Page 56 of The Ascended
This time, it was my brother.
The weapon almost slipped from my fingers. I knewit wasn't him—knew it couldn't be him—but the wrongness of seeing Thatcher standing before me, looking exactly as vibrant and alive as the last time I'd seen him made my blood thicken in my veins. Every detail was perfect. The way his dark hair fell across his forehead. The hint of a smile bringing out his dimples. Even the way he held himself, that easy confidence that had always made people gravitate toward him. But his eyes were empty. Cold. Dead.
"You're disgusting," I spat, the words aimed at Xül like poisoned arrows. The thing wearing my brother's face advanced toward me, and I stumbled backward. My sword trembled in my grip. I couldn't do it. It didn't matter that he wasn't real. I couldn't bring myself to raise my blade against that face.
"Learn to put your attachments—your emotions aside," Xül said conversationally. "It’s the only way to survive."
"If I have to kill Thatcher, then I guess we’ll both die."
"And you've proven me right. This is exactly what I thought of you." His voice was filled with cold satisfaction. "I've wasted my time."
Rage flared in my chest, hot and sudden. "Is every mortal emotion simply drained from you the second you ascend?"
I couldn't understand how someone with a mortal mother, who had been mortal himself, could be capable of such cruelty.
"I'm the better for it."
"Have you never loved anyone? Never cared about anything other than yourself?" I was nearly screaming now, any residual feelings of desire I'd felt the night before completely evaporated. They were monsters. All of them.
Xül stayed quiet, watching me with that same amused detachment.
"How does your mother even look at you?" I hissed.
The smirk dissolved from his face slowly. His eyes went dark. And in an instant, Thatcher was coming at me, no warmth left in those features. Its sword whistled through the air where my head had been a heartbeat before. I threw myself to the side, sandflying as I rolled and came up in a crouch. Thatcher followed, moving with unnatural speed. "Fight me!"
The words didn't come from my brother's voice. Instead, a thousand whispers intertwined, pouring from his mouth like smoke. The sound was wrong—a chorus of souls speaking in unison, their voices layered and discordant, scraping against my ears.
I parried desperately, our blades meeting in a shower of sparks. It was stronger than the other souls had been, faster, more skilled. Every attack came with brutal force.
"I can't," I screamed, even as my sword moved to block another strike. "I can't do this."
"Then die."
Again, that terrible hiss of whispers emerged from my brother's lips. The disconnect between Thatcher's face and that chorus of voices made the situation somehow worse—a perversion of everything he was. Shadow leaked from the corners of his mouth as it spoke, tendrils of darkness that dissipated in the air.
The false Thatcher's blade caught me across the ribs, opening a line of fire along my side. I gasped, stumbling, and it pressed its advantage. Another cut across my thigh. Another along my shoulder.
"Please," I whispered. "Please don't make me do this."
But there was no mercy in those empty eyes. No recognition of our shared past or the bond that had defined my entire existence. This thing might have worn my brother's face, but it was hollow. It raised its sword for a killing blow. I finally snapped.
My star-sword blazed brighter as rage flooded me, white-hot and pure. I caught its descending blade on my crossguard, muscles straining. For a moment we were locked together, face to face. I could smell the dirt that clung to its false skin.
"You're not him," I snarled.
And drove my blade through its heart. Its mouth opened as if to speak, but only shadow poured out, along with a final dying whisper that seemed to come from a thousand tortured throats at once.
The body began to dissolve around my sword, crumbling like ashin the wind. A tear ran down my face as the last traces of it scattered on the strange breeze.
It's not real. It's not real. It's not real.
Slow clapping echoed across the beach. Xül stepped into my field of vision, his face drenched in dark satisfaction.
"Now there's my killer," he said, and his voice held genuine approval for the first time since I'd arrived in this realm. The sound of it—the pleasure he took in what he'd forced me to do hardened my grief. I brushed past him without a word, heading back toward the castle. I couldn't bare to be near him for another fucking second. I reached out through the bond with Thatcher as I walked, feeling for that familiar presence. There—alive, safe, pulsing somewhere in Bellarium. I finally reached a shadowed corridor deep in the castle and collapsed against the wall, sliding down to the floor.
My knees came up to my chest, and I wrapped my arms around them, making myself as small as possible. I slammed my eyes closed, but it didn't help. I only saw my blade sliding through my brother's heart over and over again.
Tears had driedon my cheeks, leaving behind salt trails that pulled at my skin. My throat burned raw from sobs I'd muffled against my sleeve, refusing to give Xül or his servants the satisfaction of hearing me cry
