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it vanished. As it disappeared, I thought I heard the faintest of echoes in my head, and a hint of satisfaction so fleeting,

it might’ve been my imagination.

There you are.

“Sparrow. You okay?” Halek’s worried voice cut through the fading agony. I glanced up and saw him leaning forward, blue eyes

concerned. Raithe, too, was watching me, though he had gone dangerously still, as if waiting for an enemy to show itself.

“I’m... okay, I think.” The pain and the strange feeling were gone, like they had never existed. “I don’t feel anything

anymore. I guess I was just being paranoid.”

“Are you sure?” Raithe said in a low voice. His tone was calm, but his eyes and posture were still dangerous. I nodded. Everything

was normal again, and I wasn’t going to admit that I was starting to feel mysterious pains and hear voices in my head. They

might think the stress was getting to me, or worse, they might believe me and want to investigate further. And I was generally

opposed to anyone prying into my life.

Don’t rely on anyone was one of Vahn’s favorite sayings. If you start depending on others, they’ll let you down, and then where will you be? The only one you can fully trust is yourself.

Thinking of Vahn made my throat close, a heavy weight settling deep in my chest. “I’m tired,” I told them, pushing back my chair. “I think I’m going to turn in early. Halek, if you ever want to double-team someone in Triple Fang, let me know. I bet we could clean out the whole tavern.”

“Sparrow.”

It was Raithe’s voice that reached me as I turned away, not Halek’s. “If you feel you are in danger, don’t hesitate to tell

me,” he said as I glanced back. “I promised to keep you safe, but I need to know what I should be protecting you from.”

I smiled at him. “I’m fine, Raithe,” I said. “Trust me, if I see any shadowy assassins lurking in the halls—well, besides

you, anyway—I’ll be sure to let you know.”

He didn’t smile back. “I do not lurk,” he told me, though a hint of reluctant amusement bled through his voice. Halek stifled

a snort, managing to turn it into a cough, and Raithe sighed. “Just promise me you’ll be careful,” he finished, holding my

gaze. “Sometimes, physical threats are not the most dangerous. The ma’jhet were known to wield forbidden magics. They were

not as powerful as the Deathless Kings, but could be deadly all the same. If you see or feel anything strange, come tell me.

I will keep you safe, but you have to give me the chance.”

I wanted to believe him. I wanted to think that I could rely on the iylvahn, that he would be there like he promised. But

relying on people was dangerous. Raithe was interested in my safety only because he thought I was this Fateless. I wasn’t.

I was just a thief, nothing more. And when Raithe figured that out, he would disappear.

Like everyone else.

I drew back from the table. The iylvahn’s pale, worried gaze followed, making my stomach twist. “I will,” I told him, and left quickly before he could see I was lying.

That night, the dreams were worse.

Vahn’s face loomed above me, cold and dispassionate. In one hand, he held the black soulstone, pulsing with its eerie nonlight.

In the other, he raised a serpentine dagger, the hilt dark and shiny with blood. I lay on a stone altar, iron shackles around

my wrists, and could only watch as the blade rose, a sliver of bloody light shining against the darkness.

The Fateless must die , the robed, hooded figures around me hissed. The Fateless and the Deathless cannot exist in the same era. Kill her, and rid our world of this plague.

Vahn looked down at me, and for just a moment, his face softened, and he was the person I’d once known. “I’m sorry, Sparrow,”

he murmured. “But you should’ve known this was coming. You cannot trust anyone. We are mortal. Betrayal is in our blood. This

is the way of things. Everyone you know will turn on you in the end. Really,” he whispered, and the dagger turned, angled

at my heart, “it’s better this way.”

The knife plunged down, and I closed my eyes.

I jerked awake, heart pounding and cold sweat trickling down my back. My tiny room was dark; the copper lantern hanging from

the ceiling was either broken or had run out of whatever fueled it. Panting, I leaned against the wall, the shadowy visages

of Vahn and the Circle fading into the darkness.

Shivering, I pulled my knees to my chest and pressed my face to them, waiting for my heartbeat to return to normal.

Just a nightmare. Vahn wasn’t here, and I wasn’t chained to a table with the Circle screaming for my death.

Though Jeran was still dead, Kovass was still gone, and the Deathless King was still out there. All because of me.

“Sparrow?” A quiet tap came at my door, and a low voice drifted into the room. “Are you awake?”

