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A soldier behind us cried out. Setting me on the ground and lifting a sword in the same movement, Dimitri turned, as if ready to defend me from the unknown threat. The moon painted him in impossible colors.
“Ivanov, you must see this,” the old man said.
Dimitri stepped aside for the two riders approaching with the priestess’s corpse, dragging it by the arms so that it resembled a person on their knees. The scene was eerily similar to how I had found Dimitri, though he had been the one kneeling.
He bent over the corpse, blocking my view.
“Impossible.” His voice shook the fragile calm inside me. “What trick is this?”
“We removed the mask. No creature can change its features.”
Those holding the dead priestess stared at me.
Dimitri lifted me so that I mirrored the priestess, less than a handspan remaining between our faces.
Her features had gone slack in death. The scar stood out against the otherwise unblemished, bloodless skin. I knew every line, every expression besides the one it currently carried.
It was my own face, after all.
It had been the first thing I saw in the morning, the last thing at night, and every time in the mirror. Once, we had been one.
A scream built in my throat—the wail of a hurt animal, unnatural to my own ears. Half of me was dead, and I had killed her.
My world fractured again. This time, there was nothing magical about it. No loving arms holding me together.
I was one person before this moment—one of a pair—and after this, I would be alone, broken, cursed.
I killed my twin.
It was impossible and still, her lifeless body faced me with the unrelenting truth.
Why was she dressed like a priestess?
The foreign panic I had felt when I stepped between them. The hesitation when I lifted the knife.
She had not come to talk. Only I had been stupid enough to trust. Both had kept their plans from me. Or perhaps if Dimitri had been alone… If I had been here…
My eyes could not leave her empty ones and none of the questions mattered. They were the things the Vanya of before would have cared about, obsessed over, and hunted the answers to. Now nothing mattered because I had killed the one person I should have followed anywhere. The one person I should have protected with my life. Killing her, I had killed myself.
Strong hands shook me. Unresisting, I flopped to the ground without taking my eyes off my sister, as if she would wake any moment and I had to be there. Instead, they let her go, her brown hair covering her dead face, body unnaturally lax on the cobbles.
Dead.
Every time I told her we should run from Tal, that it did not matter we did not have the funds for a long journey, she would tell me you cannot outrun death, and the dead all went to Tal.
The prince turned my face to his, talking without me registering the words. For the living Vanya, his presence had meant safety. She had loved him. The dead girl watching him knew she had killed herself for him. From the anger and betrayal painted across his chiseled features, it was only a matter of time before he completedthe act.
People talked above me while I watched the stars. There was only darkness inside, every light suffocated. There was no music. No feelings.
Someone threw water across my face, then another slapped me, but the dead do not feel pain. Only when they movedherdid the scream inside unfreeze.
They could not take her away from me. We were one.
Someone talked, then held me back as I struggled, biting and scratching my captor.
They wrapped her roughly in a coat.
Kicking, I twisted and rammed my elbow up. With a sudden cry, my captor’s grip slackened and I threw myself toward Lumi.
