Free Follow Me Through Darkness by Danielle Ellison Page B

“There were no twins born in the decade after us. If the Elders really feared them, they’d go to any means to prevent their birth.”
    Prevent their birth… .
    Thorne’s brow creases, but he says nothing.
    “I know they started treatments early,” I say, trying to keep the conversation going.
    “Yes,” Cecily says. “Treatments from conception to birth given in utero. The Elders believed twins held some great knowledge that they wanted for themselves. For decades they sought the answers, but the answers caused other effects they would not realize for many years.”
    “What were they looking for?” Thorne asks.
    “The Old World had many beliefs about twins, from the dawn of time until the Preservation,” Cecily says. “In their mythologies, twins represented creation and sacrifice, a partnership. Twins were cast as two halves of the same whole, sharing deep bonds. Some said twins had psychic or emotional connections and secret communication. Centuries of humans believed that twins had a connection, a strength that transcended normal understanding.”
    That’s how Thorne and I are. Stronger together, a balance, a weighted scale. I’ve known what Thorne felt all my life.
    “Because of the stories the Elders connected twins?” I ask.
    Cecily nods. “There’s power in belief. It shapes who you become. The Elders believed twins were each half a person, and the branding would allow them to remain as one. Early on, the Elders tested twins to determine how deep that connection ran, and well, they always got the answers they were searching for.”
    If the connection is that deep, then what would it feel like to not have someone else on the other end of my branding? To be alone after being with someone for so long?
    “How?” Thorne interjects.
    “Because the branding alters them,” I say aloud. It’s starting to make some sort of sense. If the branding alters everyone in some way, then it alters twins, too. The purpose was supposed to be similar-control and lack of free will-but it wasn’t. Not with the treatments given to twins. That was how the Elders did it.
    Cecily clears her throat, and when I look up, she and Thorne are staring at me. “The twin branding and testing caused more trouble than the Elders believed it could. You can’t play with genetics and not have consequences. The branding was the final ingredient of whatever concoction the Elders were cooking in the womb.”
    Then how did it work on Thorne and me? What did it mean for us? Was it truly the reason we are the way we are? I was never given a treatment, but I was connected to him, part of him.
    “It served also as a marker that these two people were different, important to them,” Cecily says. “The Elders kept them together, studied them as they grew, and used the research to perfect future births.” She stares at us for a long time, sorrow evident in her eye. “They believed you were unaffected. I assume they were wrong in that belief?”
    I nod, not letting my gaze waver. “What happened back then?”
    Cecily doesn’t get to answer. Boris steps into the room with food and water. Cecily looks away as Boris hands me a sandwich, and the hot cheese burns the roof of my mouth.
    I’m halfway through the sandwich when she asks me about the Burrows. “There was some kind of casualty there today. We weren’t sure you would make it.”
    “My guide helped me escape before the fire.”
    “It was a fire?” she asks. I nod. She says something to Boris in the Remnant language. “Eat up, then get some rest. Boris will return to show you to your room. We can talk more tomorrow.”
    They’re gone before I get the chance to ask if they know how a fire could’ve started in the Burrows and what they know about it. Thorne stares at me, and when I reach out for him, because my hand has a mind of its own, he pulls away.

3 DAYS BEFORE ESCAPE
    XENITH PULLS ME OFF THE FLOOR . My head is groggy with images of Thorne, with the sound of him crying