PENUMBRA: Prologue

Prologue

Feyrn had come to hate watching, always witnessing things they couldn't affect.

It was supposed to be all they did, staying out of it--remaining neutral in everything. What else could they do, but what they were asked? A quick glance confirmed his twin was curled up around the gaping hole in his chest, momentarily losing the fight to keep that pain at bay. Teryn's was the time that had needed stopped, before a fatal wound could steal him away, and Fey never regretted that his ceased, too. It would have anyway. At least this way, they were together.

Fey did what the Powers demanded. He always had. Even as wars broke out below, kings were toppled, he went and watched and did nothing else while his brother transcribed it all. But this was different.

Genocide.

He met Ryn's eyes, knowing what he'd see in them. His own horror reflected back in irises so pale a silver they seemed almost colorless. And something else, something that had always lurked there but flared to the forefront now with that stubborn clenching of his teeth.

Pleading, admonishment, guilt, and determination. Fey choked on that.

He looked away again, but he couldn't see anymore through the tears. They were this world's strongest Guardians, and now its only. Except they weren't a part of it in this timeless Limbo.

In that, there had been no choice at all, for him. The corrupted traitors who assassinated every one of them started with the two of them. They had to--with any reason to fear for their own safety, he and Ryn could have defended themselves indefinitely. So there had to be no reason for suspicion at that time. How could they have imagined betrayal of an organization wholly dedicated to preserving magic?

Why would magicians wish to end magic?

It turned out, because magic fueled life and it fueled death. As long as it remained, somebody whose body wasn't salvageable could never return to life. With magic gone...well, nobody knew, not really. But the Traitors were probably right. Ending magic would also pull down the division between living souls and dead. Everybody might live together, if that happened. Or none of them might live at all.

He detested the people willing to risk that for their own selfish desires, but Fey knew how hypocritical that was. Were circumstances just a little different, he might have sought the same. Even now, when he had the experience to realize exactly what must be sacrificed to bring back the dead, Fey didn't dare look at the chance of him needing that. They both knew what he wouldn't sacrifice, if he had to, in order to save his twin--and there wasn't much. He'd already given up his life to keep Ryn from his death.

But Fey couldn't just stand by while an entire nation was slaughtered just for tending to birth magicians. Even if he wouldn't hate himself for it, his brother would, and that was the one thing he couldn't bear.

Age didn't matter much to Guardians, but the two of them had been by far the youngest with access to their magic, callow despite their power. Tragically idealistic, it turned out.

Fatally.

They thought everyone else just wanted to help save the world, too.

So they could never have imagined some of their fellow Guardians would stab them in the back. Literally and figuratively. Yet somehow, Ryn realized what was happening without time to spare even for thought or comprehension, instinctively shifting. They were shoulder to shoulder to begin with, so all his brother had to do was lean, and the power spike struck his heart instead of Fey's. There hadn't been time to do more, or deal with the other spike that simply kept going.

Ryn hadn't regretted it, Fey didn't even have to touch his mind to know. Their minds were the same, anyway, but that crooked smile said everything. It only infuriated Fey, driving him to act even though his life had just ended. As if he needed a trigger on top of the raging disbelief at seeing a crystal sticking out through his brother's chest. They'd never uncaged their power completely, too afraid of causing irreparable harm. But a weapon powerful enough to kill them had destroyed everything around them already. Paradoxically, that was a good thing, because if it hadn't, Fey was quite certain his own explosion would have. Even if he could have managed not to feel guilt for that, Ryn couldn't. Hurting him was the last thing Fey wanted.

Besides, to do what was needed, his brother had to agree--to help.

So Fey lied. No, it probably wasn't untrue, extrapolating from their past experiences. But, to a dying Ryn, Fey used the private cocoon where their minds intersected to convince his brother that they would both die if Ryn did. Like him, Ryn reacted to that with the willingness to do almost anything to save his brother. That was all the spell needed. Both of them fueled a cessation of time, shifting themselves into the membrane of magic dividing life from death.

Only to find that there were others waiting for them there.

They only knew these shadowy beings as Powers, never sure if they were human once, or something else entirely. It almost didn't matter. They'd told him what he had to do to save his twin from a weapon meant to lock away their power so magicians could be slain. That was all Feyrn cared about, all he dared think about. At first.

But now, they had time to think. As the crystal piercing Teryn's chest dissolved, the pain faded so that they could spare attention to anything else on top of compartmentalizing that agony. And what they saw made their naivete all too clear. They'd thought they could just fight the corrupting magic and sadistic magicians, and Good would win. From Limbo, they witnessed atrocities committed out of a sense of righteousness, cruelty lashing out at any who were different. They saw people reach out to help complete strangers, those who could do anything they wanted choose to help those who couldn't.

Life.

It seemed a sorry thing for so many to fight over, and at the same time, something too precious to squander in such squabbles. Sometimes, it seemed like most people didn't deserve it; and sometimes, it seemed like something no miscreant deserved to be burdened with. But they wanted to preserve this world, despite what it had done to them. Fey was a little surprised to be able to look at the people who had tried to murder them and only see foolish, selfish monsters without feeling hate. But not hating couldn't mean he didn't loathe what they inflicted on the world around them. They had to be stopped.

