THE TWIN BOND

The Lycan King puts his mouth on my throat in front of his whole court, and my body burns instead of freezing. Blood from my split lip smears his lips.I am Aiden Hart, eighteen years old, traded by my own father for three bags of wheat and sent here to die.The great hall is made of black ice and smoke. Wolves in white furs line the walls and laugh, and one shouts, "Human whore."My knees hit the floor hard, and pain shoots up my legs. The iron collar around my neck rattles with the chain the guard holds.The king is huge, with black hair and a scar on his cheek, and his gold eyes look bored. He looks at me like I am a toy he will break."Your Majesty," the guard says, "the human tribute." The King does not answer. He steps down from his throne and grabs my chin.His thumb wipes the blood from my lip, and he tastes it. His eyes flash white, and a growl rolls out of his chest.Fire rips through my ribs, hot and sharp, and my heart slams once and then beats in time with his. I gasp and

The lord's smile is slow and cruel, and the whole court holds its breath. Cael's arm locks harder around my waist because he refuses to choose.Cael growls, and the sound shakes the ice under my feet. He says, “I pick neither,” and his gold eyes burn because the court is pushing him to choose between me and Maya. My heart beats so fast it hurts because I know they want blood no matter what he says.My mother steps between us and the lord, and her hands are up. She says, "There is a way," and her voice cracks because she is scared. She says, "The Severing can be done now at the First Tree."The crowd sucks in air all at once because no one has tried the Severing in a hundred years, and the old wolves at the back step away from the throne because they remember the last pair that burned it. The air turns cold because everyone is holding their breath.The lord laughs, but it is a thin sound, and he waves his hand. He says, "Let the tree decide then," because he thinks we will die. Guards

Cael's hand crushes mine because he sees it too. He does not breathe for three heartbeats. Then his whole body shakes because the vision is still in front of us.The picture moves because the tree is not done. We are in a small hut in the south where the fire is low and my mother is sitting on a dirt floor, both babies still held against her chest.She kisses the blue one's head, and tears run down her face before she hands him to a wolf guard she trusts because she knows she cannot keep both. She whispers, “Take him back and say he lived,” because she needs the king to believe only one son survived.She keeps the grey one because he is smaller and he is quiet. She tells herself, "I will hide this one as human," because she thinks the king will never look south. She names him Aiden after the human man who helps her because she needs a lie.The vision stops, and the tunnel goes dark again. My knees give out because my legs will not hold me. Cael catches me because his arm is around my

"Aiden, run!"The voice coming out of Maya is not hers, and it stops me cold. My hands reach for her before I can think, pulling toward the bone knife still glowing at her throat. My throat closes and I cannot breathe. My heart pounds so hard I feel it in my chest, and my legs go weak, but I hold myself up.Cael's arm locks around my waist and yanks me back. The fur-lined war cloak he wears brushes my cheek and smells like cold air and forest. He hauls me behind him in one hard pull and steps between me and the altar. His shoulders block my view of Maya, his eyes bleeding black, his jaw so tight I can see the strain in it."Do not listen!" he growls, and I feel the sound move through his chest and into mine.Roran does not move, and he smiles like we are doing exactly what he planned. He rests his palm on top of Maya's head while the gold in her eyes flares brighter until I have to look away. "She hears clearer than you do, boy," he says, and his voice stays low and patient because th

Black sap runs down the white ice behind Roran and spreads like veins. It does not drip. It crawls.Roran stands in front of it, and his smile is calm and wide. That is not my father. That is something else wearing his face.Cael moves to my side, and he pulls the edge of his war cloak around my shoulders without saying anything. The cloth is warm and heavy, and it smells like him.Maya holds onto my shirt with both hands, and her eyes stay solid gold. She does not blink. She starts to hum, so quiet I almost cannot hear it, the same lullaby we used to sing when we hid from the storm as children. Whatever is inside her tries to speak through her mouth, and the hum fights it back.Queen Lira is on her knees next to the cracked bone knife with one hand on her throat. She is completely silent. She knows what she lost. She looks at me and then down at the black blood coming from the blade.She presses two fingers into the blood and starts writing on the floor.Roran watches her and laughs