Page 270 of The Ascended
Was this death?
No. Not death.
I clung to myself in that endless dark. To my name. To my memories. To my hatred. To my purpose. I was Thais Morvaren, and I would not let him take anything more from me. I had fought too hard and for too long to let this cosmic tantrum erase me now. The light could remake my body, could meld my fucking bones, but it would not erase me.
And Olinthar was a fool for letting me get this far.
I held onto the image of Thatcher's face. Of Saltcrest's cliffs. Of our mother's smile, preserved in memory. Of Xül's eyes in firelight. Of Sulien teaching me to braid my hair with clumsy fingers. Of the small, quiet moments that had made up my life before all this. The pieces of myself I couldn't bear to lose.
I might have been on that pedestal for seconds or centuries. The light burned and built and broke, but I didn't. I wouldn't.
And then it stopped.
Darkness crashed down. The sudden absence of pain was its own kind of shock. I gasped, lungs heaving.
Silence pressed against my ears. The chamber waited.
I was alive.
And slowly, light flickered across my vision.
It started as warmth, deep in my chest. This wasn't my power, not the stars I could pull from the heavens. This was something new, somethinginsideme.
The warmth spread, slow at first, then racing through me like wildfire. I wanted to scream but couldn't find my voice.
I raised my hands before my face, desperate for something to anchor me. My skin glowed from within. I tried to call out toThatcher through our bond, but the roaring in my mind drowned out everything else.
A tingling spread through my fingertips. I watched, unable to look away, as delicate lines of molten starlight began to trace patterns across my skin. The luminous threads started at my fingernails, cosmic rivers flowing upward. They wound around my wrists in intricate designs, then continued up my arms, branching and spreading before fading as they reached my elbows.
Something brushed against my shoulders. I looked down to see my hair falling past my chest, longer than it had ever been, growing before my eyes until it reached my waist. The black strands seemed to drink in the light around them, becoming darker than night itself.
The freckles that had dotted my arms since childhood began to change. Each small brown spot shimmered, then transformed into a golden fleck.
I could see the individual motes of dust suspended in the air, feel the weight of centuries pressing down upon the realm. The world exploded into colors I'd never known existed, sounds I'd never heard before, sensations I had no words to describe.
The marble walls of the palace—I could see the veins of mineral deposits running through the stone, the individual crystals catching light at different angles, even the subtle variations of texture invisible to mortal eyes.
I could hear every heartbeat in the chamber, distinguish between them, even sense the differences in rhythm and power between the ancient gods and the newer Aesymar. The rustle of fabric as someone shifted their weight three rows back. Each sound was crisp, distinct, no longer blending together into background noise.
My awareness extended in all directions at once. I could feel the currents of power flowing through the chamber like invisible rivers, sense the age of the stones beneath my feet, even taste the remnants of magic wafting through the air. Smell the layered notes of those present, the fragrances of their domains and magic.
And then, I turned my head.
My gaze focused first on the pedestal directly across from me—empty.
Empty.
But at the base—Gods. Nausea rolled through me. A scorched skeleton, still smoking, crumpled atop the marble. The only thing left of Vance.
Terror seized me.
I searched frantically for Marx. She was hunched over, her skin steaming, wisps of smoke rising from her shoulders. But alive.
Thatcher—
I turned, and found him.
Our eyes met.