And that meant he and his brother had to start again, return to normal time. Even though they might have only seconds, it would be enough to stop the last of the world's magicians from destroying everything to get what they wanted--stop them from destroying death, either without knowing or without caring that this would destroy life, as well.

* * *

"You can still survive."

Fey jerked out of his contemplation--no, it was brooding, now, wasn't it? "What?"

"Just because I die, it doesn't mean you have to."

Fey looked at his brother in disbelief, but it was mild. They'd gone through this before, hadn't they? His twin was better at it than he was. Ryn could suborn the fear of the loneliness that would come with being reft apart, because he would rather have his twin live than have Fey be with him. Of course, Fey would have traded all his power just to have a few more moments together. He shook his head.

Acerbically, one eyebrow raised, Fey commented, "You haven't noticed? Because you're usually more observant than that."

Ryn smiled wanly, still looking as bloodless and weak as he had been the moment they stepped outside of time. That was the reason the Powers let him transcribe what Fey witnessed, when all the other guests here were tasked with their own events and people to stalk for the sake of history. Ryn curled over his knees, arms wrapped around a wound that had neither healed nor worsened--not even bled--while they existed outside of time.

"I was hoping you hadn't."

Fey sighed. He knelt in front of his twin, gripping Ryn's shoulders until he could uncoil enough to remain seated instead of tipping. "Our minds overlap almost entirely, now. If I didn't know, yeah, maybe I would survive your death. I doubt it, and you do too, or you'd have let yourself fade away years ago, to save me, wouldn't you? But this way, I won't survive you. And I wouldn't really have lived anymore without you."

When he stood, Fey was surprised to see his brother look unswervingly determined. Ryn spoke quietly, but firmly. "Then we'll split the difference."

"Wha-?" Before he even finished the exclamation, Fey saw what had been hidden in the depths of his brother's thoughts. A pale smile roused at the thought that his straightforward little brother had hidden this from him, and for so long. Maybe Ryn was learning, finally.

"You think they can combine?"

"I think they may have to. But-"

"But you would have left the world to its fate, if it might save my life?" Fey said it archly, but his twin looked away with a sharpness that told of his self-loathing for that willingness and for the worse crime--that he didn't regret it. Sitting beside Ryn, Fey wrapped his brother in a tight embrace. "Don't be sorry we both feel like this. It's what gives us such power, our interconnectedness."

They wanted to save the world, in all its patchwork glory. Both the good and the evil, hopelessly intermingled and shifting, dependent upon variables they could only see as they watched decades pass, and then centuries. And wanting even more to save each other was all that gave them the faintest chance of doing it.

Their minds had never been entirely separate, but their power had. Even though it had been the same, it hadn't. Once, they'd manifested it in blades, one light and one dark. Ironically, Ryn, soft-hearted and gentle to a fault, had the black blade, the one that could cut anything. No, maybe it was fitting he have it. He was possibly the only person Fey would trust not to abuse it. For Fey, the blade of light unified. It connected, melding what it cut. Even their magic. Which is what they were going to do right now.

They were probably killing themselves, with this action, but the alternatives were unthinkable. Either they left all life to be destroyed along with death, or they sacrificed. Yeah, they'd probably be fine outside of time here in Limbo--but, on the other hand, maybe they would be destroyed along with the veil separating life from death. Of course, they couldn't let that happen. It was why the blades had to combine, and their magic. Only then could they stand in the way of the dissolution of all that existed within the bounds of time.

Centuries after his brother was fatally wounded, though they'd spent all that nontime together, Fey still felt the wrench of losing his twin like the world was ending. That was why they called on their magic instantly, not giving themselves time to think, to dread, to grieve. They'd already forsaken their right to any time at all. At the same moment, they each materialized the blades focusing their power, each moving to strike in that identical dance they wove in engraving their will upon the world.

Fey reconnected himself and his twin to time, once more, let their magic again affect the world. That enabled Ryn to cut those selfish magicians off from the power they would use to let their lost loved ones live again even though it meant nobody would really live at all. But he barely finished the motion before his body gave out, the hole punched through heart and lungs at last wreaking its doom. Ryn collapsed before they even had time to reacclimate to the pressure of everything around them being vibrant, moving--living. Even with the crystal still clinging around the edges of that wound, that cavity through half his heart meant Ryn bled out almost instantaneously, eyes glazing as blood no longer reached his brain.

They didn't even have time to unify the blades, and Fey knew with a rush of dreadful certainty that his brother had guessed as much. So he called upon a power that remained available to him even though its bearer was dead, something else Ryn had been almost certain of. What even he hadn't guessed was what they would realize when the blades came together.

Fission. Fusion. These weapons had a destructive purpose beyond the merely magical. Just one slash, with focused intent, could combine or divide the cores of physical existence, releasing unimaginable energy. The two of them could have incinerated this world, twinned its sun. But the rush of anguish that crushed Fey didn't care about power that could burn everything to ash. It did, however, clarify far more than just the purpose of their weapons. The crystal those fools had used to kill by stealing or sealing magic could have the opposite effect, as well. They were going to destroy all existence to do something they'd possessed the tool to accomplish, all along, if any such crystal held an imprint of their deceased loved ones. The amount of crystal had to be small, or else its intended function would override any effort of will, but its effects could be made to run the other way--to giving, not taking.

