Page 45 of Ascendent
Was Sergey the boy or the bonfire?
Run.
Sergey stroked his forehead, brushed back his hair. “You’re freezing,Sashunya. Are you sure you’re all right? Should I call Dr. Voronov?” He was already moving to his phone, dialing numbers.
“No.” Sasha grabbed his wrist. “No, I’m fine. I just need…” He swallowed.
Sergey waited.
“You.” He hissed. His heart burned, ached. His skin writhed with icy flames. A bonesaw pain lacerated his soul. He heard violins screaming. “I just need you.”
He’d always, always, craved the pain. He’d stay where it hurt, where he leaped through flames, where he was a candle melting in darkness.
Sergey’s smile was the midnight sun, the endless white nights, glittering ice that looked like diamonds a thousand times the size of Svetlana’s décolletage. He nodded, scooted onto the bed. Slid beside Sasha and braced against the pillows. “Anything,” he said. “Always, anything for you.”
* * *
In Sergey’s arms,his sleep was dreamless.
The ice stayed away. Siberia did not call to him.
He was warm.
He woke rested, with Sergey beside him on his laptop again. Sergey’s clothes were different. Was it tomorrow?
Financial reports seemed blurry on Sergey’s laptop screen, and Sasha tried to focus, tried to understand. Deep furrows creased Sergey’s forehead, caverns of worry that were new. He wanted to know what had put that despair into Sergey’s gaze.
Sergey slapped the laptop shut and tossed it aside as soon as Sasha stirred. “Zvezda moya, how are you?”
“Hungry.”
Sergey ordered a mountain of food, anything he’d ever seen Sasha eat, it seemed. He feasted on beef stroganoff,blini,knish,khinkali, and evenkhachapuri. Sergey seemed to want to feed him forever.
He’d been lying in bed, dozing for days, nibbling on weak soup and crackers as his body healed. His incisions were closing. Most of the time, he didn’t feel any pain. Dr. Voronov had him on antibiotics for the next two weeks, but other than that—medically—he was fine.
Dr. Voronov could do no more for him.
After they ate—an after-midnight dinner, according to the clock—Sergey poured a whiskey and lay on his side on the bed. “Do you feel better now?”
“Rested.” He sniffed himself. “I smell.”
“Only a little.” Sergey held up his hands in a pinch. He smirked. His grin faded. “You said something the last time you woke. Yesterday.”
Siberia. The wind blew through his soul. Snow built along his bones. Ice patterns appeared on his skin that only he could see.You cut it out of yourself. I left the door to the underworld open, so it can come back.
What if instead of his soul coming back, Sasha was falling into the underworld? What if he was disappearing into the ether? The world was getting warmer. Was Siberia going to unfreeze? What if everything he was fell through the soggy taiga, through the sodden permafrost, and he ended up upside down in the hollow underbelly of the world?
“I need to go back to Siberia. I need to find Kilaqqi.”
Sergey exhaled. “So that wasn’t delirium.”
“I need to see him.”
“Why?”
How on earth did he even begin? “He… helped me. He saved my life. Things happened so fast, and I was focused on finding you, especially after Ilya told me about the prison breaks…” He shrugged. “I need to find him, try and make things right. Thank him, somehow. His tribe suffered because they helped me.”
And I think I’m being split in two. I think I’m dying. Or I’m dead already. I’m turning to ice. And the only one who can save me, save my soul, is Kilaqqi.
