the tree are moving, pulling back. And the tree itself
is starting to change.”
The tree was changing. Branches were shrinking, leaves vanishing altogether. The gnarled trunk grew thinner and thinner until, with a final
spasming of threads, the entire tree disappeared in a cloud of light and dust.
What was left behind: a single piece of splintered wood the length of my arm, glimmering threads still wrapped around it.
I looked at that simple chunk of wood lying in the sand and shivered.
Raithe must’ve felt it, for he gazed at the spot where the shard lay, then back at me. “Do you see it?” he asked softly.
I nodded. “I guess . . . I should go pick it up.”
I felt a gentle touch on my shoulder. “You’ve already proven yourself to a goddess,” Raithe murmured in my ear. “Don’t be
afraid, Sparrow.”
“I’m not.” I smiled at him, squeezed the hand on my shoulder, and took a step toward the broken shard of Maederyss’s loom.
There were no final obstacles. No last-minute surprises. No spirits, threads, or monsters that came leaping out of the wood
at me. The loom piece lay unassumingly in the sand, lifeless and unmoving. Even the shimmering threads coiled around it were
still.
I knelt and studied the wooden shard. If I hadn’t just seen the tree, the great cat, and the millions of writhing threads,
I would have been hard-pressed to believe this splinter could be part of the loom of the goddess of Fate. For a moment, I
wondered about the real loom, and how big it would have to be to hold the souls of the world. Or was it the size of a normal
loom, and Maederyss could weave millions upon millions of threads together because she was the goddess of Fate?
Enough stalling, Sparrow. This is what you came for.
I pushed down the last of my fear, reached out, and grasped the piece of the Loom of Maederyss.
The instant I touched it, the threads came to life. Flaring up, they writhed in the air a moment before snaking forward and coiling around my arm. The glowing threads spiraled up my wrist to my elbow, an instant before my entire vision went white.
Images flickered through my mind, places and people I had never seen, worlds I had never been to. Sprawling forests and endless
cities. Snowcapped peaks reaching up to the sky. A body of water that stretched on until it touched the horizon. Millions
upon millions of faces, all fluttering through my head like the beats of a moth’s wing. I closed my eyes, covering my face
with my hands, but it didn’t stop the flood of images. They grew faster, more numerous, an avalanche of pictures and voices
and sensations, too much. I cried out for it to stop, begged it to stop, but it didn’t.
Finally, finally, it was over. The rush of images slowed, flickered, and faded into blessed darkness once more. As my senses
returned, I became aware that I was lying on my back, cradled in someone’s arms, and that someone was gripping my hand tightly.
There was also a smaller, lighter weight on my chest. I gingerly reached up to touch it and felt soft fur under my fingers.
“Are you still with us, Sparrow?” His voice echoed overhead, soft with concern. The weight on my chest gave a little bounce.
“Human awake now? Not in pain?”
“I’m all right,” I whispered. “I think.”
“Can you open your eyes?”
My eyes were still tightly shut, and the darkness was comforting after the flood of images. Slowly, I cracked them open, searching
for Raithe first. His face swam above me, silvery-blue eyes shadowed with worry and relief as our gazes met.
Then I looked past him, at the open sky overhead, and everything inside me froze.
The sky was no longer swirling clouds and flickering lightning. It was . . . threads. Billions upon billions of shimmering,
writhing threads, coiling around and through each other in a blinding hypnotic pattern. I couldn’t focus on a single one;
they blended together and vanished into the eternal Weave that covered the whole sky.