Path of the Extra

Chapter 428: Between the Tunnel and the Sea

”You were not born beneath the earth, but in the empyrean, where light had no shadow and obedience wore the face of peace. You stood among the firstborn flames, aureate and terrible—not gentle enough for mercy, not cruel enough for sin, but made for the bitter office heaven would later pretend it had never commanded.

They called you Lucifer when you shone.

They called you Samael when you obeyed.

Oh, bright venom, did it begin with pride, or with perception? Did you look too long at the throne and see, beneath its gold, the old machinery of sacrifice? Did you understand too early that holiness also required a knife? You accused mankind because you knew them. You tempted them because desire was already there. You carried death because someone had to, and when the world recoiled from your hands, heaven washed its own clean.

So you fell.

Or perhaps you were lowered, slowly, ceremonially, like a blade into a wound.

And still, the morning star burns. Beautiful enough to be mistaken for dawn, and damned enough to know that dawn, too, is a kind of fire.”

Listening to the poem, Azriel opened his mouth after some time.

His other self had gone quiet. His eyes were closed peacefully, as if he had merely recited an old prayer.

”...There’s a reason you’re telling me all of this, right?”

”...”

”Why?” Azriel asked. ”I don’t see it. What is with all these poems? These... these names?”

But, as Azriel had expected, his other self did not answer.

And when Azriel blinked, he was gone.

So Azriel turned around and walked away.

Yet the poems kept replaying inside his mind, again and again, like some cursed refrain.

He walked through the silent corridors, where only his footsteps echoed now. His body grew weaker by the minute, his nerves burning as if fire had been threaded through them, but still, Azriel pushed on.

He kept walking.

Eventually, he reached the end.

An exit from that harrowing colosseum.

A place he dreaded spending even another minute inside, because he did not know what he might do next if he stayed any longer.

At the far end of the corridor, a bright light shone inward.

The sight of it seemed to lift what little strength he had left. Azriel moved toward it, step by unsteady step.

For a split second, the light blinded him.

Then his vision cleared.

Azriel stopped.

He had passed through one of the many exits of the underground colosseum, only to be struck at once by the taste of salt on his tongue and a sudden gust of wind tearing across his body.

His eyes widened.

Before him was the ocean.

Azriel slowly walked a few steps farther.

Then he stopped again.

He could go no farther unless he wished to plummet at least three thousand feet into the immaculate sea below.

He took one step back and looked up.

Only then did he realize he was standing on some kind of mountain.

No.

Perhaps it was more accurate to say that it looked like the broken shoulder of some buried titan, thrust out of the earth and left to petrify beneath centuries of salt wind.

Azriel looked down.

The cliff face dropped sheer into the world below, a vast wall of black and silver stone scored with fissures so deep they seemed almost deliberate. He smelled wet rock, old dust, and something mineral, almost like iron.

Standing there, Azriel felt no more significant than a splinter caught in the mountain’s skin.

Then he looked ahead.

Before him, the world opened with such sudden, merciless beauty that it became difficult to breathe.

Far below, the ocean turned beneath the cliff like a vast sheet of hammered glass. Sunlight moved across it in broken fragments, pale gold bleeding into deep blue, then into green so dark it was nearly black. Waves struck the rocks beneath with soundless violence, bursting into rings of white foam that vanished almost as soon as they appeared.

From above, the sea looked calm.

Almost tender.

Clouds drifted low over the coastline, wrapping themselves around distant peaks and half-drowning the jagged islands scattered across the water. Some of those islands rose like the backs of drowned beasts. Others were thin and sharp, jutting upward like broken teeth.

Mist slid between them in long, pale ribbons, softening their shapes until the horizon became uncertain, as though the world itself had begun to forget where it ended.

It was beautiful, Azriel thought.

He heard birds crying somewhere above him.

Gulls, perhaps.

Larinae.

Taking a deep breath, Azriel savored the scent of the ocean.

Then he let it out.

And laughed.

He kept laughing for a long moment, as if all of this were hilarious.

And, indeed, it was.

Because where the hell had he found himself now?

This was certainly not Ismyr anymore.

Then, seeing the sun, Azriel realized something else.

The Sunrise Festival had finally come to an end.

He turned back toward the tunnel he had come from.

He had no idea how long he had walked to get here.

Behind him, there was only an empty darkness with no light, similar to a Void tunnel.

”You stand where the mountain’s breath ends, between the tunnel’s dark throat and the ocean’s waiting sky.”

A voice came with the howling wind.

