บททั้งหมดของ THE TWIN BOND: บทที่ 11 - บทที่ 16

My chest burns, and I cannot pull air in. Cold presses in from every side, and Cael keeps saying my name in my head. I cannot feel my hands or my feet, and I cannot tell which way is up.Then the cold lets go all at once. I fall and hit something hard, and air slams back into my lungs.I cough until my throat goes raw. I open my eyes, and I am lying on dark roots that pulse with white light underneath. White trees rise up so high I cannot see the tops. The air is thick and still and smells like something ancient. There is no wind and no echo. Sound disappears the moment it leaves our mouths. The light moves under the roots like something beneath is breathing, and it feels wrong. Cael is on his hands and knees next to me, coughing. Maya is a few feet away, curled up and not moving. My mother, Roran, and the thing made of sap are all gone. It is just us three in a place that feels alive.Cael looks up at me. He does not say anything out loud. I hear him in my head clear as if he were r

My palms sting where my nails cut them. Cael stops less than a foot from me and holds the knife out flat on his palm like he is presenting something sacred. His eyes are still solid black and his mouth is curved into my own smile.The sap around my arms loosens just enough for me to move my fingers, cold and wet, letting go of my right wrist first, then my left. I do not reach for the knife right away because my hands are shaking too hard."Take it," Cael says, and his voice is not his. It is mine, layered under something older, like Eryth is speaking through my throat. "The law wants a willing hand."Behind him, the other me still has the blade pressed to Maya's throat and has not moved. He watches me with my own brown eyes, and his face is blank. Maya is breathing fast and shallow, and tears are running down her cheeks, but she does not make a sound.Roran laughs from the edge of the pool and the sound rolls through the space around us. "Two hearts grown from one root," he says. "On

The brightness does not fade. It presses down on me from every direction, and I cannot move. I cannot feel the ground under my knees, and I cannot hear anything except a high thin ringing filling my ears.I try to call for Cael, but my throat makes no sound. I try to move my hands, but they do not answer. The only thing I feel is the tearing in my chest where the bond lives, slow and deep like a wound that will not close.The white light peels away in layers until shapes return. I am on my knees on cold stone, and the air is cold and still.I lift my head, and the pool is gone, the white trees are gone, and the sap is gone. I am inside a round chamber where roots cover every surface, thick as arms, pulsing with faint light that moves like blood under skin.I look around the chamber. To my left, Cael is on the ground, still breathing. His skin has gone pale, and when his eyes open, the color in them is not black or brown. It is a warm amber I have never seen in him before.To my right,