Page 35 of The Ascended
"Sulien."
The name fell between us. Through our bond, Thatcher’s pain struck me. His face crumpled, and suddenly he looked young again. Lost.
"He's really gone, isn't he?" he whispered.
The sob that had been building in my throat finally broke free. "Yeah. He's gone."
"I keep thinking I'll wake up." Thatcher’s voice cracked. "That this is all some nightmare, and I'll open my eyes and he'll be there making breakfast. Complaining about us tracking sand through the house."
I wrapped my arms around him, and he leaned into me the way he had when we were children.
"I can't stop seeing it," he whispered against my shoulder. "The way they killed him."
My throat closed. "He didn't fight back."
"He could have. He was strong. He could have tried to run, could have—" Thatcher's voice was a strained, hopeless thing. "But he just knelt there."
"He was protecting us. Even at the end."
"I should have done something. Should have?—"
"There was nothing we could do." The words tasted like lies. "They had us bound. We were helpless."
"Were we?" Thatcher pulled back, his eyes red and wild. "You had your power. I had... whatever this is that lives inside me. We could havetried."
"And gotten everyone in that cave killed along with him."
"So what?"
“The Aesymar would have descended on Saltcrest in droves.”
He looked away, shaking his head.
"Thatcher—"
"He raised us. Loved us. And we repaid him by getting him murdered in front of everyone he cared about." Thatcher scrubbed at his face, smearing tears and leftover blood. "Gods." He doubled over like he'd been punched. "Gods, Thais, he's really gone. He's never coming home."
“Neither are we.” My grief swelled.
The words hung in the air, sharp and brutal and true. I’d felt that so deeply over the last few days. Knew down to my bones that it was my fault. That my secrets were the catalyst for his death. But it didn’t feel like the truth anymore. Yes, he died for my secret. But there wasno justice in that. It wasn’tright. Nothing about it was right—this brutal thing that sucked us in and spat us out.
“It’s them,” I said, my voice cold and low. "They got him killed. The gods. The priests. This whole twisted system that treats mortals like they’re disposable."
Thatcher looked away, his jaw clenched tight enough I could see the muscle working beneath his skin. "But we're still trapped in it now, aren't we?" His voice was soft enough to disappear. "Die in the Trials or become one of them. Those are our choices."
"I know," I said.
"And if we somehow survive this—" his eyes met mine, haunted and hollow, "—what then? Become like them?" He ran his hands through his hair, a gesture so painfully familiar it made my heart hurt. "Maybe it would be better to just..."
He didn't finish the thought. He didn't need to.
"Is that what Sulien would want? For us to give up?"
"Sulien would want us alive," Thatcher countered, his voice breaking on our father's name. "But at what cost, Thais? To serve in their pantheon? To become monsters ourselves?"
I had no answer for that. We both knew there were no good options left.
Then it occurred to me.
