Keira's POV
Silas looked like death.
Chained to the dungeon wall, his face was bruised and hollow. But his green eyes still burned with that familiar intensity as Caelan and I entered his cell.
"Hello, Keira." His voice was rough. "Come to gloat?"
"I came for information." I kept my distance, aware that every moment near him risked spreading the plague. "Finn said you know about a cure."
Silas laughed bitterly. "Of course I do. I helped Grandmother create the plague in the first place. Who do you think tested it?"
My blood ran cold. "You knew. You knew she turned me into a weapon and you said nothing."
"I said everything!" He lunged forward, chains rattling. "I tried to warn you! Tried to get you to leave before it was too late! But you chose him!" He glared at Caelan with pure hatred.
"Tell us about the cure," Caelan demanded. "Now."
"Why should I? You're all going to die anyway. The plague is spreading. In three days, everyone Keira touched will be dead. Then everyone they touched. Within a week, Valdoria will be a graveyard." Silas's smile was cruel. "Grandmother's masterpiece."
I grabbed the bars of his cell, my lightning sparking. "If you ever cared about me at all, you'll tell us how to stop this."
Something flickered in his eyes. Pain. Regret. Love twisted into something ugly.
"There is a cure," he said finally. "One cure. But you won't like it."
"Tell us!"
"The plague is tied to your life force, Keira. As long as you live, it spreads. The only way to stop it..." He paused, savoring the moment. "Is to kill you."
Silence fell like a hammer.
"No," Caelan said immediately. "There has to be another way."
"There isn't." Silas's voice was almost gentle now. "Grandmother designed it perfectly. The plague dies when its source dies. Kill Keira, save Valdoria. It's that simple."
"Then I'll die," I said, my voice steady despite my shaking hands. "If that's what it takes—"
"No!" Caelan grabbed my arm, then winced as he remembered we were both infected now. "We're not doing that. There has to be another option."
"Actually, there is one other way." Silas leaned forward, chains clinking. "But it requires dark magic. Blood magic. The kind that corrupts your soul."
"What kind?" I demanded.
"A life transfer. You give your life force to someone else—someone strong enough to contain the plague without spreading it. Someone who can hold it dormant until it naturally dies out." His eyes locked onto Caelan. "Someone like your precious twin brother."
My world tilted. "You want me to infect Caelan with my entire plague? To make him carry the disease?"
"Not just carry it. Absorb it completely. Your life, your magic, your plague—everything transfers to him." Silas's smile was vicious. "Of course, the process is agonizing. And there's a good chance he won't survive it. The plague might kill him instead. But at least everyone else would live."
"I won't let Keira do that," Caelan said flatly.
"Then everyone dies." Silas shrugged. "Your choice, Prince. Save your kingdom by letting your sister sacrifice everything, including possibly killing you. Or save your sister and watch thousands of innocent people die. Either way, Grandmother wins."
I stumbled backward, my mind reeling. This was the impossible choice. Save Caelan or save Valdoria. Kill myself or potentially kill my brother.
"There has to be a third option," I whispered. "There has to be."
"There isn't." Silas's voice softened. "I'm sorry, Keira. I really am. I didn't want this for you. But Grandmother made sure there was no escape. You're checkmate. You always have been."
We left the dungeon in silence. My mind raced through possibilities, each one worse than the last.
"I'll do the transfer," I said once we were back in the empty corridor.
"Absolutely not."
"Caelan, it's the only way—"
"I said no!" He whirled on me, his wind magic flaring. "I'm not letting you kill yourself! I just got you back!"
"And I'm not letting you sacrifice your kingdom for me!" My lightning answered his wind, the two elements clashing violently. "You heard Silas! In three days, everyone I touched will die! In a week, the whole city! How many lives is that? Thousands? Tens of thousands?"
"I don't care!" His voice cracked. "You're my sister! You're supposed to be more important than—"
"Than innocent children? Than families? Than people who never did anything except live in your kingdom?" I grabbed his shoulders. "Listen to yourself! You're the one who built a city based on protecting people! You can't throw that away for me!"
"Watch me." His storm-gray eyes blazed with stubborn determination. "I've spent twenty-one years searching for you. I'm not losing you three days after finally getting you back."
"Then you're a selfish fool!" I shoved him hard. He stumbled backward, shocked. "Your parents died protecting you! Protecting both of us! And you're going to spit on that sacrifice by letting thousands die?"
"Don't you dare bring them into this!"
"Why not? They're the reason we're here!" My voice echoed off the stone walls. "They believed we were meant to save people! To bring salvation, not destruction! And I'm choosing salvation, even if you're too blind to see it!"
