The Other Face
The forest faded into shadows as Kael led Selene toward a small clearing beneath the weeping pines. He hadn't spoken in minutes. Selene wanted to ask more, to understand, but her head was pounding again—throbbing like thunder behind her eyes.
Then came the whisper.
Soft. Childlike.
"Sister…"
Selene froze.
Kael turned. "What is it?"
She didn't answer.
Because the wind had stopped.
The leaves stilled. The air thickened.
And the world around her bent like a dream folding in on itself.
---
She was no longer in the clearing.
Selene blinked and found herself standing in a room of white stone, surrounded by shattered mirrors. Her feet were bare. The ground cold. Every reflection around her showed a version of herself—but twisted. One was older. One bloodied. One with eyes like frostbite.
And in the largest mirror in front of her—someone else stared back.
Not her.
But close enough to be.
The girl had the same eyes. Same lips. But her hair was longer, darker, braided with bones. A scar ran from her temple to her jaw. And those eyes…
Those eyes were feral. Unforgiving.
The twin's voice echoed through the space, calm and sharp as a blade.
"You were given everything. While I was left to rot."
Selene's throat went dry. "Who are you?"
The twin stepped forward, placing her hand on the inside of the glass.
"You know me. You feel me. I am what they hid from you."
Flashes burst behind Selene's eyes—
A baby crying in the woods.
A screaming mother torn between two baskets.
Blood dripping onto a blackened cradle.
Her head swam.
"This isn't real," she whispered.
The twin laughed, cruel and sad all at once. "Real enough. You woke up, sister. And now, so will I."
The mirror cracked down the center.
"I'm coming."
---
Selene gasped, stumbling back into Kael's arms, her body drenched in sweat.
He caught her before she hit the ground. "Selene!"
She was trembling, her eyes wide and unfocused.
"Did you shift again?" he asked.
"No," she panted. "I—I saw her."
"Who?"
She stared up at him, voice barely audible. "Me. But not me. A twin."
Kael froze.
Something in his expression darkened. Not confusion—recognition.
"Tell me everything," he said.
She did.
Every word.
By the end of it, Kael was pacing the clearing, running his hand through his hair.
"That confirms it," he muttered. "The rumors. The Council had whispers of another—an abandoned twin who survived the culling."
Selene's stomach dropped. "Culling?"
Kael hesitated. "Decades ago, there was a prophecy. A Luna born of twins—one of light, one of darkness. They said the dark one would end the bloodlines. So they ordered them all to be separated. Destroyed."
She took a step back. "You mean… they tried to kill her?"
He nodded. "But someone saved her. Hid her. She must've grown up in the shadows, among rogues or worse."
Selene's heart pounded. "And now she wants revenge."
"No," Kael said. "She wants you."
---
Far away, in the ruins of a forgotten chapel deep in rogue territory, a woman knelt in front of a fire.
Her hair gleamed like obsidian. Her hands were scarred. In her palm, she held a cracked silver locket—the one that matched Selene's.
She whispered to the flames:
"She's awake. I felt her. And I will take back what's mine."
The Marked Wolf stood behind her, silent, head bowed.
"She dreams of you now," he murmured.
"She always would," the twin replied coldly. "We were never truly apart."
Her hand clenched into a fist.
"And I will end her before she learns who she truly is."