Why did you return?
That was an easy one. Out of all the memories so far, this answer came quickly. “Because I didn’t want them to die.”
And if you had died?
“I don’t know,” I whispered. Because the easy answers—I didn’torthey would’ve carried on without me—weren’t what the creature meant, and I knew it. I was the Fateless. I was the only one who could see the loom piece, the only one who couldmaybestop a prophecy that would end up killing the goddess I was speaking to. If I had died there, what would that have meant, for everyone?
“I wasn’t thinking about that,” I went on. “I wasn’t thinking of anything but helping them. If I’d known I would die... I don’t know. I would like to think I would still go back.”
For a long, long time, the cat creature was silent. Long enough for the desperate battle with the abomination to shift and change. Long enough to see myself scale the mast, drop onto the abomination’s head, and plunge my dagger into its bulging black eyes. Seeing it from the ground made me realize how lucky I’d gotten that day. That I hadn’t died or been chewed to pieces by the abomination’s huge, serrated jaws.
I blinked, and then...
“We’re not leaving you, Raithe!”
I spun, seeing four figures and two rock beetles in the center of a dead, ruined town. Around them, statues shuffled closer, reaching for them with pale limbs. And even though I knew this was just another memory, my stomach still writhed in fear. There were so many of them, closing in from all sides. If I hadn’t known what happened, I would have thought this would be the place we all died.
I turned my gaze to the iylvahn and the image of myself, facing each other in the center of approaching death. “My life is not important.” Raithe’s quiet voice carried to me even over the grinding of stone and shuffling feet. “My only duty is to make sure your mission is successful. I am truly sorry for Ratuk, and we will fight as hard as we can before we fall, but you must get tothe World Scar. Everything depends on you finding the piece of the loom.”
I watched myself. And I saw the moment I made the decision. Raithe would not die here. This would not be his fate.
Very well.The voice sent a shiver through me with its finality.I believe I have seen all that I need.
Once more, the sands cleared. Only this time, I was back in the chamber with Meeka and Raithe, the thread-enshrouded tree looming in the background. I was lying on my back, staring up at the broken ceiling, seeing the noxious clouds swirling overhead. My head felt too full, memories I had long forgotten crowding forth, reminding me of past shame and failures. Worse, I didn’t know if any of my choices had been the right ones or if they had just damned us all.
“Sparrow.”
Raithe knelt beside me, Meeka perched on his shoulder. The jair’oa’s eyes were bright with concern as he peered down. Or maybe it was just curiosity.
“Human fell down,” Meeka said. “Fell down and stared at sky. All right now?”
I blinked, testing out my limbs and mind to make sure they worked properly. “I think so.” Raithe grasped my hand and gently pulled me into a sitting position, placing his other hand on my back to steady me. I rubbed my suddenly dry eyes and looked around. “Where did the creature go?”
“I am here.”
The cat monster sat beneath the tree, surrounded by limbsand swaying threads. Her eyes were closed as I approached, Raithe and Meeka behind me, but when I stepped beneath the limbs, those eyes opened, pupilless and bright blue, staring into my soul.
I shivered, but forced myself to take a few more steps, until I stood before the great cat monster.
“Did... I pass?”
Those eyes didn’t blink. “One test remains,” the monster intoned, and my heart dropped.“Or, perhaps, one choice. Power cannot come from nothing, and so a sacrifice must be made. You have a decision,Fateless. Two companions stand beside you.”Her empty blue gaze shifted, landing on Raithe and then Meeka at my side, and a terrible fear lanced through me as those pitiless eyes observed them without emotion. “I will take one of their souls and return it to the Weave,” the monster said, “thus granting you the power of the loom. But you must make the choice,Fateless. Here and now. Which is the one that will die?”
The ground dropped out from under me. I took one staggering step back from the monster, shaking my head, as horror, shock, and despair spread from my heart to every part of my body. “No,” I whispered.
“This is the only way.”The monster stared down at me, her gaze merciless.“Life for power. Sacrifice for salvation. Choose your sacrifice,Fateless. The long-livediylvahnwhose thread is tangled with death? Or the small, short-livedjair’oawith depthless potential? I know there are others outside this temple—theFatechaser, and the one who is bonded to a noble insect. But they are not the souls who stand before me now. Your choices are behindyou. Simply say their name, or point; it makes no difference to me. When their soul is bound into the Weave once more, only then will I relinquish the power of the loom to you.”
My legs gave out, and I sank to my knees in the sand. Heat seared my palms as I curled my fingers into the dust. We had come so far and fought through so much. But this decision would be the one that destroyed me in the end. “Please don’t make me do this,” I pleaded. “I can’t... make that choice.”
“Sparrow.” Raithe knelt in front of me, but I closed my eyes, turning my head so I wouldn’t see him. Wasthiswhat the Deathless queen was talking about? The thought made me sick with horror. The fate that had finally caught up to him... would be by my own hand.
“Don’t even say it, Raithe,” I choked out. “I know what you’re going to tell me, and I can’t do it. Besides...” I peeked up at him, and his soft gaze nearly broke my heart in two. “You made me a promise. You swore you would try to live.”
He brushed my hair back, his expression still unbearably soft. “My entire purpose,” he said, “was to get you here. To do whatever it takes for you to defeat the Deathless King. I’ve kept my promise. I’ve done my best to keep us both alive. But now you have to make the decision.”
“No.”
“I’m not afraid.” His voice was a whisper now. “I’ve never feared death. When I’m gone, my soul will return to the Weave, and when I’m reborn... I will look for you again.” His knuckles brushed my cheek. “But I want a world to return to, Sparrow. A world where my people are safe, where the Deathless King’sshadow doesn’t touch those I care about. A world where Icanfind you again, because I know that you’ll be free. If my death can give you that world, then everything I’ve gone through in this life will have been worth it. But you have to let me go.”
