Twenty-One #4
It was staggering, dizzying. Even lying down, I felt like I was standing at the edge of an endless drop, a heartbeat from
plunging into the Void. Suddenly unable to breathe, I squeezed my eyes shut and turned my face away, blocking out the swirling
kaleidoscope of threads and color. Raithe’s arms tightened around me, and I could feel myself shaking against him.
“What is it?” he murmured. “What do you see?”
“I . . .” Words were suddenly inadequate. How could I explain the impossibility of what was happening? This wasn’t meant for
mortal eyes; I knew that now. Carefully, I opened my eyes again, deliberately not looking at the sky. The view wasn’t any
better. I still saw threads—not as many, but hundreds, crisscrossing each other through the air like an endless, moving spiderweb.
All leading to the great Tapestry overhead. Whose souls were they connected to? What fates was I seeing? I didn’t know; there
was no one in the chamber but me, Raithe, and Meeka . . .
My gaze shifted to the jair’oa, still sitting on my stomach, and my blood went cold.
Meeka tilted his head, watching me with guileless black eyes, his tail waving behind him.
For an instant, I caught the glint of an ethereal, delicate strand a few inches from the jair’oa’s head.
As I stared at it, the thread shimmered into view, stretching away from me until it was lost in the Tapestry.
“Sparrow.”
A hand pressed to my cheek, and Raithe gently turned me to face him. His expression was concerned, and I realized he had been
saying my name for a while now. I could see my reflection in his gaze, my eyes wide and unblinking, staring into nothing.
“Breathe,” Raithe whispered, and I drew air into my lungs shakily. Apparently, I hadn’t been breathing, either. “Focus on
my voice, Sparrow. What do you see?”
“I see the Tapestry,” I murmured, making him stiffen. “I see . . . all the threads in the Weave. And I can’t . . .” I closed
my eyes once more, though the images of millions of strands persisted, even through the darkness. “There’s so many,” I choked
out. “I can’t see anything else.”
Raithe said something to Meeka, who sprang off me, the weight vanishing from my chest. Gently, Raithe drew me upright until
we were kneeling across from each other, though my eyes were still tightly shut. The phantom strands still swayed across the
blackness, visible even in the darkness behind my lids. Every one of them representing someone’s life, someone’s fate.
Someone’s soul.
His hands stroked the sides of my head, fingers sliding through my hair. “Look at me,” he murmured. “Try to see only me. Don’t
focus on anything else.”
I opened my eyes. His face swam in front of mine, intensely beautiful, his searing gaze fixed on me. I tried to see only him, but the threads danced and coiled at the edge of my vision, an endless, chaotic pattern, impossible to ignore.
“Raithe.” I shook my head slightly, feeling his grip tighten. “I can’t . . . It’s not going away—”
He leaned in and kissed me.
It wasn’t a desperate, intense kiss. Just the tender, unhurried press of his lips against mine. I closed my eyes and relaxed
into him, heart fluttering, every nerve set aflame.
I lost track of time, but several heartbeats passed before Raithe finally drew back, his gaze meeting mine once more. He still
held my head gently between his palms, and one long thumb brushed my cheek as he gave me a small smile.
“What about now?” he murmured.
I knew the threads were gone before I looked up. The world was back to normal, though if I concentrated, I could see an ominous
shimmer in the air. Quickly, I looked away, and the gleam of threads faded.
“They’re gone,” I said, slumping in relief. “I guess I have to stop concentrating on seeing the Tapestry for the threads to
fade out of sight.”
Raithe nodded. “I’m glad,” he said, and I heard the relief in his own voice. “Because if that didn’t work, I was going to
have Meeka bite you to snap you out of it.”
Meeka sneezed, sounding indignant. “Not bite human. Human taste terrible, probably. Worse than dead grub.”
Raithe’s expression lightened for a heartbeat before he sobered. His voice held a note of awe as he gazed at me. “You can truly see the strands in the Weave, like the goddess of Fate herself,” he almost breathed. “But how can you use this power to fight the Deathless King?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “I don’t know what I can do, and . . . I’m terrified to try. I can’t just casually mess around with the threads of Fate—what if I alter the future
so much it becomes worse than the one with the Deathless King?”
Raithe didn’t tell me that idea was ridiculous or impossible. Instead, he rose, drawing me up with him. “We’ll figure it out,”
he said. “Maederyss wouldn’t have given you this power if she didn’t think you could handle it. But we do need to know what
you’re capable of, Sparrow. So that you’ll be ready when we face the king.”
I shivered. The thought of standing toe-to-toe against the godlike power of the one who had single-handedly destroyed my city
made me sick. I had no idea what to do with this power, what I could do with this power. If I could do anything at all. What good was seeing all the threads in the Weave if I was facing someone
who could turn me to dust with a thought?
Taking a deep breath, I banished my fear. That day was soon, but it wasn’t here yet. “Well, before I do that,” I muttered,
gazing around the vast chamber, at the steep walls surrounding us. “I think we need to figure out how to get out of here.
I don’t see any doors or stairs, do you?”
“No,” Raithe said, also looking around. “Unfortunately, I think the chute we came through sealed behind us when we fell.”
He gazed at the collapsed ceiling far overhead. “We might be able to scale the walls, but it’ll be slow going.”
Meeka stood straight up, tail raised and ears pricked to the sky. “Meeka hears something,” he said.
I gazed up at the hole, seeing the clouds swirling ominously through the opening. Lightning flickered, but I didn’t hear anything
beyond the wind and the faintest bubbling of lava surrounding the temple.
“What do you hear?” I asked the jair’oa.
One ear twitched, and he cocked his head. “Buzzing sounds. And . . . wings.”
“Kysa?” I wondered.
Raithe drew in a sharp breath and took a step back, glaring up at the opening. “No,” he growled. “It’s not Kysa. We need to
get out of here now.”
And then I heard it.
The buzzing sound Meeka pointed out was not the droning of rock beetle wings, but the hum of millions of smaller insects flying
in a swarm. And the beat of wings was not Rhyne’s, it was the ominous thump of tattered leather beating the air.
A huge dark shadow blotted out the sky overhead, and the abomination, dripping beetles, worms, and bits of flesh, landed on
the edge of the crumbled rooftop, opened its rotting jaws, and roared loud enough to make the sands tremble.
Vahn had found us.