“The night of your birth,” Nathaniel begins, “your mother was at perfect peace. I had never seen Ember so calm in all the years I’d known her. It was as if she knew it was her final night and she’d accepted it.”
This is a tale I’ve heard a thousand times over. It always opens this way, with my mother. But this time will be different. Because this time the story will be complete.
“It was as if her deepest desire was to truly experience her last moments, bringing her boys into this world.”
And there it is, the slightest alteration. Not boy, but boys. Oh, what a difference the change makes.
“I offered to put her under, to ease her pain. Against Aidan’s and my wishes, Ember refused.” Agony fortifies his voice. My mother was his student, yes, but in the end became more like a sister to him. “She was in labor for hours. Kyaphus, as it so happens, came first.”
I work my jaw. It shouldn’t bother me he’s older.
But it does.
“Ky was effortless and did not struggle against the inevitable. You, however, were quite the task.” Eyes narrowed, Nathaniel goes on. “You held on as long as you could, unwilling to adapt to the change without a battle. When you finally arrived it was mere moments before your mother inhaled her final breath. She never even got a chance to hold you.”
My chest tightens and a lump lodges in my throat. I have forever felt at fault for the deaths of my parents. It was their soul bond that killed my father. I used to wonder if the birthing process had been easier for my mother, would she have survived, saving them both?
I suppose I’ll never know.
The light in the room dims as the sun sets beyond the window behind us. Nathaniel leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Upon Aidan’s dying breath, I speculated which soul the Verity would choose—which son contained the purest heart. You or Kyaphus?”
He rises and crosses to the grandfather clock in the room’s southeast corner. The clock has long since stopped ticking. I don’t believe it ever worked, come to think of it. Nathaniel opens the clock’s face and reaches inside. Next he withdraws something small and square. A photograph?
“I watched you both for signs.” Out of breath, he hobbles back to his chair and sits. “You see, the Verity changes you, and sometimes that change manifests physically. For Kyaphus it was his eyes, turning one green and one brown. For you the alteration was much more understated—nearly unnoticeable—but a difference nonetheless.” He passes me the square.
I turn it over in my hand. The photo is old, the quality horrid, but there, sitting side by side, are two boys. They couldn’t be more opposite. One with brown hair, one with blond. One with blue eyes, one with green and brown.
And yet I notice similarities too. My thumb smooths over their—our—faces. We share wavy locks, and our smiles are crooked. I mourn inwardly for the brother I never knew, and now don’t care to know. Blood or not, he’s a traitor. No one takes what belongs to me.
No one.
Nathaniel retrieves the photo, looks at it over his spectacles, and sighs. “As I was saying, the Verity altered your voice. The moment it inhabited you I could discern the variance in your cry. To this day I cannot describe it in words—it was almost like a song.” The corner of his mouth twitches.
I scratch the back of my head, casting a side glance at Wren. I am generally a private person and not at all inclined to have my personal history laid out for another to hear. But Wren won’t judge me. I needn’t even ask. She’ll never speak of this to another soul.
I return my regard to Nathaniel. “So the Verity split and inhabited us both.” This explains much.
“Indeed.” He leans back and the chair’s springs whine. “Which brings us to your current situation with the Void.”
“The Void.” My brows turn down. “Could there be some sort of . . . connection . . . between me and my . . . brother?” The last word tastes wrong. It’s like an admission, concrete and final.
Kyaphus is my brother.
“My thoughts precisely,” he says.
My brain works, its gears grinding. My connection to El from childhood, my strong feelings toward her. Could this be why Kyaphus holds feelings for her as well? Perhaps he only thinks he loves her. Because as my twin he is connected to me and I am connected to El. But . . .
“It was I who gave El a Kiss of Infinity as a baby, correct? Not Kyaphus?”
Nathaniel nods. “Yes. You won’t remember my youngest son, Tiernan, but he kidnapped Kyaphus a mere month prior to Elizabeth’s appearance on my doorstep. I never saw Tiernan again after that. He raised your brother as his own. When Ky and Eliyana came to me last autumn, I recognized him straightaway. It was his eyes, you see. I saw the way he looked at her, and”—Nathaniel pinches the bridge of his nose—“the way she looked at him. I was concerned they had become close. Despite the fact you both housed the Verity, it was you, Joshua, who I raised to become king. You who were trained and prepared and honed for the task of defeating Jasyn and imprisoning the Void within a vessel you could control. I worried Tiernan had corrupted Kyaphus, and he in turn would corrupt Eliyana. And now we see I was, to our dire misfortune, correct.”
I hang my head, rub my right hand down the side of my face. “We share the Void though, just as we shared the Verity. If he is corrupting her, so am I.”
“Ah, but that is where you are mistaken. The problem lies in the one her soul is fully linked to. The one to whom she gave a Kiss of Infinity.”
This is the hardest part, and I hate to finally admit it aloud. “I kissed her on her eighteenth birthday. It was a Kiss of Infinity. But for her . . .” I palm the back of my neck and rub hard. “For her the kiss was not as deep. The feeling wasn’t mutual.”
“And with Kyaphus?”
“I believe they shared one, yes. From what I saw the night of Crowe’s defeat, their connection . . .” I close my eyes and picture it. Release a sound that’s part exhale, part groan. “Yes. They are intertwined, heart and soul.” The ache in my chest makes it hard to breathe.
Nathaniel lifts a finger. “And that, my dear boy, is your answer. Never has the Verity been bonded to a soul containing the Void. Because their souls are linked, and the link made complete, the Void within Kyaphus is disturbing her greatly. The contradiction—the light of the Verity within her versus the darkness of the Void within Ky—is too much. Eventually one element or the other will take over. And I’d wager my favorite bathrobe, if her feelings for Ky deepen, the Void will win.
“Love is powerful. Both you and your brother love Eliyana, which is why the Void is shared between you. But furthermore, it is clear our new queen loves Kyaphus, even if she won’t readily admit it. And if she loves him, by default she loves the Void. And light cannot remain light if in love with darkness. It is impossible.”
His explanation is a punch to the gut. This explains why the Callings are suffering. Why the Threshold drains.
“If the bond between your brother and your love is not broken”—he yawns—“before long the Verity will die. Should such a fate come to pass, it will be as if the Callings and the Thresholds never existed.”
I rise and roll my shoulders. “So their bond can be broken then. How?”