“So they’re happiest when they’re eating or getting into a fight.”
“Essentially.” Kysa glanced upward, checking to see where Namaia was in the sky. It was getting unbearably hot, even under the rock beetles’ shelter. The sands around us were rippling in the heat. “Come,” she said, stepping away. “We’ve done all we can for them now, and Demon Hour is upon us.” She paused, then put a gauntleted hand on my shoulder. “I would not worry about your mount too much yet. It takes a great deal to break a rock beetle’s spirit completely, and Ratuk is strong. Once we reach the World Scar, I assume things are going to get much more dangerous. Finding a fight there should not be hard.”
I grimaced. “I thought getting into fights was something we should try to avoid,” I said. “Especially in a place like the World Scar.”
“Agreed,” Kysa said amicably. “One should always try to avoid fights. But, as we learned with the kahjai’s land of possessed statues, that does not mean we will be successful.”
She had me there. I wondered what sort of creatures roamed the boundaries of the World Scar, if anything lived there at all. Raithe had said the Deathless had tried to make the land completely inhospitable; did that mean nothing could survive there? Or would we discover that they had filled the land with unspeakable monsters, to further make certain nothing would reach Maederyss’s loom?
As I stepped from beneath the shelter, I was immediately hitwith the intense heat of peak Demon Hour, the suns’ rays scorching the top of my head even through my hood. Quickly, I started for the tent, following Kysa across the molten desert sand. Halek was nowhere to be seen; he had likely already retreated inside, but Raithe stood near the entrance, watching us approach. Silently, he pushed back the tent flaps, holding them open so Kysa and I could duck inside. The insect rider did so immediately, giving him a curt nod as she passed. I smiled at him gratefully and retreated into the welcome darkness.
The inside of the tent was warm enough to cause sweat to trickle down my back, but it was better than being out in the heat of Demon Hour. Inside, Halek already sat against one wall, legs crossed and gazing in concern at Meeka. The jair’oa crouched in a corner, peering intently into his satchel, which sat on the floor in front of him. His ears were pressed flat against his head, and his whiskers were trembling.
“Meeka?”
The jair’oa looked up at me with wide black eyes. Without a word, he lifted the satchel and upended it on the floor of the tent.
A pile of dead grubs tumbled from the pouch, flopping limply to the ground, their glow completely gone.
“Star grubs all dead.” Meeka looked from the pile of insect corpses to me, his eyes black and watery. “Star grubs gone. Magic gone.”
I knelt beside him. “What does this mean, Meeka?” I asked.
“Meeka still has a little magic.” The jair’oa looked at his paws. “Meeka can blink maybe once, maybe twice. Maybe more. But magic will be used up, and Meeka has no way to get more.”He stared at the grub pile, his tail waving slowly behind him. “Meeka feels strange,” he said.
Alarm spiked. Was the jair’oa sick, too? Did he have to consume star grubs or he would die? “Strange how?” I asked. “Do you feel weak? Does anything hurt?”
“No.” The jair’oa shook his head, making his ears flop. “Meeka doesn’t hurt. But Meeka feels...” He blinked. “Meeka does not know what this is. Meeka feels...”
“Sad?” Halek offered.
The jair’oa cocked his head at him, then looked at me. “What is sad?”
I blinked. I had no idea how to answer that question. Had the jair’oa never felt sad or scared or anxious before? I remembered his seeming indifference to the fate of the nest and his family. Did jair’oa live so much in the moment that nothing fazed them?
I didn’t know what to say to Meeka’s question. Fortunately, Halek was there. “Well,” the Fatechaser began, “it depends. Has something made you feel happiness or joy before? Have you ever been excited about something?”
“Meeka has been happy,” the jair’oa said. “Meeka is happy when Meeka finds treasures in buried city. Meeka happy when Meeka makes something new, or fixes broken things. Meeka is excited when Meeka uses magic. All make Meeka happy.”
Halek nodded. “Being sad is the opposite of that feeling,” he explained. “It’s the absence of joy or happiness. It can make you feel hollow, or empty. It makes you want to cry, which is what humans do when they’re sad. Sometimes, it makes you feel likenothing is right in the world, and you just want to curl up and be alone for a while. Sometimes it makes you order the strongest d’wevryn ale they have, drink yourself into a stupor, and wake up in an alley behind the tavern with your coins missing and all your clothes gone.” He gave a half-painful grimace. “That one probably isn’t applicable here, though.”
“Meeka not understand last example.” The jair’oa twitched his nose. “But Meeka does feel... sad.” He looked at the pile of dead grubs again, folding his ears back. “Meeka not know what to do now. How will Meeka survive World Scar lands with no magic?”
“The same way any of us survive,” Kysa said. “By staying together and depending on each other. A lone warrior is vulnerable, but if they have their brothers and sisters around them, they are much harder to defeat.”
Meeka blinked. “Brothers and sisters steal Meeka’s food and kick Meeka when sleep,” he said, curling his whiskers in distaste. “And break Meeka’s things. Not fight for Meeka, either.”
“But we will,” Raithe said quietly.
I nodded. “That’s right—we all have to stick together to make it through the World Scar,” I told the jair’oa. “We’ll protect you, even if you don’t have any magic.”
He shook his head. “Meeka remember why Meeka is here,” he said. “Not forget yet. Was sent to help human Fateless get goddess loom. Meeka’s magic strong—stronger than other jair’oa. Rememberers know, that is why they told Meeka to go with human creatures. But if Meeka has no magic, Meeka cannot doanything.” He looked at the pile of grubs and curled his whiskers. “Meeka is like dead star grub. No magic. Good for nothing now.”
“Meeka...”
He started gathering up the pile of grubs, not putting them back into his satchel, but holding them in his arms. He moved quickly, and in a few seconds, all the larvae had been scooped up.
“What are you doing, mouse?” Halek wanted to know.
