My heart was racing, a cold sweat trickling down my back as I sat up. On either side of me, the jair’oa kits squeaked in sleepy protest, kicking and twitching as they burrowed closer. I was still in Meeka’s family’s house, surrounded by jair’oa, and there were no sounds of breaking glass or cracking domes spelling doom for the entire city.
A shadow rose from the corner and glided soundlessly across the floor toward me. Raithe, of course. His pale eyes, gleaming in the darkness, shadowed with concern as they met mine.
“Sparrow.” His voice was barely a murmur in the silence of the room. “Nightmares?”
I nodded, looking down at the blankets and the sprawl of jair’oa kits. My heart was still thudding in my ears, though it was staring to calm as reality pressed in. But I could still hear the chilling crack of the glass dome in my mind, filling me with quiet dread. “I wish they would stop,” I muttered. “I can’t even close my eyes anymore without seeing them.”
Raithe stepped close. Very gently, he scooped up the sleeping jair’oa and moved them to a nest of blankets on the couch. Hismovements were so smooth and calm, not one of the kits woke up. They snuggled against one another in a tangle of paws and tails, squeaked in their dreams, and continued to sleep.
I was watching one kit unconsciously gnaw the back foot of another kit when Raithe sat beside me on the bed and pulled me close. Surprise flickered in my chest, but with his arms around me and the solid thump of his heart in my ear, my fear eased and the wild roiling of my stomach calmed. I closed my eyes, relaxing into him.
Raithe didn’t say anything, just let the solidness of his presence soothe the fears clawing at me. For a moment, guilt pricked me. We had been traveling hard, through some of the harshest climates, on very little sleep. And while my recurring nightmares seemed to be getting worse, they were, after all, just nightmares of the nonmagical variety. I wasn’t sleepwalking to my death; Vahn wasn’t showing up in my dreams specifically to torment me.
“You know, you don’t have to do this every time I have a bad dream,” I murmured, keeping my voice low so as not to wake up the kits sleeping soundly close by. “I’ll be fine, Raithe. I’m sure you would like to sleep through the night once in a while as well.”
I felt his smile above me. “Kahjai don’t sleep, Sparrow, haven’t you heard the stories?” he murmured back. “We are soulless creatures of the night that feed on death and terror, at least according to some outside legends.”
I couldn’t help but snort at that. The kahjai were feared for a reason, of course. Raithe was undeniably dangerous, skilled,and very good at what he did, but he was the farthest thing from a soulless creature I had ever known. The longer we traveled together, the closer we grew, the more obvious that became.
“Besides,” he went on, and his voice had gone very soft, “I want to be here when you need me. Whenever you’re afraid, or hurt, or worried. I want you to be able to come to me. You’ve had so much put on you, Sparrow; I can’t even imagine the burden you’re carrying right now. I can only promise that I’ll be here for whatever you have to face, be it nightmares or demon abominations.” He ran a hand over my head, his fingers sliding through my hair. “You are my mission now. And don’t worry,” he added, the smile lingering in his voice. “I still remember my promise not to die. You don’t have to face anything alone. I hope you know that.”
Never trust akahjaiwith your heart.
I shoved the queen’s voice back, ignoring the tendrils of doubt that kept trying to curl around my heart. This time, I would not let them sink in.
I raised my head and met his gaze. His eyes, open and defenseless, glowed a pale silver in the dim light of the hut. Softly, I touched his cheek, and his hand came up to cover my own, fingers curling around my wrist. I leaned in, and he closed his eyes as our lips met, igniting a writhing flame in the pit of my stomach.
And then I heard a squeak from the other bundle of blankets and glanced over.
Six pairs of beady black eyes stared back, noses and whiskers twitching, all ears pricked in our direction. The flame in mystomach instantly spread to my face and neck. I pulled back from Raithe and heard his sigh of amusement and disappointment as I did.
“Um...” I began, not knowing what to say. They twitched their ears at the sound of my voice. “Sorry to wake you guys up. We were just—”
A rumble went through the floor, freezing the words in my throat. The kits also froze, looking like sand mice staring down a hawk, before they scattered.
I gasped as another tremor went through the ground, and alarmed squeaks and chitters began to rise into the air. Leaping upright, I fled outside with Raithe and found Halek and Kysa in the street. The rock beetles were behind the insect rider, both of them huffing and tossing their heads in agitation as jair’oa scrambled around them.
As I had in my dream, I looked up—straight up—and terror gripped me with a stone fist.
The glass dome was crawling with beetles. I could see thousands, millions, of the hard-shelled insects scurrying through the sand, flailing their legs against the glass. The streets of the nest were filled with jair’oa, bouncing over one another in either excitement or panic, their chittering voices rising into the air.
“Goddess,” I whispered, as the horror squeezing my insides crushed the air from my lungs. “Vahn is here.”
“Not quite,” Kysa muttered, also glaring at the massive swarm over our heads. “But it’s coming. The abomination is close.”
“Human creatures!”
Meeka bounced toward us, long legs propelling him easilythrough the crowds. “Quickly! Follow Meeka!” he cried, “We go to Rememberers now! Not that way,” he added as I turned in the direction of the glass temple. “Must go to island! Rememberers wait for us at creator king’s shrine. This way!”
And he bounded off toward the underground lake. I tried to follow, but it was nearly impossible keeping up with a single jair’oa when the streets were swarming with them. I almost instantly lost Meeka in the crowds.
Kysa gave an impatient sigh as we tried to move through the jair’oa swarms. “This is ridiculous,” she muttered, and turned toward Rhyne, following along behind us with Ratuk. A short whistle brought the rock beetle to her side, and she swung into the saddle, shooing away the jair’oa already perched on his back. “There he is,” she announced, as Rhyne tossed his head with a snort. “I can see a bridge to a small island out on the lake. That must be the shrine the creature was talking about. Let’s go. Fatechaser, you’re with me.”
“Ratuk,” I called, and heaved myself onto his back, settling into the saddle. From this higher vantage point, I could see what Kysa was talking about. Over the scurrying swarms of jair’oa, I spotted the glimmering expanse of the underground lake. A small island sat in the middle of the dark waters, a wooden bridge connecting it to the land.
Raithe slipped into the saddle behind me and curled an arm around my waist. “There goes Meeka,” he said, just as I spotted the tiny, bouncing form making its way across the bridge. “The three Rememberers are on the island as well.”
“Let’s go, Ratuk,” I said, and the rock beetle lurchedforward, plowing through the mobs of jair’oa swarming the streets. At first I was afraid he would crush the tiny creatures beneath his bulk, but the jair’oa sprang aside or darted out of the way, often at the last second, as the rock beetle lumbered through the city.