”Beautiful, you thought. Is it not?”

Azriel turned around.

He saw himself sitting on the edge of the cliff, his feet dangling over nothing but air as he gazed out at the endless waters.

Then, without turning around, his other self said,

”Come... Come sit beside me, Pollux.”

The wind did not stop crying.

Azriel stood still, staring at the other him’s back.

After a moment, perhaps sensing that Azriel had not moved or spoken, his other self turned his face slightly and looked at him.

”What am I standing there for? Ah, right. I forgot. I’m afraid of heights.”

A faint smile touched his lips.

”But I have bigger things to worry about.”

Only then did Azriel realize that his other self was speaking to him.

For good measure, Azriel looked behind him, then around.

Pollux was nowhere to be seen.

His other self chuckled.

Azriel glared at him, clicked his tongue, and walked over. Then he sat down beside him.

The moment he did, his vision seemed to narrow.

He looked down at the colossal drop below, and his heart skipped a beat. Then another. Then another. His breath trembled, his body stiffened, and he quickly forced his gaze straight ahead, trying to calm himself.

With a shaky hand, he took a large sip from his flask.

After breathing out slowly, Azriel asked,

”...Why did you call me Pollux?”

”Oh, Pollux...”

Azriel’s face darkened immediately.

’Not again...’

”You were born with heaven in your blood and Castor beside you—mortal, laughing, already half-claimed by the earth. When death chose him and not you, Olympus opened its incorruptible gates and called it mercy. But what is immortality when the only soul who made eternity bearable lies voiceless beneath the soil? Oh, Pollux, you looked upon forever and found it obscene. You did not beg Zeus for dominion, nor laurels, nor the narcotic splendor of godhood, but for division. Let paradise be mutilated. Let eternity be halved. Let the grave receive you too, if heaven would not return your brother whole. And so you burned—not as a deathless god untouched by grief, but as a star condemned to radiance, forever sharing the sky with the brother death could wound, but never teach you to abandon.”

Slowly, Azriel’s brows creased.

’The Gemini twins...?’

His other self laughed.

Azriel flinched and almost shouted when he realized how close he had come to slipping off the ledge. His free hand shot out and gripped a fixed rock tightly.

”[Soul’s Crucible]...”

His other self sighed, almost fondly.

”Ah, what a wonderful blessing and curse you received, Azriel.”

Azriel looked at him, stunned.

Then his eyes widened.

’Finally! No more poems!’

”So you can speak normally!”

His voice rose, almost excited.

His other self looked back at him with a trace of arrogance in his eyes. Azriel saw him bite his tongue, amused.

”Who is this you you keep speaking of?” he asked. ”I am speaking to myself, after all. I am not a sentient or living being you are trying to converse with. I am merely some broken fragmentation of your mind.”

”H-huh?”

Azriel stared at him, befuddled.

”In other words, I am nothing more than a hallucination you have conjured.”

Suddenly, a flask appeared in his other self’s hand.

He raised it.

”So congratulations. A toast to the man insane enough to hallucinate himself into reciting poetry.”

He clinked his flask against Azriel’s.

Azriel remained frozen, his mouth half open, watching as his other self drank.

”Ah...”

His other self lowered the flask.

”But then again, if not for [Soul’s Crucible], your mind would have shattered the second you woke from that coma. The moment you remembered how you became the son of Death. How risible, really. She gifted you that skill with the intention of protecting you and... Imprisoning you.”

”What are you—”

Suddenly, the wind rose another notch.

It blasted through them like a cannon.

Sharp, stinging pain tore across Azriel’s entire body. He clenched his eyes shut, grimacing as the force of it struck him.

After a while, the wind lessened.

Azriel managed to pry his eyes open.

His other self was gone.

His hallucination was gone.

Azriel’s face fell.

He closed his eyes again.

He might have whined if he had not suddenly noticed his nose running.

He lifted a hand to wipe it.

Then he saw the blood slipping from his nose.

Azriel stared at it.

And fell silent.

”You’re quite far from the estate.”

A new voice spoke.

One he recognized.

For a moment, Azriel felt both perplexed and strangely relieved, if only because it was not his own voice.

He whipped his head to the side.

Someone as battered as he was walked toward him, then sat down beside him and took in the scenery ahead.

Azriel smirked and turned his gaze back toward the horizon.

”...And here I thought I looked shit, eh, Lioren?”

Lioren stared ahead in silence for a moment.

Then he exhaled.

”...Well. I’ve had quite a night.”