Page 85 of The Song of the Void

“Just lookin’ at the water. Kinda strange to find a pond in Hell, don’tcha think?”

“I bet it isn’t real. I came across an illusion of water earlier, and it was actually lava. Don’t touch it.”

He cocked his head innocently. “But…I think the Voidtome is down there. Can’t you see it?”

For a moment, I thought he was merely indicating his reflection, but I looked past that and could just make out the movement of shadows far beneath the surface. It was impossible to tell how deep the water was, but something about it unsettled me: the murkiness and the movement. It looked almost like hands grasping, clawing desperately towards us. The melody of the pool felt off-pitch, definitely different from the ocean, or even a lake or a man-made fountain. Something sinister, ancient, deep, and dark about it I couldn't put my finger on.

Still, the water listened to me. A twitch of my fingers made the surface tremble, breaking the even, dark blue glass with ripples of energy. So, it was actual water, at least.

Ash seized my hand and yanked me closer to the edge. “Look closer. Come on!” Something was wrong. His grip was firm, too strong as he forced me to bend to peer into the water.

I struggled, but he kept pushing me. “Ash, stop! What are you doing? We don’t know what’s in there!”

A crack of sound sliced through the air, magnified by the sheer emptiness of the massive chamber. Ashkade’s grip on me weakened.

A bullet had torn straight through the back of his head and out one of his pretty green eyes, leaving nothing but a gushing, gaping hole.

A scream caught in the tight cords of my throat.

“That’s not me.”

Ash—another Ash—kept his pistol trained on the person beside me. His eyes might as well have been emeralds that had mysteriously gone from cut and polished to rough and raw, straight out of a mine. His hair was mussed, streaks of dirt painted his pale face, and he had bags under his eyes I didn’t recognize from when we had entered Hell. But he was unmistakably Ashkade. So…who was beside me?

Ash fired another shot that sent the stranger splashing into the pond with another bullet hole in his forehead. Gaunt, shadowy hands rose to grab the body, and before he was pulled under, what I once thought was Ashkade melted into a different form.

A skeletal creature, with arms and legs so long and thin it was a wonder how it even held up its body. Like an amalgamation of a corpse and the spiders that crawled across my skin in the hold of Vaetrik’s ship. Instead of Ash’s young, sweet face, it had a gaping hole lined with layers of sharp teeth, and a milky, unseeing eye with no lid. Its skin was mottled and rotting, and the stench of death nearly made me gag as it disappeared into the darkness of the writhing shadows far below.

“What…was that?” I gasped.

“Something dead, I’m guessin’. You are real, right?” Ashkade asked, heaving a sigh of exhaustion as he holstered his gun. His body shuddered when I flung my arms around him, but he gave me a pitiful smile.

“I’m real. Thanks for saving me. I would’ve had no idea that thing wasn’t you.”

“This place really screws with you,” he said in a tight voice that made my heart splinter. “I saw two of those things. They looked like my ma and pa. Had to kill ‘em. I saw the front lines again…all the destruction I caused when I broke time. All the ruin I’m goin’ to cause in the future.”

Tearstains already streaked through the dirt on his face, but fresh rivers carved their way down his cheeks. Anger bubbled inside me at how Hell and its stupid tricks had somehow convinced my sweet, brave friend that he was going to be the cause of destruction. He had already been through enough.

I grabbed his shoulders and shook him hard. “Stop. After we get out of here, you’re going to tell Rei and I every single illusion you saw, and we’re going to refute them for you, understand?” That earned me a feeble smile, but he almost looked too fatigued to argue, not like he actually believed me. I took his hand in mine. “Look, at least now we’re together. All we have to do is find Reiven and everything will be fine, just like we planned. Where did you come from?”

I swiveled my head around, realizing that there were only two ways into this chamber. The tunnel I had come from, and another tunnel boring into the opposite wall.

“Same direction as you, I think. Strange I didn’t hear you or nothin’.”

“Well, I’m not surprised. This place is bizarre.” I seized Ash by the arm and pulled him away from the dock, towards the tunnel we both came from. He moved like a puppet, letting me pull and turn him with no resistance. It pissed me off more than it should have as I jerked him to face me. “Maybe we should wait here for Rei, since it seems like we came from the same way. Maybe he will too.”

“Yeah, but I think some of the others might’ve already been here. Saw at least two pairs of footprints heading to that forward tunnel. If we wait and he never comes, Shaddan or the pirate might get to the Voidtome first,” he said dully.

“He’ll be here soon.”

His lips trembled. “Hey…Zephra, if I ever became some…horrible monster that caused nothin’ but death and devastation, you know I’d want you to put me down, right?”

“Ashkade Taleus Synnex, I wouldn’t have to!” My voice echoed across the pool of water behind us, magnified by the sheer emptiness of the stone chamber. I softened my tone when I saw him flinch. “Reiven and I might smack some sense into you if you ever went too far, but the only time I’ve seen you hurt somebody was when you protected me. And you used exactly the amount of force necessary. Whatever you think you saw—forget it, because Rei and I won’t let you turn into something you’re not. Trust that, okay?”

Ash gave me a slow nod, but his eyes clouded with anxiety, and I knew I hadn’t eased his worries much at all.

Approaching footsteps on the rock made us both jump and face the tunnel I had exited, praying it would be Reiven to complete our trio.

No. Spirits, no.