Page 110 of The Ascended
“Whose fault is that?”
“Fair point.” He sighed.
We lapsed into silence as he surveyed the horizon, his profile sharp against the crimson sky. He was different here, wearing a confidence that went beyond his usual arrogance. On his ship, surrounded by his element, he seemed almost at peace.
“Where did you learn to sail?” I asked, surprising myself with the question.
He didn’t answer immediately, his gaze fixed on some distant point. “During my mortal years,” he said finally. “Before the Trials. One of the few skills from that time I still value.”
I stared at him, caught off guard by this rare reference to his past. “You never talk about that.”
“There’s nothing to say.” His tone suggested otherwise. “It was a different life.”
“But you were mortal once. Like me,” I pressed, seizing this rare opening.
“I was never like you.” The words held no malice, just simple conviction. “Even as a child, I knew what I was meant to become.”
“The Warden of the Damned?”
“My father’s son.” He adjusted our course with a slight gesture to the helmsman. “The mortal part was... a complication.”
“What about your mother?” I ventured carefully, remembering Miria’s oblique references to Xül’s past. “Was she a complication too?”
A storm gathered in his gaze, and for a moment I thought I’d pushed too far. But instead of anger, his expression settled into a mixture of pain and respect.
“No,” he said quietly. “She is exceptional.” He turned away, effectively ending that line of conversation. “You worked on ships in your village, didn’t you? Oyster boats?”
The sudden shift caught me off-balance. “Yes. Though nothing like this.”
“The principles are the same.” He gestured toward the bow. “Come. Take the helm.”
“What?”
“Unless you're afraid?”
The challenge in his voice was impossible to ignore. I followed him to the raised platform where a Shadowkin stood at the massive wheel. With a nod from Xül, the creature melted away, leaving the helm unattended.
“Here.” Xül positioned me before the wheel. “Feel the current beneath us.”
I had to force myself not to tense as his hands moved my shoulders, my hips. His touch was impersonal, clinical even, but my body responded anyway, a traitorous warmth spreading through me.
What would Thatcher say if he could see me now? If he could feel the confused tangle of emotions that surged whenever Xül was near? Disgust, probably. Horror that I could feel anything but hatred for one of them.
And yet, I was beginning to wonder if Xül was trulyone of them. At times, he seemed to exist in some complicated middle ground.
“You’re distracted,” he observed, breaking into my thoughts. I was. But not in the way he assumed.
For a strange, suspended moment, we stood together, guiding the vessel through waters that lapped too calmly against the ship. I could almost forget who we were—mentor and mentee, death god and mortal, captor and captive. And that was a problem I wasn’t ready to confront.
“There,” he said suddenly, breaking the spell. His arm extended past mine, pointing toward the horizon.
At first, I saw nothing but crimson mist. Then the fog parted.
The Eternal City rose from the sea—towers of onyx and silver spiraling impossibly high, carved directly into cliffs of black stone. Thousands of lights glimmered across its surface, from the harbor at its base to the palace that crowned its peak.
“Welcome to where I grew up,” Xül said quietly. His expression had shifted once more, his features settling into the cold mask of authority he wore like armor. The brief connection we’d shared evaporated as quickly as it had formed. “Remember your place here, starling.”
The reminder stung more than it should have. “As if I could forget.”
