"There's two sides to one coin."
The voice comes from my left, and despite the dreamlike quality of this space, despite the muted emotions and filtered sensations, something in merecognizesit with intensity that cuts through every barrier.
I turn.
Gabriel stands beside me on the hill's crest, his form solid in ways that surprise me given the nature of this place. His silver hair—so like mine, yet somehow sharper at the edges—catches the impossible twilight and transforms it into something almost halo-like around his exhausted features. The leather uniform he wears shows signs of wear I don't remember seeing before, creases and tears that speak to trials I wasn't present for, battles I couldn't help him fight.
He looksexhausted.
Dark circles beneath eyes that mirror my own, pallor that suggests his magical reserves are as depleted as mine feel. Even his posture carries weariness—shoulders slightly slumped, weight distributed as if standing requires effort he's not certain he can sustain.
But he'salive.
The relief that washes through me is immediate and overwhelming, cutting through the emotional dampening with the force of a blade through silk. Whatever this place is, whatever rules govern its existence, my brother ishere, and that simple fact matters more than anything else.
"Do I look like you?" I ask, the words escaping before I can filter them. "Because you look like shit."
The profanity feels good—normal, grounding, a reminder that I'm still myself despite the strangeness of our surroundings.
Gabriel's lips twitch into a smirk that transforms his exhausted features into something almost playful.
"To a lesser degree," he admits, silver eyes tracking across my face with the particular attention of someone cataloging damage, "but yeah. You look like shit."
A laugh escapes me—genuine despite everything, bubbling up from somewhere deep in my chest where the dampening can't quite reach.
"Takes one to know one."
His smirk expands into a grin, and for a moment we're just siblings again. Not heirs to impossible legacies, not vessels for ancient power, not players in games designed by forces we don't fully comprehend. Just brother and sister, standing on a hill made of dreams, trading insults the way we might have in another life—a life where our parents lived and Elena never turned and the Academy was a place of learning rather than survival.
The grin softens as we both turn to face the vista before us.
The golden gates gleam.
The Academy waits.
The sky continues its impossible dance of colors that shouldn't coexist.
Silence stretches between us—comfortable in the way only silence between people who have shared consciousness can be. We've existed in closer proximity than any siblings should, our thoughts and memories and experiences bleeding into one another across years of forced cohabitation. There's nothing I could hide from him even if I wanted to, and vice versa.
Which is why the words that finally escape my lips carry the particular weight of acknowledgment rather than question.
"I'm not going to see you again... am I?"
The silence that follows is answer enough.
My heart drops through my chest, through the dreamscape beneath my feet, through layers of reality into something that feels like grief given physical form. Even the emotional dampening can't fully protect me from this—the understanding that the brother I've carried within me for so long is about to become separate in ways that transcend simple physical distance.
Gabriel doesn't speak.
Instead, he reaches for my hand.
His fingers intertwine with mine, grip firm despite the exhaustion evident in every other aspect of his being. The contact sends warmth through me—actualwarmth, piercing the numbness that has defined this space since I opened my eyes. I can feel his pulse through the connection, steady and sure, a rhythm that has accompanied my own for longer than either of us can clearly remember.
"We're meant to reunite when both sides of the coin are balanced, sis."
The words arrive as whisper, soft enough that the wind should have stolen them before they reached my ears. But sound doesn't work properly here, doesn't follow the rules it should, and his voice reaches me with perfect clarity despite its quiet volume.
I turn to look at him—really look, studying his face with the particular attention of someone trying to memorize every detail before they fade.
