“Greetings again, Fateless.” The queen smiled, and it seemed to light up the room. I was struck again by how beautiful she was. “Welcome to Irrikah. I trust you and your companions have found your stay pleasant so far?”
“Yes, thank you,” I said.
“I have spoken to my kahjai about the events that happened in Kovass,” the queen went on, gesturing to Raithe, who didn’t move. “Please accept my condolences for the loss of your city and its people. I can only imagine the terror and chaos that came of a Deathless rising into existence once more.”
You really can’t, I thought. You’d have to have been thereto understand the scale of absolute horror and destruction the Deathless King had wrought upon the capital. The screams, the panic, the roar of buildings as they toppled around you, raising billowing clouds of dust to choke out the sky... It was like the end of the world had come. No one who hadn’t stood in the city that day could imagine what it was like.
Or maybe I was wrong. Maybe the Deathless queendidunderstand. Maybe, in the ages long past, she had done something like that herself.
Obviously, I did not say any of this out loud. I wasn’t even certain I should bethinkingit. If the queen could read my thoughts or sense what I was feeling, she would not appreciate it. I simply nodded, and the queen did not press the matter further.
“Given everything that has happened to you, Fateless, I am grateful that you agreed to come here at all. Especially since I know my kahjai. Their secretive nature is sadly necessary for our survival, but I can imagine this one”—she spared a glance at Raithe, who continued to gaze straight ahead, blank-faced—“was not entirely forthright with you.”
A lump caught in my throat, and I swallowed it quickly. “He told me what I needed to know,” I said, not looking at Raithe, either. “He said that I was Fateless, and that it was important that I come and speak with you.”
“But not that I was Deathless. At least, not according to your reaction.” Her pupilless black eyes shifted to Halek and Kysa standing beside me. “All of your reactions.”
I bit my lip hard. The queen already saw far too much. I wondered if this was magic, or simply that she had lived such a longtime, she could see everything happening around her, no matter how small.
When I didn’t answer, the queen made a small motion at Chancellor Llorek, standing off to the side. The chancellor straightened and clapped his hands sharply, the noise echoing through the room. Immediately, the rest of the iylvahn in the chamber turned and left, filing out through the massive doors. Chancellor Llorek bowed low to the queen before he, too, strode from the room, the doors swinging noiselessly shut behind him.
The Deathless queen smiled at me once more. “I know it must have been a shock, Fateless,” she went on. “Believe me when I say I understand your reservations. Watching another of my kind destroy your city, hearing the stories of the ancient kingdoms and the tyranny of their rulers—nothing you’ve learned about the Deathless has been good. But you have heard only fragments, tiny grains in an infinite desert of knowledge. The truth about my kind stretches farther than anyone save the goddess can remember. If you are to have any hope of surviving the king’s plans for this world, you must understand how the Deathless came to be.” Her perfect lips thinned, the void in her eyes becoming even darker. “It is not a tale I would tell lightly. Or at all, if circumstances were different. Most have forgotten. My fellow Deathless, in the long, long centuries of our reign, many of them forgot where we came from. But I never forgot. And the king you will face soon... he has not forgotten, either.”
The king I will face soon.
I felt sick, like I couldn’t catch my breath, as the scenario Ihad been terrified of the most became a horrifying reality. The queen wanted me, a small, insignificant thief from Kovass, to stand against the godlike power of the Deathless King and... what? Kill him? Slay a being that couldn’t die, even at the hands of other Deathless? Who could pull down whole cities with a thought, bring ancient abominations back to life, and end the lives of thousands of souls on a whim... What was I supposed to do against that kind of power? Even if I was Fateless, I had nothing, just my wits, my luck, and the uncanny ability to survive. That was not going to be enough when facing the Deathless King.
“You will be the first mortal souls in thousands of years to hear this tale,” the queen went on, unaware—or uncaring—of my sudden terror. “Not even my own people know how the Deathless came to be. But if the Fateless is to save this world from absolute subjection, to stand even a sliver of a chance against the king, you must understand his past. And, thereby, his weakness. Are you prepared for what that will mean, Fateless?”
