Free Derive by Jamie Magee Page B

agreement.
    There was so much more I wanted to show her before I took her to the dining hall. We moved down another hall of artwork.
    These pieces were more eccentric. I didn’t know the stories behind them, so I made up a few. They were so outlandish that she knew without a doubt that I was teasing, and as if we had done this a thousand times before she added to my tales, made them more insane.
    The stories we created were full of every emotion, even humor. Her laugh was infectious. Music to my soul.
    We lingered in front of one of the paintings of a vast family, at least I assumed they were family; each was faceless, and all seemed to be the same age. There were sixteen in focus, with others lingering in the background. The image had the earmarks of imperialism. I always liked it because it was balanced out into couples.
    “I meant it before,” she whispered.
    I didn’t answer because I wasn’t sure what she was talking about.
    She gazed up at me. “I don ’t think you’re supposed to kill him, your twin image.”
    I bit my lip as I let out a sigh. My eyes raced across her image. “He ’s a very dark soul.”
    “But so am I.”
    If I were wise, I would have looked in every direction to ensure that no one heard her say that, that we were alone in this hall, but I could not rip my gaze from her.
    “You have not done the things that he has.”
    “No, but it doesn’t make sense.”
    I lifted my brow.
    “Light and dark, side by side. That is what this is. What the border is. Would it not be logical to think that it was mocking the soul? That in each soul there is light and dark? That the soul made of two could in some way find its reflection in another soul made of two? If you destroy him, would you not be destroying the light he loves as well?”
    “He loves no one.”
    “Before this dawn, you would have said the same.”
    I was rigid, not because I was defensive or mad, but because she was right. I couldn ’t bring myself to agree or disagree.
    Finally, I said what was told to me but I never really felt. “I have every reason to believe that he must be destroyed. That he bound my soul.”
    “Why?”
    I didn ’t have an answer for that. Not one that would make sense.
    “I did not see him divide us in those images,” she said as her eyes clearly traced over those lingering visions in her mind.
    I moved my head from side to side to tell her I agreed.
    “Then he did not bind, for he did not divide us.”
    That was a new way to look at it, but I didn’t clearly understand where she was going with this.
    “I ’m your soul. I’m darkness living within your light. That lesson was instilled in me by that man that gave me all those visions. I do not understand why you feel the need to destroy a man just because he’s dark and resembles you.” Her eyes searched mine for an instant. “Do you do this for you fear I would mistake him for you if I were to go?”
    Before this day, I never had that fear, but I had to admit, at least to myself, that yeah, I was worried about that, just like I was worried about Cashton ’s sister thinking he was me.
    I reached to trace the base of her eye. I saw a fire there. That fierceness I was trying to get her to draw out with every story I had told her of the paintings we had passed, every story of the ones that showed beings fighting for what they felt only in their souls. This fire, this blaze of passion only seemed to surface when she spoke of how or when we would be divided, or how we would find our end.
    “I don’t think you could ever truly mistake me for another, not when you feel the energy of that soul.” I swallowed, a bit nervously. “I agree and at the same time disagree with you. I never really felt that destroying him made much sense. I thought that he should have a chance to change his ways, but at the same time he has had a past darker than the energy he was born in. There is a risk that those of our kind will go to him thinking he’s me, that he would