Or maybe this was something only he and Ryn could do. No, it definitely was. Because they were connected, always, no matter what lay between them. One spirit on the side of life, one on the side of death, meant they could do this, working together. They would because Fey wasn't bluffing when he warned his twin--their minds connected even beyond death, now, with what they had done--that his grief would likely accomplish what they'd returned to this world to prevent.

All it took was a reversed charge. Pushing magic into a gem designed only to steal it so that it gave, instead, let the crystal at the edges of a deadly wound grow, fill in what it had destroyed. In the end, Fey could see the action of a crystal heart and lung, and relief nearly felled him. Did fell him, until he realized that wasn't enough. Ryn had lost too much blood; restored organs couldn't pump what wasn't there, and not even the power they'd just called upon could replenish blood fast enough to do any good.

Teeth gritted, Fey impaled one wrist on the sharp spike left behind in echo of the fatal crystal's tip. It was gratifyingly easy to make the crystal steal blood as it had once stolen magic, and then it seemed naturally to push it through heart and blood vessels.

Before it reached the dangerous point, his magic faltered. It shouldn't have surprised him, though. It was his brother's power, too, now, and Ryn wouldn't let him kill himself for his sake.

But...it wasn't going to be enough. Even if Fey could draw a spirit back from the realm of death--and they hadn't exactly had the time to learn that, though he would have kept trying until something worked--even with all this help, there was no way to save his brother. Only the crystal portions of heart and lungs worked, the rest of the organs still as death.

'Not viable?' Ryn's voice said in Fey's head, with a queer mix of sorrow, terror, sympathetic agony, and relief. The latter of which his twin explained sheepishly: 'You wouldn't stop trying unless there were no hope.'

It was like Fey could see a faint image of his brother, through the Veil. And maybe he could, given how long they'd spent within it, and that their minds remained connected.

Ryn's flutter of a relieved smile made Fey lash out at the one person he didn't want to hurt. He gritted his teeth, but his pain still leaked through as he asked viciously, "What on earth could entice me to remain on this side of the veil while you're on the other?"

Ryn's barely-visible image only drooped, dropping any hint of a smile, but Fey knew him well enough to be sure he'd have gone pale if he still had a body. If he had any blood, to begin with. And then, mental voice quiet with sorrow and pain and loneliness, Ryn played the only card he had left.

'It...would make me glad. If you live.'

"And miserable," Fey added. "Even if you could bear us being separated, I don't think you could bear me not being able to bear it."

To that, Ryn said nothing. He kept his head down as Fey stared at him, trying to see his twin in an image transparent as water. He frowned. "What's that behind you?"

Ryn didn't look up from whatever had affixed his gaze, just saying blandly, 'They're the watchdogs here. They're supposed to keep the Veil safe by keeping us away from it.' Fey stared at his brother really hard, until finally, Ryn admitted quietly, 'Yeah. I don't want to get any further from you, so getting mauled several times a day seems better than moving back from the Veil.'

Fey just stared daggers again, but only for an instant. "Step into the Veil."

'Wha-'

"I'm bringing your body, your spirit should be drawn right to it. Just step back into Limbo. It can't be that hard to find already."

But it turned out to be very difficult to find. They still weren't sure they were back until they ran into one another, and likely could only reach the place at all by compromising between the realm of life and that of death. Catching Ryn as he stumbled seemed especially odd because Fey was towing his twin's body behind. "You feel--and look--like death."

"You did have a plan, coming in here, right?" Fey didn't answer, just held his brother tightly. Though Ryn meant for his sigh to be exasperated, it was clearly more relieved. "Of course not. So...we'll petition them."

"What? Wait, who?"

"The Powers." The others who were here in Limbo. Once he caught on to that, Fey knew the rest without even having to check his twin's mind. Ryn had come here for Fey's sake, not his own, and there was only one thing Fey wanted.

* * *

"So, you are asking of us what--to live forever?" That was the voice of the Power who'd told them their assignments when they arrived here by stepping out of time so long ago. Stumbling and collapsing, really.

A younger- and female-sounding voice corrected, "No, I think it is to live together. They don't mind dying eventually, so long as they live and those lives are together."

"What, they think we'll bring the one back from the dead? Who'd spend the energy keeping him tethered to a world that had already rejected him?"

These discussions could drag on for hours, maybe even days, Fey knew. Sure, Fey liked having Ryn safely at his side again, and kept one hand clutching his twin's far elbow to help keep him on his feet nearly as much as to just hold him close. But he loathed having his brother's corpse on the other side. He dared not leave it behind, so dragged it along in the other hand. As if they hadn't experienced enough of the gruesome and macabre.

Cutting off further arguments, Fey interjected, "Live, or die, or exist in Limbo--we don't care! As long as we can do it together, be together the whole time--always. As long as neither of us gets left behind unless we both do, together."