Page 45 of Traithorn

Entering my bedroom, I’m certain it’s only my paranoid mind making things up when I can’t see anything else amiss, my head too exhausted to function properly.

That is until a wind washes over me, bringing in a coldness that makes me tremble. The balcony door stands open, the curtains fluttering in the breeze. Hurrying toward the balcony—located on the first floor but concealed by the tall thuja bushes to block any view—I’m startled to find a letter on the armchair. Someone has brushed away the snow, leaving just enough space for it to rest undisturbed.

In that split second before reaching the letter, the warm blood flowing in my veins turns into ice. Irreparable and scared, fearing for my fate. It soon feels as if my body has been electrified, anticipation thrumming through me in a way completely tangible.

Struggling to calm my heart, any and all rational senses vanish within me. Excitement rushes through me, sharp and jittery as if a fuse has been lit.

It reeks of the strawberry-honey scent. One so familiar, itsends a tug of heartache through me with the need to suddenly shed tears.

There’s no doubt who it’s from.

The crumbled male handwriting—so rough yet somehow elegant because it defineshim—causes feathers to ruffle in my stomach as I read the words. Reluctantly. I should call the police, telling them I fear for my life and thatthey’reback, asking the police to come get me. Take them away again, for good. But I don’t know if it’s truly them, and that would’ve been embarrassing.

Who am I kidding?I know it’s them.

Happy Birthday

Just those two short words. But they say more than a thousand words could—telling tales of gutwrenching agony in the slight tilt, of warm well-wishing in the elegance of their script.

As if an unseen ghost of memory has passed through me, a swift commotion stirs behind the thujas. Two silhouettes, not hiding but standing proud in the fading light, almost swallowed by the descending flakes.

And instead of a deep-rooted fear urging me to run the other way, a longing ache of despair settles inside me. Twisting and turning, winding its way through my heart with the weight ofdesiderium—a fierce desire and yearning.

Despite all, they found me.

Chapter 17

THE DROWNED SOUL

The Dagger

When she left ayear ago, it felt as if my heart would tear into a million pieces. For the first time in my life, Icried. Tears trickling down my cheeks in non-stop rivulets, refusing to stop, bringing with the intense cracking of my chest being sliced open.

“My ribcage is collapsing. I can’t breathe. Help!”I told my twin brother, out of breath and desperate to claw the sensation out of me, if only so I could swallow oxygen. But my brother looks equally as lost.

We did everything we could to find her. For over a goddamn year, we searched every corner of the town. The nearby towns. Searching for her. There was no information to find, because, as a young, easily manipulated officer working at the police station told us, she had filed a restraining order against us.

She hadn’t used our old names for the restraint—Celine and Vernon Duskvik—but had instead somehow found out about our new identities, provided by her ex. She probably found out about them from Casper, who still had some belongings left in her apartment.

We left Vexglade and the castle behind, searching for her in desperation after she left. But she had become a phantom to the world. Not be seen or heard from, but remembered in scrutinizing agony that carved one’s heart out from flesh.

The sheer, utter pain that spread through every blood vessel within me like a toxin made me realize one thing: we’re not immortal. And therefore, we cannot afford to take anything forgranted, as we so often have.

Our lives are fragile, and our emotions even more so. Despite believing we weren’t capable of such things, we are not immune to suffering, not exempt from loss, and we will be mourned, just as we now mourn her. We are the architects of our undoing. But we could not let this be the end of us, just like we have never given up before.

With this, I learned that above all, we could never take her for granted ever again.

We needed her to trust us again, and we needed to do this the right way to win her over.

Because finally, after one year of searching every nook and cranny, asking around for clues that led us in different directions and one step closer to finding her, we finally found the town Isolde moved to.

Silver Creek.

And she didn’t even change her name, which made it so much easier to find exactly which apartment was her new place. Although with our restraining order, I’m sure she believed she was safe enough not to need to change her name.

I’m not known for giving up. And Isolde Duskvik belongs to us, even when she doesn’t dare to admit to it.

Observing her body language now through the branches and leaves of the thuja bushes covered in snow, reading the letter we left her, her head suddenly whips up as ifknowingwe’re here, watching her. The moment I see those beautiful blue and gray eyes, my collapsed chest stitches itself together again. Piece by piece, the threads weave through the agony and ease it. Until a weight has been lifted from me, and it feels as if I can finally breathe for the first time since she left.

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