There is a gale howling on the mountain. Above, the clouds are a heavy bruised gray, but these and everything else are made invisible by the snow falling thick and furious. The wind moans, gnashes its teeth, seeks to dislodge any living thing from the path. What trees there are this high up rattle their thin bare branches like a warning.
Inside Asterion there is a howling, too.
There must be an empty place within his chest, for such a sound and such a darkness. He has never been empty before, but always too full, full to overflow, of love and want and worry and dreaming. He is finding that it’s easier, to be hollow.
Ice coats his lashes, snow clings to his sides and buries the stars there. Each breath is a wisp of smoke whipped away by the wind and still he climbs. There is a part of him dimly aware that he is calling the storm, that his magic is crying out for the rain and oh, the clouds obey. At one point he rounds a corner and staggers against the wind, leaning for a moment against the slick stone of the mountain, sensing but unable to see the precipice yawning before him; and then he puts his head down, pushes on.
So it goes until the air is so thin and frigid it feels like swallowing icicles, until the only remnant of warmth is the burn of his muscles and lungs, until his eyes ache with cold. And then the path twists again, and rises once more, and he is above the storm.
The change is as sudden as stepping through a doorway and leaving the world behind. Asterion blinks against the sudden midday sun and blows out a shuddering breath. From here the clouds look like the surface of the sea - tumultuous, dense enough to drown in.
Ahead waits the altar of the gods, but the stallion makes no move to continue. For the first time in his life, he feels like a god himself.
Inside Asterion there is a howling, too.
There must be an empty place within his chest, for such a sound and such a darkness. He has never been empty before, but always too full, full to overflow, of love and want and worry and dreaming. He is finding that it’s easier, to be hollow.
Ice coats his lashes, snow clings to his sides and buries the stars there. Each breath is a wisp of smoke whipped away by the wind and still he climbs. There is a part of him dimly aware that he is calling the storm, that his magic is crying out for the rain and oh, the clouds obey. At one point he rounds a corner and staggers against the wind, leaning for a moment against the slick stone of the mountain, sensing but unable to see the precipice yawning before him; and then he puts his head down, pushes on.
So it goes until the air is so thin and frigid it feels like swallowing icicles, until the only remnant of warmth is the burn of his muscles and lungs, until his eyes ache with cold. And then the path twists again, and rises once more, and he is above the storm.
The change is as sudden as stepping through a doorway and leaving the world behind. Asterion blinks against the sudden midday sun and blows out a shuddering breath. From here the clouds look like the surface of the sea - tumultuous, dense enough to drown in.
Ahead waits the altar of the gods, but the stallion makes no move to continue. For the first time in his life, he feels like a god himself.
The sea has many voices,
many gods and many voices
many gods and many voices
