Keira's POV
I destroyed the tower room.
Lightning exploded from my hands, shattering the mirror, scorching the walls, obliterating the beautiful furniture. The books burst into flames. The flowers disintegrated. I screamed until my throat was raw, pouring every ounce of rage and terror into pure destruction.
Three days. I had three days before I became a weapon that would kill everyone.
"Keira, stop!" Caelan's wind magic caught my lightning, directing it harmlessly upward. "You're going to hurt yourself!"
"Good!" I hurled more power at him. "Maybe if I hurt myself enough, I'll break whatever she put inside me! Maybe I'll just die now and save everyone the trouble!"
"That's not happening!" He grabbed my wrists, his touch sending sparks through both our magics. "Listen to me! We have three days to figure this out! Three days to—"
"To what? Find some magical cure that doesn't exist? Accept that I'm a monster?" I laughed hysterically. "Face it, Caelan. Your sister died twenty-one years ago. I'm just the weapon Grandmother Nyx built from her corpse!"
He slapped me.
The shock of it stopped my magic cold. We both froze, staring at each other. Caelan looked horrified at what he'd done.
"I'm sorry," he breathed. "I shouldn't have—"
I slapped him back. Hard.
"We're even," I said. Then, unexpectedly, I started laughing. Real laughter this time, not the hysterical kind. "Did we used to fight like this? As kids?"
Caelan rubbed his cheek, a surprised smile breaking through. "All the time. You once gave me a black eye because I said your flower crown looked silly."
"Did you say sorry?"
"Nope. You were right—it did look silly." He touched my face gently where he'd slapped it. "But you're wrong about being just a weapon. You're Keira. My sister. And we're going to prove it."
"How?"
"By making you remember everything she tried to erase." He pulled a small crystal from his pocket—different from the memory crystal Lyra had shown me. This one pulsed with both lightning and wind magic. "This is a twin-bond crystal. It connects our memories, our magic, our souls. If we activate it together, you'll see everything through my eyes. Everything we shared before she took you."
I stared at the crystal, terrified. "What if I still don't remember? What if there's nothing left to find?"
"Then we make new memories." His storm-gray eyes held mine. "But Keira, I think you do remember. Deep down. You called me 'Cae-Cae' when you were dying. That was my nickname. Only you ever used it."
Had I? The memory was foggy, dreamlike.
"Please," Caelan said. "Let me show you who we were. Who we still are."
I took the crystal. The moment both our hands touched it, the world exploded into light.
Memories flooded through me like a dam breaking:
Playing in the palace gardens. Caelan pushing me on a swing while I shrieked with laughter.
Our mother braiding my hair, singing a lullaby about lightning and wind dancing together.
Our father teaching us to control our magic, his hands guiding ours with infinite patience.
Caelan and me hiding under a table during a boring state dinner, giggling while adults searched for us.
The two of us making a blood pact at age four: "Best friends forever, no matter what."
Running through the rain, our magic creating a spectacular storm, our parents watching with proud smiles.
And then—
Darkness. Screaming. Blood. Our parents dying. Grandmother Nyx's cold smile as she ripped me from Caelan's arms. His voice crying my name. My voice screaming for him. Then nothing. Emptiness. Erasure.
I gasped, falling to my knees. Caelan caught me, both of us crying as the memories settled into place.
"I remember," I sobbed. "I remember everything. The garden. The songs. You. Oh gods, Caelan, I remember you."
"I know. I know." He held me tight. "You're back. You're really back."
For the first time in twenty-one years, I felt complete. The missing piece of my soul had clicked into place.
But it made everything so much worse.
Because now I knew exactly what I was going to destroy in three days
Over the next hours, Caelan showed me everything. Birth certificates proving we were twins. Medical records showing our identical magical signatures. Eyewitness accounts from loyalists who'd survived the attack. A hundred pieces of evidence, each one another nail in the coffin of my old life.
The Covenant hadn't saved me. They'd stolen me. Everything was a lie.
"Why?" I finally asked, exhausted and emotionally raw. "Why go through all this? Why not just kill me as a child?"
Caelan pulled out an ancient scroll—the prophecy. "Because of this. 'When the storm-touched twins unite, they shall bring either salvation or destruction to the continent. Their magic combined can rebuild or raze kingdoms. Their choice will determine the fate of all.'"
"I don't understand."
"Grandmother Nyx couldn't kill you because the prophecy protects you—and me. We're magically bound to each other's survival until we reach our full power at age twenty-one. If one twin dies before then, the other dies too." He met my eyes. "We turned twenty-one three months ago. That's when you became killable. That's when she sent you to assassinate me."
My mind raced. "So if I'd succeeded—"
"We both would have died. The prophecy would have been fulfilled through mutual destruction. Grandmother Nyx would have won." Caelan's voice hardened. "But you didn't kill me. You chose me. You broke her plan. So now she's activating whatever backup she built into you."
"The weapon inside me."
