Page 5 of The Ascended
Thatcher's eyes moved between us, understanding the weight of what bound me even if he couldn't fully share it.
We'd always expected Thatcher to develop gifts too. Divine blood ran through his veins just as surely as mine, and most powers manifested in adolescence alongside the first stirrings of maturity. But years had passed, and while I'd learned to hide constellations between my fingers, Thatcher remained stubbornly, safely normal.
By the time we'd reached our twenties, Sulien had stopped watching him with the same careful anxiety he reserved for me. We'd all quietly accepted that whatever cosmic lottery had granted me abilities had passed Thatcher by.
But that blessing came with its own curse. Thatcher was free to live normally, to make real friends, to build lasting relationships. Yet he didn't. None of us did. My secret had become our family's secret.
We were twenty-six years old and still living like children under Sulien's roof—or rather, in the connected cottages he'd built when we came of age, close enough that we still shared meals every night but far enough apart to maintain some illusion of independence.
Sulien had never remarried, never even courted anyone seriously, though I'd seen the way some of the village women looked at him. How could he risk it? How could he bring someone close enough to notice the careful way we lived? How could he put them in the same danger we faced?
And Thatcher... He laughed and flirted and kept everyone entertained, but I saw the loneliness in his eyes sometimes. The way he pulled back just when things started to get real.
They were both trapped by what I was. Living half-lives because of me.
And neither of them resented me for it. They should have—Gods know I resented myself enough for all three of us. Sometimes I lay awake at night thinking about how different their lives could have been if I just... wasn't. If I volunteered willingly and freed them from the burden.
The thought always brought me back to Sulien's promise, thechain that bound me to this life. But sometimes, in my darkest moments, I wondered if honoring it was actually an act of love or the ultimate selfishness.
“Thais?” Sulien broke through my thoughts. “Do me a favor, go out with Jorik’s crew this week. I know he’s been looking for extra hands. Thatcher and I will handle the beds.”
I nodded slowly. Safer out at sea than on land with the priests looming.
After dinner, I escaped to the beach. The night sky spread above me as twilight deepened to true darkness. I walked along the shoreline until I found a secluded cove, hidden from village eyes by a curve of rocky headland.
Here, I could finally let go. I raised my hands, feeling the connection to celestial energies that pulsed millions of miles away yet somehow lived inside me. Light gathered around my fingers.
I shaped the light into a sphere that hovered before me, casting blue-white illumination across the sand and water. The release was exhilarating, the constant pressure in my chest finally easing.
But even as I reveled in it, the familiar disgust crept in—this gift, this curse, was his. These abilities flowed through my veins alongside his blood, making me both weapon and wound. I was living, breathing proof of tyranny—my very existence the result of violence. Sometimes I wished I'd simply been born blessed like the random mortals who occasionally manifested abilities. At least then my power would have been mine alone instead of a sick, constant reminder of him.
"Impressive," came a voice from behind me.
I didn't startle—I'd felt him through the bond. "Hovering again, are we?" I asked, not turning.
Thatcher moved to stand beside me, his face illuminated by the glow of my light-sphere. "You're getting stronger."
I was. Each year, the power grew more insistent and harder to contain. "Does it scare you?" I asked with a kind of vulnerability that I rarely allowed myself.
"No," he answered. "It's beautiful."
We stood in silence, watching the light dance between my hands. After a while, Thatcher spoke again. "The priests won't find you. We've hidden it this long—two more weeks and they'll be gone again."
I let the lights fade, plunging us back into darkness. "And then another ten years until the next Trials. And then another ten after that. Always hiding, always careful, always afraid."
"Would you rather be taken?" There was no judgment in his voice, just curiosity.
I considered the question, looking up at the night sky. "Sometimes I wonder what it would be like. To be free to use this power. To see what I'm truly capable of."
The truth was, I'd imagined it countless times—standing in some grand arena, drawing down the stars, reshaping their light into weapons of my own. In my fantasies, I was never afraid, never held back by the constraints of secrecy or the limitations of my own understanding. I was simply... free. Powerful. Complete.
My dreams of liberation inevitably soured into self-loathing as I despised myself for even daring to imagine such things.
Sometimes I fantasized about entering the Trials not to ascend, but to destroy. About using what flowed through me not to please the gods, but to hurt them. To make them pay for what they'd done to my mother, to countless others. The darker part of me whispered that it would be fitting justice—to turn the very power he'd forced into existence against him. But that would mean leaving Thatcher behind. Leaving Sulien behind.BetrayingSulien.
"They kill more than they elevate," Thatcher reminded me. "Being taken isn't freedom—it's almost certain death."
"I know." I sighed, feeling our reality settle back onto my shoulders. "It's just... don't you ever wonder what else is out there? Beyond Saltcrest?"