Raithe again. My stomach cartwheeled, and I swung my legs off the cot. Pulling up my hood, I rose and took the two steps to

the door. It groaned as I swung it back, revealing the dark hallway and a figure silhouetted in the frame, and my heart seized

up in terror.

A dead Raithe stared down at me, his eyes shriveled pits in his face, the flesh on one side of his head rotted away. I could

see bones and teeth through the holes in his jaw. The smell of decay filled the room, clogging my throat, as what was left

of the assassin’s arm shot forward, bony fingers latching onto my sleeve.

I twisted on instinct, feeling my clothes tear as I wrenched myself out of the skeletal grip. Undead Raithe pressed forward,

raising his other arm. I saw his curved blade coming at my head and ducked, hearing the steel bite into the doorframe. Diving

beneath his arm, I lunged past him into the hallway.

I nearly ran into Halek, who stared at me with glassy eyes, maggots wriggling through his wasted flesh. He clawed at me, and

I leaped back, stifling a scream, as up and down the corridor, doors began creaking open and rotting corpses spilled forth.

They moaned as they saw me, staggering forward with arms raised.

Halek lurched toward me, his jaw hanging at an odd angle, held in place by exposed tendons and strips of flesh. “Run, Sparrow,” he whispered through rotted teeth. “Run.”

Raithe stepped out of my doorway, chillingly graceful even in death. The hollow pits in his skull found me in the corridor,

and his lips twisted in a ghastly smile.

I ran.

The halls of the strider were filled with corpses, reaching for me with bony hands, their eyes blank and staring. Drifts of

sand lay in corners and along the edges of the walls, and my boots kicked up dust clouds, turning the air hazy and thick.

My breath rasped, dry and gritty in my throat, and the overwhelming stench of decay made my stomach turn and my eyes water.

I reached the stairs, intending to go down and lose myself in the nooks and shadows of the lower decks. As I started down

the steps, though, my heart lurched with terror. The bottom of the stairwell was choked with bodies, pressed together in a

moaning, shambling horde. When they saw me, they howled and surged forward, clogging the cramped space even further. I turned

and fled back up the stairs.

Raithe’s terrifying visage suddenly appeared, blocking the floor I had just left. I threw myself aside as his blade swept

down, missing me by a hair. The metallic clank of steel against the wall echoed up the stairwell, sending a chill through

my whole body. I dodged the dead kahjai and continued toward the upper decks of the strider.

Bursting through the door to the outside deck, I gasped, raising an arm to shield my face.

Wind tore at me, shrieking in my ears, scouring my flesh with sand.

Past the railing, I couldn’t see anything through the swirling, raging sandstorm surrounding the deck.

Just like when Kovass fell. I could hear sand beating the sides of the strider and ripping the canvas sails to ribbons.

A thump behind me made me glance back. Rotting faces and bony limbs pressed forward up the stairs, as if they were one terrible

creature of heads and arms and limbs. My heart seized, and I staggered onto the deck.

Sand lashed my skin, ripping at my hair and clothes. The mob of corpses burst out of the stairwell, flooding onto the deck

with moans and howls. They staggered as they stepped onto the deck, wind and sand scouring dead flesh from their bones, making

them even bloodier and more skeletal. But they still shuffled toward me, uncaring of the pieces they were losing, their eyes

blank with hunger.

Fateless .

Across the deck, past the horde of shambling corpses, a fifty-foot head rose slowly over the side of the vessel. It was made

of sand, but even blurred and featureless, I recognized it immediately. The Deathless King, come to massive, terrifying life,

opened depthless black eyes and gazed down at the tiny insects far below.

Come to me, Fateless . The giant’s lips didn’t move, but his voice echoed in the winds, everywhere around me. A hand the size of a cart rose over

the deck, fingers clenching into a fist. You have no place in my new world. I will crush you like an ant beneath me and feast upon your life as you wither to dust. There is no escape.

The dead shambled closer, trapping me against the railing. The looming mass of the Deathless King towered over the ship. My

heart roared, and my breath came in short, panicked gasps as I backed away. No escape. Nowhere to run. I would die here, torn

apart by the bony fingers of the undead or crushed in the grip of the Deathless King.

The wooden railings pressed against my back, and the howl of the sandstorm echoed around me. Everywhere I looked, I saw death,

a creeping tide that would eventually suffocate me.

I leaped onto the railing, dropping my weight to find my balance as the ship lurched and the winds tore at me. With the howling

storm and raging sands, the Dust Sea was obscured from my vision, but I knew it was there, far, far below. What would be worse?