Page 142 of The Ascended
"Speak your truth," came the command.
Kyren's face contorted with something beyond fear—shame, deep and visceral. He closed his eyes, unable to look at us as he spoke.
"I'm the reason my family lost everything," he said, his voice tight and low. "My mother was a respected merchant, built her business from nothing. Our family name meant something in the trade routes from Easthold to the Coast."
His hands trembled as he continued. "When my powers first manifested, I was fifteen. I could create these perfect illusions—make worthless metals look like gold, cheap stones sparkle like diamonds." His eyes closed briefly, pain etched across his features. "I convinced myself it was harmless. Just a way to help the family business during a difficult season."
Tears leaked from his eyes, dissolving instantly into the surrounding water. "At first, it was small deceptions. Then larger ones. My mother never knew—she thought we'd simply found better suppliers. The pride in her eyes when our profits doubled..." His voice cracked. "I kept going, creating illusory goods for bigger and bigger contracts."
He looked up, his expression raw with self-loathing. "When the deception was discovered, the Guild didn't just punish me. They seized everything—our home, our trading ships, every coin we had. My mother was publicly disgraced, my father imprisoned for fraud."
The sirens conferred in their silent language of light, patterns flashing across their skin.
"Truth," the leader finally declared.
Kyren didn't look back as he swam into his tunnel, disappearing as Marx had before him. His shame seemed to linger in the water, a heaviness that wouldn't dissipate.
What do we do?Thatcher's thoughts rushed through our bond, desperate and searching.
We have to try something,I responded.Some truth that's dark but not... that.
"Which of you is next?" the mer-being asked, its eyes seeming to look through us rather than at us.
I squeezed Thatcher's hand briefly, then moved forward. "I am."
I swam to the platform and placed my keys in their slots, one by one. The memory key, the echo key, the whisper key—each settling with a soft click. Light erupted from the receptacles.
The wall dissolved, revealing my pathway to the surface. Three sirens immediately took position before it, their forms solid and immovable.
"Speak your truth," the leader commanded.
I swallowed hard, searching for words that would satisfy them. "My darkest truth," I began, hoping my voice sounded steadier than it felt, "is that I enjoyed killing. When I took that contestant's life during the first trial, I felt a rush of power unlike anything I've experienced. It wasn't just survival—it was pleasure. And part of me wants to feel it again."
It wasn't entirely a lie. There had been a terrible satisfaction in that moment—a sense of rightness that disturbed me when I allowed myself to think about it.
The beings went still, their patterns freezing mid-pulse. Then, without warning, pain exploded through my mind—white-hot and absolute, as if fire was being injected straight into me. I screamed, the sound distorted by the water.
"Lies carry consequences," the leader said, its voice cold. "Speak your true darkness."
“But that is?—”
The pain returned tenfold, radiating outward from my core until I couldn't tell where it ended and I began. My vision fractured, darkness creeping in from the edges. I was dimly aware of Thatcher shouting, of movement behind me, but I couldn't focus through the agony.
"She refuses truth," the leader announced. "She cannot pass."
Then there was only pain again. Only white, hot lava blasting through me.
"Stop!" Thatcher's voice pierced through the haze. "Let her go!"
The sirens ignored him. I couldn't see, couldn't think, couldn’t breathe.
I screamed.
Then came a sound like nothing I'd ever heard—a deep, resonant tearing that seemed to vibrate through water and bone alike. Pressure waves slammed through the chamber, followed by something hot and viscous washing over me. The pain stopped abruptly.
When my vision cleared, horror wracked me.
The sirens were... everywhere. In pieces. Fragments of what had once been bodies floated in the water around me, already beginning to dissolve. Blood inked through the water, thick and dark, obscuring parts of the chamber. All of them. All of them were dead.
