Are you both for real right now? Have you no loyalty????
Aran Alis Egan
I’m going to sleep. Everyone, forget everything that has been said tonight. Sweet dreams.
Corvus Malum
I will remember this night for the rest of my life.
Orion Malum
You know I’m just joking with you, my sweet Corvus—mostly. Sleep well, the loves of my life.
Scorpius Malum
Sleep tight.
I have somehow both gained and lost a lot of respect for my Ignis.
Corvus Malum
I am still taller and larger than you, and I can hurt you. But I would never because you mean too much to me.
Scorpius Malum
Please, I’m longer where it counts. Also, I will hurt you, and I will enjoy it. Sweet dreams, baby girl.
Corvus Malum
Only Arabella gets to call me that.
Orion Malum
Guys, I really like that we are opening up to one another like this. I want to get something off my chest.
Corvus Malum
Please share. I’d love to know.
Scorpius Malum
Please don’t. Tonight has already been traumatic enough.
Orion Malum
I went through a phase where I jacked off watching my mates sleep at night.
Corvus Malum
Thank you for being vulnerable with us.
Scorpius Malum
Excuse me?
Scorpius Malum
No. We are not doing this with these journals. This is supposed to make us closer to Arabella, not for you two to be weird.
Orion Malum
Also.
I am still in that phase.
Corvus Malum
Wow. I am feeling a lot of emotions right now.
Scorpius Malum
????? I’m burning this book. Neither of you are allowed to talk to me tomorrow. I need space.
Orion Malum
I’m doing it right now.
Scorpius Malum
GO TO BED RIGHT NOW AND STOP WRITING OR SO HELP ME SUN GOD I WILL STAB YOU BOTH!
Corvus Malum
I’m turned on.
Orion Malum
Same. Love you all.
Chapter 38
Luka
TWIN REVELATIONS
Psychomachy （noun）： a conflict of the soul.
DAY 28, HOUR 6
I woke up hyperventilating as a crushing emptiness expanded in my chest. Dark-gray light filtered through the single-pane window of the barracks, and I rubbed at my eyes to clear the fog.
Muted colors remained.
Snores echoed as the rest of the legion slept, and I gasped for air on the narrow bunk as my chest collapsed.
Disintegrated.
The chasm inside my sternum made it hard to move, think, or live. What was once vibrant and colorful was now faded and cold.
The empty feeling had arrived a few days ago. I’d woken up heaving from forgotten nightmares, and it had felt like a piece of my soul was missing.
The new abyss pervaded every moment of my existence.
It wouldn’t leave.
My hand was hanging over the bed holding Aran’s.
I leaned over the edge and took in her peaceful expression. Slowly, with my heart screaming at me to stop, I disentangled our grip.
As soon as her fingers left mine, the feeling of wrongness intensified exponentially. Lately, contact with Aran was the only thing that kept the emptiness at bay.
Minutes passed as I sprawled back on my bed and felt miserable.
Sick of wallowing, I crawled out of my bed and hauled myself up to my twin’s bunk. I acted on instinct.
I laid on top of John and hugged him tight to me.
We barely fit together on the narrow bunk, but I didn’t care, because the worst part of the emptiness was that I wasn’t the only one affected.
I’d promised to protect my younger brother.
Yet we were both suffering.
Neither of us spoke as I held him tight to me. He’d been lying awake in the bed when I’d climbed up, dark eyes glossed over with pain as he, too, struggled with the yawning chasm.
“We need to figure this out today,” I whispered. “It’s time.”
John turned his head to look at me. Expression grim, he nodded.
Yesterday, we’d snuck away to the medical barracks under the guise of getting food, and the doctors had performed dozens of enchanted diagnostics.
They’d found nothing.
There were no more options left.
We couldn’t continue to suffer like this and fight effectively, so there was only one thing left for us to do.
Moving as silent as the spirit of Hesychia—the personification of quiet—we dressed for battle in our all-black uniforms with heavy combat boots. John stretched as he dressed like he was preparing for war.
We placed our prepared note on top of the dresser. We’d kept it vague and short. It stated that we’d return as soon as we could.
John dragged a hand through his messy hair. The circles under his eyes were gray, and his olive skin had an unnatural pallor that matched my own.