"Yes. And we need to figure out what it is and how to stop it." He spread documents across the table. "Lyra's been researching the poison Silas used. She thinks it's not actually poison—it's a magical catalyst. Something that awakens dormant spells."
"What kind of spells?"
"That's what we need to figure out. Before—"
A scream interrupted us.
We ran to the window. In the courtyard below, a palace guard was convulsing, black veins spreading across his skin. Other guards backed away in horror.
"What's happening to him?" I breathed.
Lyra appeared at my door, her face pale. "It's shadow plague. Ancient dark magic. It spreads through touch and kills within hours. The only person who's ever been able to create it is—"
"Grandmother Nyx," I finished, ice flooding my veins.
"There's more." Lyra's voice shook. "The infected guard says he felt the plague activate when you entered the room this morning. When your magic flared during your... episode."
Everyone turned to look at me.
"No," I whispered. "No, I didn't—I wouldn't—"
But I remembered my lightning exploding uncontrollably. Remembered it touching several guards as they tried to calm me down.
"Keira." Caelan's voice was careful. Gentle. "Did you touch anyone today? Any of the guards, servants, anyone?"
I thought back. "The guard at breakfast. And the maid who brought fresh linens. And—oh gods. Finn. I ruffled Finn's hair when I passed him in the hallway."
Caelan's face went white. "How many people total?"
"Maybe... twenty? I don't know! I wasn't counting!" Panic clawed at my throat. "Caelan, what's happening to me?"
"The weapon." Lyra said it like a death sentence. "You're not a bomb that explodes. You're a plague carrier. Every person you touch becomes infected. Every person they touch gets infected. Within three days, you'll have turned everyone in Valdoria into—"
"Disease vectors," I finished numbly. "Walking corpses spreading death to everyone they meet. She turned me into a plague that will wipe out your entire kingdom."
The room spun. I looked at my hands—normal, unremarkable hands that were apparently weapons of mass murder.
"The children I saved," I whispered. "Did I touch any of them?"
Caelan's silence was answer enough.
"How long until symptoms show?" I demanded.
"Based on the guard's progression... twelve hours for the first touch. Then it spreads exponentially." Lyra's voice cracked. "Your Highness, we need to quarantine the princess immediately. Lock her somewhere she can't infect anyone else."
"No!" Caelan grabbed my hand—then froze as he realized what he'd done. We both stared at our joined hands.
"You just infected yourself," I said flatly.
"I don't care." He squeezed tighter. "We're twins. We share everything, remember? Including plagues, apparently."
"This isn't funny!"
"I'm not laughing!" He pulled me close, and I felt his magic wrapping around us both—protective, defiant, desperate. "Listen to me. We are going to fix this. Together. Because that's what the prophecy means. Salvation or destruction. We choose salvation."
"How? There's no cure for shadow plague! Grandmother Nyx made sure of that!"
"Then we make one." He said it like it was obvious. Like creating an impossible cure for an ancient magical plague in less than three days was just another Tuesday.
"You're insane."
"I prefer 'optimistic.'" His smile was shaky but real. "Besides, we're magical twins from a prophecy. Being impossible is kind of our thing."
Despite everything, I laughed. Then cried. Then laughed again because what else could I do?
"Okay," I said. "Okay. We find a cure. We save everyone. We prove I'm more than Grandmother Nyx's weapon."
"That's my sister." Caelan pulled back, already moving into planning mode. "Lyra, gather every healer and magical researcher in Valdoria. I want everyone working on this. Search the archives for anything about shadow plague cures."
"Your Highness, there are no recorded cures—"
"Then we'll make the first one!" His wind magic crackled with determination. "We have three days. Let's make them count."
Lyra bowed and left, though she looked doubtful.
I turned to Caelan. "What if we fail? What if in three days, I've killed everyone you love?"
"Then in three days, we die together." He took both my hands, infected or not. "But until then, we fight. Deal?"
"Deal."
We stood there, hands clasped, lightning and wind dancing between us. Two halves of a prophecy. Two siblings stolen from each other and reunited. Two people facing impossible odds.
A knock on the door made us both jump.
Finn peeked in, looking nervous. "Your Highness? The prisoner wants to see Princess Keira. Says he has information about the cure."
"What prisoner?" I asked.
Caelan's expression darkened. "Silas. We captured him during the attack. He's been in the dungeons since."
My heart stopped. "Silas knows about the plague?"
"Apparently." Caelan studied my face. "Do you want to see him?"
Did I? Silas had been my closest friend in the Covenant. My almost-brother. The boy who'd tried to warn me, save me, love me.
The boy who'd also tried to murder children to draw me out.
"Yes," I decided. "If he knows something that can help, I need to hear it."
"Then we go together." Caelan's hand found mine again. "Whatever he tells you, whatever he offers, we face it together."
We headed to the dungeons, neither of us knowing that Silas's information would change everything.
That in the dark cell below, my former friend was about to offer me an impossible choice:
Save Valdoria... by killing the brother I'd just remembered loving.