I swallowed hard, a tiny flutter of cautious hope breaking through the surging fear. The Deathless King had a weakness? If I knew what it was, would it help me? He was still godlike in his power. The problem wasn’t knowing the king’s weakness, it was getting close enough to use it without being turned to ash as soon as he saw me.
But I would take anything at this point. Any hint or sliver of hope, no matter how small. I had already made the promise—to Raithe, to myself, to everyone—that I wouldn’t run anymore. Iwas tired of secrets. I wanted to know everything, no matter how terrifying or impossible it seemed. If it was up to me to destroy the god who had been reborn into our world, then I would do my best. And hope that, somehow, impossibly, it would be enough.
I took a furtive breath to steady myself and looked up into the depthless black eyes of the queen.
“Yes.”
Six
“This is the tale of those beings known as Deathless, and how, through one act of blasphemous desperation, they set into motion the events that would ruin the world.”
The queen’s voice echoed around us, coming from everywhere and nowhere.
“Some ancient scholars of history claim that the Deathless were never born into the world at all,” she continued. “That we, like the Weaver herself, were always here. Gods among men.” She took a deep breath, as if the next words were difficult to say. “That is not true.
“No one save the Deathless can remember this far back, but in the earliest days, before civilization spread across the lands, the Deathless were mortal. Men and women, like everyone else. Our souls were bound in the Weave, our threads woven with all others in the Tapestry of the World. Maederyss, the goddess of Fate, was much closer to mortals back then. She was not some unseen, unreachable deity far removed from daily struggles of mere mortals—back then, Maederyss was beloved. Her temples were full of devout worshippers and Priestesses of the Path, those dedicated to guiding the souls down whatever road Fate dictated for them. It was said that the priestesses had the ear of thegoddess, and if you were particularly dedicated, they could convince Maederyss to ‘nudge’ your thread in a different direction.
“But there were those among Maederyss’s children who were not content with their place in the Weave. Among these were a handful of souls who had mastered the ancient magic of the world. They were powerful and feared, sorcerers who could manipulate the elements around them. But still they wanted more. They wished to be free of the threads of Fate, to tear their souls from the bindings of the Tapestry. They rejected their place in the story of the world and sought to become the narrators of their own tales. If they could rip their souls free of the Tapestry, their threads would no longer be present within the Weave, and so Maederyss could not cut them and end their story. They would be free not only of Fate, but from Death itself.”
It didn’t feel as if we were being told a story; it felt like we were watching the events unfold before us, even though I could still see the throne room around us and the faces of my friends. The queen’s voice was like a river, flowing through me and filling my head with images, glimpses of an era before.
“So, these thirteen souls began their blasphemous quest to sever themselves from the Weave,” the Deathless queen went on. “Among their number was a Priestess of the Path, one of Maederyss’s most beloved servants. This priestess had been to Maederyss’s inner sanctum atop the highest mountain peak, to the temple where the goddess wove the threads in the Tapestry of the World. Using an ancient, forbidden ritual, the priestess led the souls into the peaceful temple, and they saw Maederyss hunched over her enormous loom. The Tapestry of the Worldflowed from the loom, millions of threads, millions of souls, bound together in the Weave. And the goddess herself, her eyes focused on her eternal task, did not look upon them.
“The thirteen struck without warning. They could not harm Maederyss herself, but they struck at the loom, intent upon ripping their threads from the Tapestry. In their savagery, they broke off a piece of the loom itself and cast it to earth.”
I shivered as the story faltered. The queen paused, her eyes tightening a bit. “To this day, I am uncertain if the goddess predicted this outcome,” she mused, “for Maederyss cannot stop weaving the threads in the story. But whether or not it was foretold, the thirteen had achieved what they’d set out to do. By breaking the loom, they had torn their threads free of the Weave. They were no longer bound by Fate, and their threads could no longer be woven back into the Tapestry.”
“But...” I was struggling to understand all of this, feeling like my head was far too full. “The threads represent everyone’s souls. When we die, our threads are cut until Maederyss can weave them back into the Tapestry and we resume our next life. But if the Deathless have no threads...”
