The heavy sewer air felt thick and frozen. My own stolen hand trembled in front of my face, holding the sharp iron dagger directly against Lyra’s throat. I fought with every ounce of my mind, screaming at my muscles to stop, but the symmetrical link was total absolute perfection. Whatever my twin brother did with my original body twenty feet away, my new royal body copied it flawlessly."Look at you," my twin brother taunted, his voice sounding so strange coming out of my true chest. He tilted his head, a smooth, mocking gesture that forced my royal neck to tilt in the exact same direction. "A crown prince who cannot even control his own fingers. You are a passenger in that expensive skin, Kael."Beside him, Headmaster Vance stood with his arms crossed inside his spotless white robes. The faint green scales beneath his jaw rippled once more under the dim green light of Zane’s brass lantern, proving his true, beastly nature. "End this setup, boy. The girl has become an active hazard to

The world seemed to spin into complete silence as Zane collapsed onto the dry concrete floor. The brass lantern fell from his limp fingers, rolling into a puddle of dark blood that began to pool around his chest. He let out a weak rattling gasp, his eyes fluttering shut as the light in them faded into a cold empty gray.I stared at the girl standing over him. The face was Lyra’s face. The silver hair belonged to Lyra. But the eyes were a solid bottomless pool of pitch black and the smile stretching across her cheeks was entirely inhuman."Why do you look so shocked, Kael?" she mocked. Her voice did not sound like Lyra anymore. It was a chorus of a thousand scratching insects, vibrating directly inside the walls of my skull. "Did you truly believe the real Lyra Voss would be able to escape the high guards so easily? Did you think she could pick a royal palace window lock with a simple iron pin?"Across the cavernous reservoir, General Voss stood perfectly still beneath the toxic green

The morning sun caught the edge of the second silver dagger, sending a cold flash of light across the stone balcony. My twin brother, fully occupying the handsome body of Prince Alden, stood in the high temple doorway. His expensive royal velvet robes were clean, completely free from the grime of the lower tunnels. The cruel grin on his face belonged entirely to the boy who had spent seventeen years plotting his revenge inside a magical cage."You really thought you were the one playing the chess pieces, Kael," my twin laughed, his smooth royal voice bouncing off the high stone walls. He stepped closer, the guards completely ignoring him as if his presence were entirely natural. "You thought you were talking to a helpless prince down that mental telephone line. It was me the whole time. I created that fake voice just to give you the little push you needed to break the suppression seal."My mind completely broke down as the pieces of his grand deception slotted together. The phantom vo

The air became completely still as the glowing violet crest drifted through the smoke. It rose from my chest like a living butterfly made of pure starlight, leaving behind a cold numb void on my skin. I reached out with a desperate hand, trying to claw it back but my fingers passed through nothing but empty warmth. The mark of the midnight dragon settled directly over the heart of the new clone prince standing in the doorway.The brilliant sapphire light in his eyes instantly deepened, turning into a rich blinding violet that matched the dragon fire. The soft insect-like scratching sound inside his voice grew louder, humming against the stone floor tiles.My twin brother dropped his broken iron bar, his stolen royal face turning completely pale. He backed away toward the shattered edge of the balcony, his chest heaving under his torn velvet robes. "No... that is impossible. I tracked the prince's life-force down to the distribution column. I felt his soul dissolve when the cables brok

The frozen dark of the psychic void felt like needles pressing into my thoughts. I stood entirely paralyzed, staring at the man who wore my face. He didn't look like an old tired refugee from the border lands. He looked like a polished, ageless version of me, his brown eyes carrying the cold weight of a ruler who had watched empires crumble into dust. The white robes of the Headmaster hung perfectly from his shoulders, untouched by the smoke or ash of the physical war above."You aren't my father," I whispered, the words freezing into small white puffs of vapor in the empty air. "Arthur Ashford is a ghost name.""Arthur was an assignment, Kael," the original king replied, his voice humming with that terrible rhythmic scratching noise that I had blamed on Vance. He stepped closer, the third silver dagger glowing with a pale hungry vacuum energy between his fingers. "Seventeen years ago, I shed my royal skin because the midnight dragon’s fire was burning my core from the inside out. I n