“Ratuk!” I gasped. “Down!”
One of those front legs streaked out like an arrow. I felt the wind from its passing above my head just as something struck the rock beetle with the force of a hammer. For the first time, I heard the rock beetle’s high-pitched shriek of pain. We plummeted toward the earth, and I clung helplessly to the saddle horn and braced for what was sure to be lethal impact. But then, at the last moment, Ratuk’s wings buzzed to life, slowing our straight downward plunge. He hit the side of a gully wall, careened off, and crashed to the earth. Both Raithe and I were thrown from his back, and the iylvahn pulled me to him, protecting me as we struck the rocky ground and rolled. The impact sent a blaze of agony up my arm, bringing tears to my eyes and a bloom of nausea to my stomach. We rolled to a painful stop and lay there, stunned.
Ratuk.The ground swayed beneath me as I untangled myself from Raithe and looked around for the rock beetle. He lay on his back near the canyon wall, legs moving weakly, wings buzzing in sporadic twitches. He didn’t seem able to get up.
With a hiss, the abomination’s head peered over the wall, hollow eye sockets fixing right on me, and then, with the scuttling of hundreds of legs, it slid into the gully with us. The terrible jaws gaped, mandibles grinding as it loomed overhead, enormous and completely unkillable.
Raithe pushed himself to his feet. The faintest of smiles flickered across his face, his eyes heavy with regret. “Our curse with giant insects continues,” he said, and turned back to the monster. “Though I think it’s my turn to save us.”
“Raithe...”
“Survive, Sparrow,” he whispered, and fearlessly strode toward the monster waiting at the edge of the gully. The abomination opened its jaws and reared up, silhouetted against the sky. The kahjai didn’t stop walking toward the death that awaited him, and the monster lunged.
Brilliant light exploded into the canyon.
I winced, shielding my eyes, as the light seared my vision, turning everything gold and white. The abomination hissed and recoiled, its legs scuttling over the stones, as a star or tiny sun seemed to appear in the air above us. A voice echoed into the canyon, not loud, but it made every stone, every rock and branch and blade of grass, tremble with power.
“Fateless. You have come.”
The light dimmed, fading away to reveal a figure hovering in the air before the abomination. My eyes watered, my vision still blurry from the fall and the light, so the features were hard to make out. But whoever it was, they were very tall, with long white hair flowing behind them in the wind.
The abomination snarled and reared up, legs clicking and mandibles scraping together. Its scythe-like claws came flashing down, and my stomach clenched—I expected to see the figure cut cleanly in two. But the figure suddenlywinkedout of existence for a split second and appeared somewhere else in the spaceof a blink. Its head turned, observing the abomination in a bored, almost annoyed manner.
“Begone.”
There was a pulse of immense power. It rippled through the ground under my feet and shivered through the air, making every hair on my body stand up. I’d felt that kind of power only once before, in Kovass, as I’d watched my city collapse around me.
The abomination was already rearing back for another strike, front claws glittering in the sun. Suddenly, the monster went rigid. Its terrible jaws gaped, going wider and wider, as if two giant hands had grabbed those mandibles and were prying them open. The rest of its body writhed, legs scraping and clicking madly over the stones, but whatever force had it in its grip did not relent. The monster let out one high-pitched scream and then exploded, mandibles ripped away, upper half torn asunder in a spray of yellow goo. The ruined segmented body collapsed onto the gully wall and slid limply to the ground.
My legs shook, and I locked my knees to keep myself upright, as the hovering figure turned from the monster’s limp body and drifted to the ground. It landed before me, and I gazed up into the face of a beautiful iylvahn woman, dark and elegant, standing head and shoulders above even Raithe. Her long hair was like the finest silver threads, drifting around her as if it had a mind of its own. She smiled at me, and it was like a god deciding to be merciful today.
“Greetings, Fateless.” Her voice was a song, soothing and musical, burrowing into my mind. I could feel it coiling around my heart, weaving threads into my soul. “I am Sahmessyia,queen of these lands.” She raised both hands, indicating the Maze around us. “Welcome to my labyrinth.”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t speak. Obsidian-black eyes gazed down at me, ancient and empty as the Void... just like those of another who had the power to destroy the world.
The queen of the iylvahn was a Deathless.
Three
Raithe. Why didn’t you tell me?
I took one staggering step back from the figure before me, knowing I could never outrun her. It was pure instinct, a sand mouse fleeing a snake.
“You will not survive if you run, Fateless.” The queen’s voice was calm, but the power below the surface froze me in place. “Not with that wound. The bite of a Sathis hound will not heal without magical intervention. It will continue to bleed until you pass out and die.”
I dared a glance at my arm. The entire sleeve was drenched in red; blood trickled from my fingers and dripped in a steady stream to the rocks. My stomach went cold, and I looked up at the queen again.
“Don’t be afraid.” Those impassive eyes never wavered. “I can heal you. However, I must return to the city to do it. Unless one of your companions is willing to trade a bit of their life for yours?” She gazed around, her attention drawn to Ratuk, still lying on his back with his legs moving weakly. “Perhaps the rock beetle will suffice. It appears too injured to recover.”
“Leave Ratuk alone,” I gritted out. I didn’t know what she was talking about, but there was no way I would let Ratuk tradehis life for mine. The rock beetle had probably saved our lives already.
“My queen.” Raithe appeared, ghosting past me like a shadow. Without hesitation, he dropped to one knee before the iylvahn woman and bowed his head. “Forgive the Fateless. She doesn’t understand. Her only experience with a Deathless has been in Kovass, when the king destroyed the city right in front of her.”
I glared at him, betrayal hot in my veins. He’dknown. All this time we’d been together, he had been taking me to see another Deathless, knowing full well the horrors I had gone through in Kovass. Knowing the betrayal, the trauma, and the devastation that both Vahn and the Deathless King had inflicted.
“Ah. I see.” The Deathless queen gazed at me again, and to my shock, I saw sympathy in her eyes. “I have already exhausted the life in this area to destroy the Bone Horror,” she said, glancing at the monstrous abomination lying crumpled by the wall. “I did this without touching you or your companions, but if I am to heal you, some living creature must agree to offer a bit of their life in exchange. Not much,” she added, as my insides chilled with horror. “Just enough to close the wound—as I said before, it will not heal on its own. We can either go to Irrikah, where there will be life in abundance, or someone close to you can make the offer.”
We have thesoulstone. We have the life that must be traded.That had been spoken by a ma’jhet, moments before Vahn killed Jeran in cold blood on the altar of the Deathless King. The life he traded to bring a Deathless back into the world. Or,anotherDeathless, it turned out. That was how the magic worked. The ma’jhet sacrificed the living to gain power, and the Deathless stole life from everything around them.
