Page 64 of Ascendent
“Oh.” He exhaled. Scrubbed his hands over his face. Ash and snow burned his skin with their bitter chill.
The choice was to live or to die. He couldn’t go on without Sergey. He didn’t want to live without him, not anymore. His life, his soul, had grown too full of the man. Like the ice sliding through his veins, slipping between atom and nucleus, between bone and sinew and flesh, Sergey had worked his way into his life. There was no going back.
To live or to die. If he sat back, if he fell into the ash, that would be it. His anguish, the length of his miserable life, would be over. He’d shatter into a billion particles, the ice of his nightmares, the ice that had haunted him for weeks and months. That trailed his shadows, grew out of his mind, his heart. He could end it all, right now.
He heard the sound of his soul, the long, wailing note, blowing through bone, strumming from a violin at the end of the world.
He held out his hand to Kilaqqi. “Will you help me find my soul?”
* * *
This wasthe land of the dead.
Desolation stretched from one end of time to the other. Things that once had been alive were left to wither, every spark of starlight strangled from their existence. Ghosts and dust filled the underworld, tumbled through the air on moans and screams.
He saw bodies in the distance. Bodies on the ground, face down. Mirages appeared nearby, spectral phantasms of the Arctic ice, a destroyer embedded in the ice sheet, a submarine sail sticking up from the cracked white landscape. A helicopter hovering over the snowy taiga. Moscow, the Kremlin. Sochi, a lake house.
“The dead from your life,” Kilaqqi mumbled. “Death is familiar to you.”
He said nothing. They walked on, their feet kicking up ash that turned to snow, that turned to ice. The wind picked up, screaming that single note. He felt himself vibrate with the sound, the sound that had always been within him.
The ash grew deeper. The wind blew stronger. Snow clouded their vision. Above, the stars grew dim, as if they were losing their light, as if they were being drained. He could barely see anything above him. Darkness caged the world.
Corpses ringed the distance, lying in piles and piles that stretched into infinity. Pools of red seeped from the bodies, reaching for them. He watched it spread. It seemed to want to cover the entire world.
Slowly, one by one, the corpses rose. Jerky movements brought them from the ground to their knees, and then to their feet. They wore flight suits and uniforms, things he could barely make out through the distance. They stayed still. Standing. Watching.
Kilaqqi stopped. He seemed to freeze, his eyes wide, staring at the risen dead. “What evil is this?”
The dead closed them both in a loop that surrounded the world. Blood rained from their eyes, their ears, their mouths, poured down their fronts, into the ash and snow. The crimson liquid was slipping faster toward Sasha, coming from every direction. Waves of it crested, crashed.
“We must find your soul!” Kilaqqi grabbed his hand, tugged him forward. “Something evil is growing here. This is the land where all things die. Where everything ends. Nothing gains power here. Everything withers. But now the dead are standing up. Something is growing here. Something is trying to reach the stars.” He started to run. “Hurry!”
They raced on. Snow billowed harder, blew more fiercely in their faces. He couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, not over the sound of his soul’s wailing. Something billowed up out of the ashy drifts, a presence, a weighty thing that knocked him sideways. He lost Kilaqqi’s hand. Went down in the ash and snow hard.
“Sasha!”
And then—
Stillness. Every snowflake hovered, shivering in midair. Nothing moved. Not the wind, not the seeping blood. Not even his breath.
He kneeled on the ground, naked. Before him, the shape of a man made entirely of ice kneeled as well, cowering. The ice man curled inward, over himself, screaming as loud as he could. The sound made Sasha’s ears bleed, made his bones scratch. It wasthatnote, the sound of his soul, stretched and warped by time and anguish. It was the sound of a soul dying.
It was him. It was his soul.
Sasha stared. This was what he’d cut out. Loneliness, heartache, despair. Agony. The things he’d hated, the things he’d feared, the things about himself he’d always askedwhy, why, why. Why him, whythisway? Why did he crave men? He’d carved and cut and eviscerated, tried to throw everything he despised away.
The icy figure stared at him. A featureless face, but carved like a mirror of his own bones, his own body. He reached out, cradled the frozen cheek.
It shivered. It turned into Sasha’s hold, pressed its cheek into his palm.
Could he take himself back? Could he bring the ice inside of him? Could he let everything he hated melt back into his being?
His frozen soul shifted, pressed closer. Reached out, a mirror of Sasha’s hold, and cradled his cheek. The touch was warm, so warm, like Sergey was touching him, like he was back home. He felt the sun rise in his chest, felt the warmth of a fire, felt the lightning in his heart that Sergey always brought to him. He—
Shrieking. His soul screamed, dropped down to the snow, buried its face in the ash. It rose, its hands covered in blood, blood dripping down its arms, streaming down its crystalline body. He shrieked again, wailed.
Pointed over Sasha’s shoulder.
