Determined to take control of their fates, Arjen and Arien escape Derolina Castle at the age of sixteen after their cruel mother dies. They adopt new names and find a home in the city of Aramore, while the Emperor of Yuriana searches for his missing...
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He found himself standing a familiar room. Servants lined up against the walls, their hands clasped and eyes downcast in respect. Ahead of him stood a woman with her back to him and a cradle beside her. There was no mistaking this person. He knew her form intimately. His heart began to ache, and lump rose in his throat. When she turned, her purple eyes sparkled with sweet joy. She held two small bundles in her arms.
"They're wonderful, aren't they?" she said. He had never forgotten her voice, but hearing it again almost brought tears cascading over his cheeks.
But what were those bundles? He craned his neck to see the blond hair peeking out from under the folds. Strange... Why was Elona holding two babies? Which of their children were these?
"They're yours," she said, giving him a tender smile, "and I love them."
Wait, they're not hers, too? He wanted to see the babies' faces, but when he tried to take a step forward, his feet held fast to the floor. Elona quietly watched him, her expression unchanging and unconcerned. As he struggled to move, Elona's image flickered and changed, and Rurahel sneered back at him, as arrogant and defiant as she was in life. She looked down her nose at him and grinned. She held the bundles out and dangled them over the hard floor. He could see the babies' faces then, sleeping peacefully.
Arjen and Arien?
Rurahel's face twisted with perverted glee as she raised the bundles high. "They're mine."
She opened her hands and the babies fell.
◃───────────▹
He shot up and scrambled forward on the bed, reaching out to grasp the empty air in front of him. Sweat dampened his face, back, and chest. Panting, he looked around and saw his bedroom. He pressed his hands to his face, trembling from the terror of the dream.
A month had passed since he had gone to Derolina Castle to find the twins. Not a single night went by where he didn't have some kind of disturbing dream, and Rurahel was almost always in them. She tortured him from beyond the grave, like a ghost that haunted the inner depths of his soul to forever remind him of what he did to Arien and Arjen.
He got out of bed and went to open the doors to the balcony. A comforting breeze washed over him. The moonlight cast a frosted gleam across the pale stones as he stepped out to the edge of the balcony. He inhaled the clean air, willing his heart to calm. Down below, the palace grounds lay in dimness. Magic lights glinted from posts distributed across the premises, while knights patrolled on their usual rounds. A partial moon hung in the night sky and stars twinkled in the vast, dark canopy.
As he felt the smooth stone of the balcony's parapet, his mind drifted back to his nightmare. Did the dreams mean something? In each one, he had tried to reach the twins, but each time he failed in one way or another. And Rurahel always blocked his path. But this was the first time Elona had appeared. There was something disturbing about that, and it tore open an old wound he had been trying to heal for twenty years.
