The day of the mourning fire, grief split me in two. I stood at the edge of the cliffs and my wolf went silent inside me, truly silent, as though she had lain down and stopped breathing. I nearly followed her into the dark. I nearly let the tide take me the way it had taken him.
Then the healers found the second heartbeat.
After that, I set down the idea of dying. But I did not pick up living. I drifted through the days like smoke, crying until the pillow was damp, then turning it over and crying again. I thought this was all that remained of my life.
Until the night I heard them.
I was passing a half-open door in the Nightfang Keep when my intended mate's voice stopped me cold.
"Sylvia, the truth is plain. The one who died in that storm-tide was your younger brother. But you buried the truth with him, suppressed your own scent, took his scent-name, and lived inside his identity. All of it so you could stay beside your brother's mate. Aren't you afraid the truth will surface?"
And then his voice. The voice I had mourned for a year and a half, steady and unapologetic: