Page 66 of Immortal Sun

Each wave carries the flame like it was born to. Does he know I’m watching him?

I’m suddenly terrified—no, that’s not the right word—I’m hallucinating and thinking I need to get treatment. Hands shaking, body trembling, I grab onto the tree for comfort while Rat runs around my feet squealing as if to say he’s panicked too.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t think.

Am I sick?

Is something wrong with me?

First the disappearing shop and now this?

Cyrus stands, throws his jacket back like he’s annoyed it’s heavy, and starts walking decisively across the flames that suddenly carry him across the Sound.

“This isn’t real,” I whisper to myself. “None of this is real, I’m in a coma or something.” I smack my thigh then pinch my arm.

Rat stops moving. He sits by my feet and watches while I move towards the rocky edge.

Bast somehow makes it out to me and walks, slowly, resolutely toward the cliff and sits, like he’s waiting for his owner, like this is normal.

My voice is stuck in my throat as Cyrus moves across the flames, his coat blowing in the wind, his expression fierce. Oh, shit his coat is on fire too!

He’s angry.

An angry god among men.

Reality is gone.

All I have is fantasy.

All I have is him walking.

I start to count the steps he takes to keep myself from screaming, from freaking out, calling the cops, from getting admitted to the psych ward.

My hands can’t help but cling to the rock harder like it can somehow anchor me in my own reality rather than this.

Cyrus stops halfway on the flaming bridge and looks up. I half expect fire to start falling from the sky, but instead he kneels on both knees like he’s about to pray, immersed in both flame and water.

The sky rains fire.

And while I’m watching, he opens his eyes. They lock onto mine, and I’m burning in them.

Singed alive with the heat of them.

I start to walk.

And I don’t stop until I’m at the cliff, near the path’s edge, standing.

Bast meows at my feet.

Rat nips at my ankles.

I take the first stair.

The second.

I take the third, and I don’t move my gaze from Cyrus’s. His eyes swirl with madness.

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