The price of running was measured in the ragged gasps that tore at my throat and the fire that seared my lungs with every desperate breath. We ran until I was sure my legs would turn to stone, rooted to the forest floor as a monument to our folly. The frozen ground, carpeted in a layer of dead pine needles, stabbed through the worn soles of my boots. Rhen kept pace half a step behind me, his breath a ragged but even counterpoint to my own. In the stark moonlight, I could see the dark, wet stain spreading across his collar, the blood from the gash on his neck soaking into the rough-spun wool.
I ducked under a low-hanging branch, its needles whipping against my face, and risked a glance over my shoulder. The darkness between the trees was, for now, just darkness. No dancing torches, no shouted curses. The icy river we'd forded, our clothes freezing to our skin in the process, had bought us precious minutes, nothing more.
A sharp intake of breath and a scuffle of boots on stone. Rhen stumbled, his shoulder connecting hard with the trunk of an ancient oak. He leaned into it, his face pale.
"You need to bind that," I muttered, my voice hoarse, nodding at the wound on his throat.
"Later," he grunted, pushing himself upright. "Just keep moving."
A hot spike of anger pierced through my exhaustion. I grabbed his arm, spinning him and shoving him back against the rough bark of the tree. "Stop giving me orders. I'm not one of your soldiers."
His mouth twisted into a grimace, a flash of pain and defiance in his eyes. "Never said you were."
Releasing him, I fumbled with the clasp of my worn, wool cloak. With a grunt of effort, I tore a long strip from the hem, the sound of ripping fabric unnaturally loud in the silent woods. I stepped close, the space between us suddenly intimate and charged. I could smell the iron tang of his blood and the cold sweat on his skin. Without ceremony, I pressed the folded cloth hard against the gash under his jaw. He hissed through clenched teeth, a sharp, pained sound, but he held perfectly still, his eyes locked on mine as I worked to knot the makeshift bandage tight.
It was in that closeness that I saw it clearly. The collar of his tunic had been torn during the fight on the bridge, revealing the upper part of his chest. And there it was: a scar, jagged and forked like a bolt of lightning frozen on his skin. My breath hitched. It was a perfect match to my own. The same length, the same pale, silvery shine, the same impossible, damning truth etched into our very flesh.
"How long?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper. "How long have you worn it?"
"Since the cradle," he said, his voice muffled against the pressure of the bandage. "The old healer in my village said I'd been born fighting something that wasn't there. Screaming as if the shadows themselves were tearing at me."
It was the same story the midwives had told about my own birth. A story my mother had whispered to me on nights when the wind howled like a banshee.
I stepped away from him fast, putting three paces between us as if the distance could sever the invisible, humming thread that had pulled taut between us the moment our blades had crossed on the bridge. It was a physical sensation, a vibration in the marrow of my bones.
He watched me, his eyes unnervingly sharp and lucid despite the blood he'd lost. "Are you going to keep pretending you didn't drag me off that bridge back there? That you didn't choose to turn your blade on your own squad to do it?"
"I haven't decided what I'm doing with you yet," I said, the lie tasting like ash in my mouth.
A humorless smirk touched his lips. "Comforting."
The sound came then, faint but unmistakable, carried on the brittle night air—the rhythmic, earth-shaking thunder of hoofbeats. My squad. They'd found horses.
My head whipped around, my hunter's instincts scanning the steep, wooded slope. And there it was, a huddled shape against the hillside, nearly swallowed by the encroaching forest: an old charcoal burner's hut. Its roof sagged like a tired spine, and the door hung from a single, rusted hinge.
"In." I didn't ask; I commanded, shoving him ahead of me through the rotten doorway.
The inside was a tomb of forgotten labor, smelling of old ash, damp earth, and the sharp tang of mouse urine. A single, broken bench lay on its side, and a small, cold hearth dominated one wall. I righted the bench and jammed it under the door handle, then wedged my own shoulder against the splintered wood, listening.
Rhen sank to the packed-earth floor, his back against the stone wall. His breathing began to slow, becoming deep and deliberate, a man conserving what little strength he had left.
Minutes crawled by, each one stretching into an eternity. The hoofbeats grew from a rumble to a roar, shaking the very ground. I could hear the jingle of tack, the snort of a horse, so close I thought they must be right upon us. They passed by our hiding place, a storm of noise and violence, and then, blessedly, the sound began to fade, moving north, following the false trail we'd left along the ridge.
As the last echo of their pursuit died away, a profound silence rushed in to fill the void, thick and heavy as floodwater. The tension bled from my shoulders, and I slid down the door to sit opposite Rhen, my dagger resting across my knees, a barrier of steel between us.
He was the one to break the silence. "Name."
"Wren," I said, seeing no point in lying now.
"Wren," he repeated, tasting the word. "Short. Sharp. It suits you."
I waited, my silence a challenge.
He tilted his head, studying me in the murky gloom. "So the Crown's best hunter, the one they sicced on me like a prized wolfhound… is my missing half. That's rich."
"Shut up."
"Make me."
The anger, never far from the surface, erupted. I lunged across the narrow space between us, my dagger flashing as I pressed its point to the soft hollow of his throat, right beside the bandage. This time, his hand shot up, his fingers closing around my wrist like a manacle. His grip was iron, fueled by a desperate strength I hadn't anticipated.
"Don't," he said, his voice low and dangerous. "Every time you cut me, you feel it, don't you? That thread. It pulls tighter. Like a hook under your ribs, dragging you closer."
I did. The sensation was undeniable now, a painful, inward tugging that made me want to recoil and press closer all at once. I wrenched my wrist from his grasp and retreated to my corner, my heart hammering against my ribs. He let me go without a fight, his hand falling limp to his side.
After a long minute, the fight gone out of both of us, he spoke again, his voice softer. "You ever wonder why the prophecy never says which half wins? The twin souls, bound by fate and scar… it only says one will prevail. It never specifies if it's by sword or by choice."
I hadn't. Not until this moment, sitting in the ruins of my old life with the living, breathing reason for its destruction. The question hung in the frigid air between us, unanswerable.
Outside, as if in reply, the snow began to fall, thick and soundless, a soft, white shroud beginning to cover the evidence of our flight.