I turned to storm away, but my shirt caught on a rough stone. The fabric tore loudly, exposing my back.
Caelan gasped.
I froze. In twenty-one years with the Covenant, no one had ever reacted to my scars. They were just proof of my training, my failures, my punishments.
But Caelan was staring like he'd seen a ghost.
"Keira," he breathed. "Your back."
I tried to pull the shirt closed. "They're old scars. Training accidents. It doesn't matter—"
"Show me." His voice was strange. Shaking. "Please. Show me."
Something in his tone made me hesitate. Slowly, I turned, letting the torn shirt fall away from my shoulders. Cool dungeon air hit the five jagged scars that crossed my back from shoulder to hip.
I heard Caelan move. Heard fabric rustling. Then felt his presence directly behind me.
"We match," he whispered.
I turned. Caelan had removed his own shirt. His back faced me, and I saw them—five jagged scars, identical to mine. Same placement. Same pattern. Like we'd been cut by the same blade.
Mirror images, even in our wounds.
"How..." I couldn't form the words.
"The night we were separated." Caelan's voice was thick with emotion. "The assassins broke into our bedroom. We were sleeping in the same bed—we always did, remember? When they attacked, we both tried to run. One of them slashed at us with a sword."
His hand traced one of the scars on his back, and I felt the phantom pain in my own.
"We were holding hands," he continued. "Running together. The sword got us both. Same angle, same cuts. You were screaming. I was screaming. Our parents heard and came running, but it was too late. The assassin had already—"
He couldn't finish. I saw tears streaming down his face.
Slowly, carefully, I reached out and touched one of his scars. It was smooth, old, exactly like mine. We'd carried matching wounds for twenty-one years without knowing.
"We were together," I whispered. "Even when they cut us. Even when they separated us. We were together."
"Always." Caelan turned to face me. His storm-gray eyes—our eyes—were red from crying. "Don't you see? These scars prove we're meant to survive together. We survived that night. We survived being apart. We'll survive this too."
"But thousands of people—"
"We'll save them together!" He grabbed my hands desperately. "Not by you dying. Not by you sacrificing yourself. But by us finding a third option. A way that doesn't end with one of us dead."
"Silas said there isn't—"
"Silas is lying!" Caelan's voice rang with sudden certainty. "Think about it. He's been working with Grandmother Nyx. Everything he says is designed to make us give up, to make us destroy each other. That's what she wants!"
I hadn't considered that. "So the life transfer..."
"Might be a trap. Or might kill us both. Or might be real but there's a better way we haven't found yet." He squeezed my hands. "Keira, these scars match because we're meant to stand together. The prophecy says 'the storm-touched twins' will bring salvation or destruction. Not just you. Not just me. Both of us. Together."
Hope flickered in my chest for the first time. "You really think we can find another way?"
"I know we can." His fierce smile was back. "Because we're not just twins. We're survivors. And survivors don't give up."
A commotion erupted from upstairs. Running footsteps. Shouting. Someone screamed.
Lyra appeared at the top of the dungeon stairs, her face ashen. "Your Highness! The infected guard—he's awakened! But he's not human anymore! He's become something else, something—"
The guard appeared behind her.
My heart stopped.
His skin was black as shadow. His eyes glowed red. Black veins pulsed across his entire body. When he opened his mouth, darkness poured out.
"This is the final stage of the plague," Lyra breathed. "They don't just die. They transform into shadow creatures. Mindless killers that spread the plague through violence."
The shadow-guard lunged at Lyra.
Caelan's wind threw him back, but three more transformed guards appeared at the top of the stairs. Then five. Then ten.
"How many people did you touch this morning?" Caelan demanded.
"Twenty," I whispered. "Maybe more. I lost count."
"Then we have twenty shadow monsters loose in the palace. And in twelve hours, everyone they touch will transform too." His face was grim. "Keira, we're out of time."
The shadow-guards charged down the stairs toward us, their red eyes fixed on their next victims.
And somewhere in the dungeons below, Silas's laughter echoed.
"Checkmate, Keira!" he called. "Still think you can find a third option? Or are you ready to die for your brother's kingdom?"
I looked at Caelan. At my twin. At the brother I'd just remembered loving.
At the scars we both carried from the night we should have died together.
"We fight," I decided. "We fight together. And we find another way."
"Together," Caelan agreed.
Our magic exploded outward—lightning and wind combining into a storm that shook the very foundations of the palace.
The shadow-guards charged.
And we discovered that our matching scars were just the beginning of what we shared.