Chapter 26: The Brother Beneath
The wind carried her voice again.
"Don't trust her."
Kael stood at the edge of the orchard, heart hammering against his ribs like it was trying to break free.
Behind him, Lyra called his name.
But he didn't turn.
He couldn't.
The locket in his pocket felt heavier with every step he took away from her. From Liora if that was even real.
The boy had gone silent after the accusation, gaze cast downward like he'd said too much. Or maybe, just enough. Lyra hadn't denied it. Not with words. Not with the truth.
So Kael walked.
Into the mist.
Into the town's forgotten edge.
Whisperwood shifted when you didn't look. Kael had learned that much.
Streets changed. Doors moved. Buildings vanished only to return elsewhere, slightly wrong. But this time, something stranger happened.
As he passed through a narrow alley, he felt the stone beneath his boots grow colder. Not just damp but icy. Frost bloomed along the walls in delicate, unnatural patterns.
He emerged into a clearing he didn't recognize.
A place that shouldn't exist.
Sunlight real sunlight pierced the canopy above. Golden. Warm. And at the center of the clearing stood a man in black, sitting calmly on a rusted bench beside a cracked sundial.
Kael slowed. Instinct said to turn around.
But the man looked up.
And Kael stopped breathing.
"...Kael?"
The voice was gravelly, hesitant. But it hit Kael like a blade to the gut.
"I know you don't remember me," the man said. "But I remember you."
Kael stepped closer, unsure if he was awake or caught in some cruel echo.
"Who are you?"
The man smiled softly. Sadly.
"I'm your brother."
The man introduced himself as Taren.
Older by maybe ten years. Worn like weathered stone. He had Kael's eyes but colder. Guarded. He wore a sigil Kael had seen before… drawn in the sand as a child. Or in a dream. Or maybe in another life.
Taren explained slowly, as if afraid the truth might break Kael.
"You were taken first," he said. "The Saint hollowed you, rewrote you. But I remembered. I stayed outside. I've been trying to get in ever since."
Kael's voice cracked. "Why didn't you come sooner?"
"I did. But Whisperwood doesn't open unless it wants to." He looked around, his jaw tight. "I had to wait until someone fractured it from the inside."
Kael shook his head. "Lyra?"
Taren's expression darkened. "She's not who you think she is, Kael. She's part of the town now. Woven into it. Her truth is its lie."
Kael paced, his thoughts spinning like stormwinds.
"I don't remember you," he admitted.
Taren stood. "That's not your fault. They fed your memories to the Saint, piece by piece. But I can help get them back."
"How?"
"There's a chamber beneath the well," he said. "A place where the Saint keeps its first echoes. If we reach it, you'll remember who you were before the hollowing. Before Whisperwood."
Kael hesitated. "I've dreamed of the well. Seren's voice… Lyra's too. It's always pulling me back there."
"Because that's where you died," Taren said softly. "And where you can be reborn."
A branch snapped behind them.
Kael turned
Lyra.
She looked wild. Rain-slicked. Winded. She must have followed him through the trees.
"Kael," she breathed. "Step away from him."
Taren raised a brow. "Ah. There she is."
Kael glanced between them. "You know him?"
Lyra ignored the question. "He's not who he says he is."
"And you are?" Taren countered. "You left him in the dark. Lied about his name. His past. You used him to find the Saint's heart."
"That's not true," Lyra snapped. "I protected him."
"By rewriting him?" Taren stepped forward. "By burying everything that made him real?"
Kael shouted, "STOP!"
Both froze.
He stood there, breathing hard, fists clenched. "I don't know who to believe anymore."
Lyra took a cautious step forward. "Then believe yourself. Trust what your blood is telling you. Not echoes."
Taren smirked. "Or do you finally feel it, Kael? That itch in your bones when she lies?"
The mist thickened suddenly, curling around their ankles like fingers.
And the clearing... shifted.
Sunlight turned cold. The grass beneath them blackened.
Kael stumbled, clutching his head. Something was scraping inside his skull.
A scream not from his throat, but from within.
Memories. Half-shaped.
A boy in a cloak.
A well.
A promise.
Lyra screaming.
His hands pushing someone in.
He gasped.
Lyra caught him as he fell. "Kael!"
But he pulled away.
"I need time," he rasped.
Lyra's voice broke. "Don't follow him. Please. He's not who he thinks he is himself"
Kael turned.
"I need to know who I am first."
And he followed Taren into the
As Kael disappears, Lyra collapses to her knees reaching into her coat and pulling out a broken pendant.
She whispers to herself:
Taren died five years ago."