Page 187 of The Ascended
Instead, I found my brother.
Thatcher sat in an ornate chair, shirtless, his pale skin gleaming with sweat that steamed in the air around him. Straddling his lap was the silver-haired woman I'd glimpsed earlier, her back to me as she moved against him. His hands gripped her hips, his head tipped back in abandon.
But his skin. Itglowedfrom within, a red light building beneath the surface. Steam rose from every point of contact between them. Veins of fire carved themselves through his eyes.
"Thatcher!" I screamed, lurching forward.
He turned toward me, movements sluggish, expression dazed. Recognition flickered across his features as he struggled to push through whatever spell had taken hold.
"This is the third trial," I gasped, stumbling toward him, my hand outstretched. “She’s not real!"
I grabbed his arm and nearly screamed at the contact. His skin burned like a forge, searing my palm. But I refused to let go, dragginghim bodily from the chair, away from the phantom lover who was already beginning to dissolve, her perfect features melting like wax, revealing the nothingness beneath.
"Thais?" His voice was rough, confused. "What's happening?"
"Later," I panted, pulling him toward the door. "We need to run. Now."
The corridor outside had transformed in the short time I'd been searching. What had once been elegant hallways were now channeling heat, flames licking up the walls, consuming everything in their wake. The ceiling groaned ominously above us.
As we staggered through the growing inferno, words caught my eye—golden script that seemed to float above the flames:
WHEN HEAVEN FALLS, ONLY THE SKY REMAINS
The messages—I had to make sense of them. To find the rules hidden within the cryptic poetry. We needed to escape this burning palace—that much was clear. But how? We were suspended in the fucking clouds.
Thatcher's clarity seemed to be returning with each step, the unnatural fire in his eyes receding. "The ballroom," he croaked, voice raw from smoke. "We need to find the others."
We navigated the crumbling architecture, ducking beneath falling beams and leaping over patches of floor that had given way to reveal the endless drop below. The grand ballroom, when we finally reached it, was unrecognizable from the place of revelry it had been. The firepits that had seemed so decorative earlier leaped beyond their confines to consume everything within reach.
The space was empty of people but filled with destruction. Chandeliers had crashed to the floor, their crystals shattered across the marble. The elegant draperies had become conduits for flames that crawled and ripped across the vaulted space.
"This way," I urged, spotting a corridor that seemed less consumed than the others. We had taken only a few steps when Thatcher froze, his entire body going rigid beside me.
"Thatcher?" I turned, following his gaze.
There, untouched by the flames, stood two figures that made my heart stop. A woman with dark hair and the same indigo eyes as ours. And beside her, Sulien.
"Thais, no," Thatcher whispered, his voice breaking. "They're telling us to go this way." He pointed down a corridor engulfed in flames, where the two figures gestured urgently, their expressions concerned, loving.
For one heartbeat, I wavered. The woman's face—my mother's face—was everything I'd imagined in my darkest nights. They were offering the family that had been ripped from us, the life we should have had.
A beam crashed nearby, sending sparks skittering across the floor between us, and with it, my momentary weakness shattered.
"Thatcher, it's not real," I said, smoke burning my lungs. "They're illusions, just like the others."
He took a step toward them anyway, his face a portrait of naked longing that cut me deeper than any blade could have. I seized his arm, physically dragging him away from the phantom family that had never been ours to keep.
"It's not real," I repeated, this time letting my own grief seep into the words. "I wish it was. Gods, I wish it was."
Something in my voice reached him where logic couldn't. His expression crumpled, then became carefully blank, the vulnerability sealed away behind walls I recognized too well.
"If they're trying to lead us that way," I said, nodding toward the flame-engulfed corridor, "then we need to go in the opposite direction."
He nodded, and followed me.
We pushed forward, away from our ghosts, into a passageway that seemed marginally safer. The smoke was thickening, making each breath a struggle. I pulled the torn remnants of my gown up to cover my nose and mouth.
Then, cutting through the roar of the flames, I heard avoice.
