Page 21 of The Ascended
I couldn't save him. Couldn't do anything.
Just like Sulien.
Little was known about the proving, but those selected to participate never returned home. What would happen if he didn’t present any abilities?
He had none to show. Would they simply kill him on the spot?
It would have been better if they'd just killed me in the cave. Better to have died beside Sulien than to live with this.
So I let the tears fall. Let myself curl back into a ball and close my eyes, begging for the sweet mercy of the dark to take me once more.
I woketo the sound of my own breathing, harsh and ragged in the silence. I had no way to tell how long I’d been locked in this room. It felt like days and weeks all at once.
But this time, instead of the crushing weight of grief, something else rose in my chest. Something hot and vicious and desperate.
Rage.
Thatcher.
"Thatcher!" The scream tore from my throat. I lurched toward the cell door, my body protesting every movement, muscles stiff. "THATCHER!"
My hands found the iron bars, and I shook them with all my strength. "Where is he? Where is my brother?"
The rage was good. Clean. Better than the suffocating despair. This I could use.
"THATCHER!" I screamed again, pulling at the bars until my shoulders burned. "Let me see him! Let me see my brother!"
The cell felt smaller now, the walls pressing in. I needed out. I needed to find him, to get him somewhere safe, to figure out how to save him before?—
No. I wouldn't think about that. There was only now, and now I had to act.
I stepped back from the bars and raised my hands, reaching for the stars, for the burning heat that could melt metal and stone alike. Power tingled in my fingertips for a moment, then... nothing.
I tried again, harder this time, pulling with everything I had. But the connection was gone, severed as cleanly as if someone had cut a rope.
The cell. Whatever this place was made of was blocking my abilities.
"No," I whispered. Then louder: "NO!"
I threw myself against the bars, ignoring the pain as metal bruised my ribs. "Let me out! Let me OUT!"
Footsteps echoed in the corridor outside. I pressed my face between the bars.
The guard who appeared was like nothing I'd ever seen before. Tall and broad-shouldered, but his skin had an odd metallic sheen to it, like it had been polished to a mirror shine. Clunky patterns covered his arms and face, shifting and rotating as he moved. And his eyes held spinning clockwork irises that whirred softly.
"Keep it down," he said, his voice resonating with an odd harmonic quality, like metal struck at perfect pitch. "You're disturbing the peace."
I stared at him for a moment, trying to process what I was seeing before the rage took over again.
"Fuck your peace," I snarled, gripping the bars. "Where is my brother? Bring me to him right now!"
The guard's strange eyes clicked as they focused. "That is not up to me."
"Then bring me to someone it is up to!" I shook the bars again. "You're making a mistake. My brother has no powers!"
"You wouldn't be in these cells at all had you offered yourself willingly," the guard replied with infuriating calm. "We only detain those who tried to hide their blessings. The contestants who came forward are waiting in luxury, being pampered as we speak."
I didn't give a damn about the other contestants or how well they were being treated. I needed to save Thatcher. I couldn't save Sulien, but I would save my twin if it was the last thing I did.
