“Oh.” I hadn’t thought of it like that, but it did make sense. Humans were greedy; I knew that all too well. If a king or a sultan heard that a paradise of water and gold existed at the center of a vast, endless desert, how many would immediately try to claim it for themselves?
“All the protections around Irrikah make sense now,” Halek went on, looking thoughtful. “The Maze. The secrecy of the iylvahn. Forgetting everything about the city once we leave. The queen doesn’t want the world to know a Deathless still exists. And she doesn’t want anyone to remember Irrikah. If no one knows what the hidden city is like, no one will try to claim it.”
“I guess so, but...” I thought back to our journey, remembering all the times Raithe had been secretive, deliberately evading questions that had anything to do with the queen. “Hestill should have told me, Halek,” I said. “He didn’t, because he was afraid I would run off. But...” I clenched my fists. “I thought he knew me better now,” I whispered. “I said I wouldn’t run anymore. I promised him I wouldn’t. And he knows that this Fateless thing terrifies me. I don’t know what anyone expects me to do.”
Once more, just for a moment, I wished I was still that simple thief in Kovass. Who looked after herself first and didn’t risk her life for anyone, because that was what was expected in the guild. The thief whose only worries were what she could steal, avoiding the guards, and trying to earn the favor of the Guildmaster. My throat ached at the memories. I longed for those simpler days, back when I wasn’t Fateless. When I was a nobody.
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 DeathlessKing 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 theydohave 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 mightbe 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.
Five
“Why are you here, Raithe?”
Thankfully, my voice didn’t tremble in anger, though I was sure Raithe could sense the emotion anyway. The iylvahn moved gracefully into the room, making no sound as he glided from the pool toward me.
“Apologies for coming in unannounced.” Calm and deep, his voice made my insides squirm and sounded no different than how he’d spoken to me before. “I would have knocked, but I wasn’t certain the door would not be slammed in my face.”
I blinked, confused. I was expecting Raithe to be cold, stiffly formal, maybe even angry. I had been bracing for him to treat me like a stranger. But the iylvahn standing before me tonight, his expression open and strangely unguarded, seemed almost mournful.
No.I shook myself. I couldn’t let him get to me. Raithe served a Deathless, just like Vahn. The man who had raised me, who’d been a father figure for seventeen years, who’d taught me everything I knew within the guild; when the time came, he’d tried to sacrifice me to the Deathless King. I doubted Raithe would ever go that far, but I also knew he was loyal to his queen. If she commanded him to do something, he wouldn’t hesitate.
