Beasts of shadow and smoke, locked in a savage clash. Tufts of that ghost-lit, vaporous fur tear loose and whirl through the air as they maul and rip each other to shreds. Each rake of claw, each brutal bite sends black ichor spattering across the deck. Still, they don’t relent.
They will not stop. Not until one of them falls. Not until one of them is dead.
I have to end this. Now.
But which is he? Which is my Ashen?
I rake my gaze over them, desperate for some mark, some flaw, anything to tell him from the impostor. But it’s like staring at twin reflections, each movement mirrored in perfect, terrible symmetry.
And then I remember.
The tether between us.
The way he hears me even when no sound leaves my mouth, a frequency tuned only to us.
So I reach, not with breath, but with will. With every piece of me that knows him.
Ashen.
Look at me.
And one of them goes still.
His head snaps toward me, those white-hot eyes locking on mine, wild, feral at the edges, but inside… inside they are soft. Gentle. The same trusting glow that has been my anchor through every storm.
It is my Ashen. Fool that I am for not seeing him sooner.
My hand lifts, green fire spilling across my palm, but before I can release it, the impostor lunges. Jaws gape, and then clamp down on Ashen’s throat.
A strangled sound tears from him. Shock. Pain. But what breaks me is the way his eyes flare wide first, that kindness still there, shining through agony. His light pulses once, twice, like a star trying to fight the dark, and then dims.
“No…”
The impostor shakes him, vicious and merciless. Thick black blood spills. I can only stare as his smoke, his soul, unravels in soft curls, thinning, drifting, disappearing like breath into the cold. Until he’s gone.
My chest caves. I clutch at my heart when it hammers so violently I can’t breathe.
“Ashen,” I choke, the name cracking out of me as tears spill hot down my cheeks.
The impostor. The twin, Vashar or Vasheeth, I don’t give a fuck! It turns to me wearing his face. Wearing my Ashen’s face!
I curl my fist. Emerald flame roars, devouring rain, turning it to steam in violent bursts. Magic crashes through me, furious and vengeful, and I loose it with a scream inside my bones.
A whip of green flame lashes out, striking the impostor square in the chest.
The twin screams, high and keening, as the fire engulfs her. The illusion peels away, fur dissolving, smoke vanishing until only her true form remains, writhing in a storm of green flame. She reaches to me through the blaze, begging for mercy, pleading for me to stop!
I make the fire hotter.
The noise she makes loses its horror after a while, so numb to it do I become. Her screams gutter out like dying coals, and then there’s only rain-soaked silence and her blackened husk curled grotesquely on the deck. The stench of charred flesh crawls up my nose.
Then my knees hit the wood.
I fold, shaking, rain and tears blurring everything, thunder swallowing the ugly, broken sound that tears out of me. I can’t hold him. I can’t touch him one last time. Can’t drag him into my arms, bury my face in his fur, whisper how sorry I am. He’s gone and I don’t even get the chance to mourn him properly. The way he deserves, because the twin came wearing Daed’s face, to take me to the fortress. Which means Daed walked straight into a trap.
So, I force myself up. My legs buckle. My chest feels like it’s split open, but I move. I have to. If I fall apart now, I lose more than Ashen.
I reach the cabin door, throw it open and then gasp as pain blooms in my abdomen.
