CODEPENDENCY
Amorist (noun): a person who is in love.
Aran wasn’t speaking.
I didn’t like it.
I was the one who stayed quiet, and she was the one who hung off John’s shoulders while cracking inappropriate, morbid jokes.
My twin had his arm slung over her shoulder, but they weren’t leaning against each other like usual.
No.
Crystal-blue eyes were wide and unseeing as John dragged Aran through the trees.
Lilac sunlight and emerald from the valley forest reflected across the shimmering clouds. The new realm was colorful, and the weather seemed mostly mild.
The sun warmed the snow, and it melted immediately.
In contrast, the air around Aran was chilled like she was radiating frost. It was noticeably colder than the rest of the realm.
I was concerned.
She’d said she needed to think, but she was practically catatonic as John pulled her down the dirt path connecting the twenty freestanding concrete structures that made up the war camp.
The base was constructed in the valley surrounded by towering mountains and low-ceilinged buildings were camouflaged by trees and snow.
The new realm was a strange amalgamation of different elements.
It reminded me of a chimera, the beast was a mind-bending hybrid of a goat, lion, and a dragon. When you saw one in person, you were struck with one thought: this shouldn’t exist. The realm was the same way.
Snowflakes fell, sizzled as they touched the warm ground, and evaporated into a low layer of steam.
Above, the lavender sky sparkled.
I barely noticed.
We hadn’t eaten for hours, but I wasn’t hungry as our two legions walked side by side to the cafeteria.
Sadie pulled back to walk beside her men, and all my attention was focused on where turquoise hair was supported by olive skin.
Back in the strategy room, Aran had shut down and John’s eyes had crinkled when Dick announced there would only be a hundred soldiers fighting.
I wasn’t worried.
Unlike my more socially aware twin, I didn’t care about the events that unfolded around me.
I couldn’t even pretend to give a shit.
All my energy was captured by the two people walking in front of me, and my skin crawled with worry that they were mentally struggling.
It had always been that way for me. My codependency issues were so strong that they manifested into physical pain.
John stumbled, and I lunged forward to steady him. Aran’s lips curled up into a small smile as he exhaled with gratitude.
Pine trees swayed on Planet 003FX as I held on to Aran and John, gripping my twin’s hand tightly.
Wide shoulders radiated strength as my brother looked down protectively at Aran leaning against us, blue curls wild.
She was ours to shield.
My discomfort abated slightly, but it didn’t disappear.
It never would.
Years ago, an oracle had confirmed it.
I clutched my twin’s hand while the oracle of Delphi danced around us. She spread her arms wide, brown hair flowing to her toes, as she inhaled the fumes of the ancients.
“You are crippled with codependency,” the oracle sang as she twirled mindlessly. Misty eyes widened, and her lips pulled into a smile. “The lost princes have returned to the king, but they are no longer whole. Neither is the other. They will suffer unbelievable agony on behalf of the other, and all of them will be partial together.”
The oracle cackled madly, and John trembled with fear. I stood in front of him, spread my short limbs wide as I prepared to do anything to protect him.
In the present, I smiled down at my wide-shouldered reflection as we walked among the trees.
Snow dusted John’s cheeks.
He might have grown into a formidable man with whipcord strength and a mischievous glint in his eyes, but he’d always be my younger twin. The boy I needed to protect.
The compulsion that lived within my skin ensured it.
Trauma had changed me.
Twisted me into something unrecognizable to others.
As we had grown up in the human realm, the foster parents had beaten both of us regularly, but John had had it worse because he’d had less control of his darkness.
One day, he accidentally dropped a glass, and it shattered on the linoleum kitchen floor. I tried to pick up the pieces, but it was too late. The foster father lunged toward John, and darkness flooded from his pores defensively.
He recoiled, called him a demon, demanded an exorcism, and shouted about a false god.
It all happened so quickly.
Everything blurred as a baseball bat broke our bones, and we were shoved into a car and brought to a cliff.
I gaped in stunned horror as he threw John over the edge.
I went into shock, and darkness exploded from me in a wave. The foster man disappeared, but I was too late.
Stumbling out of the car, I sobbed on my knees as devastation flatlined my existence.
I threw myself forward off the cliff to join John.
Lothaire materialized, grabbed me, and in one motion, jumped off the cliff and landed beside my injured twin. Before I could process what was happening, we RJE’d to another realm.
Lothaire told me the energy I’d emitted was so high that he’d been sent by the High Court to recruit me.
I ignored him and focused on John.
It took three weeks in a witch-induced coma for John to come back to me.
During that time, I didn’t care that vampyres existed and there were multiple worlds. I didn’t care that Lothaire recognized our darkness and knew who our biological parents were.
None of it mattered.
I had sworn on my life that I would never fail John again.
The past blended with the present.
“Give us the prophecy, oracle,” the king demanded harshly. “Stop speaking in riddles. You’re scaring them, and they’ve been through enough.” I gripped John’s hand with so much force my fingers cramped.
In the present, we arrived at a building hidden by snowy trees. “Cafeteria” was written above the green door.
John tried to pull away to open the door, and my throat closed with panic. Itchiness exploded across my skin, so I tightened my hold on him and Aran. He stopped reaching as he recognized what was wrong.
I couldn’t stand to part from him.
Not after we’d been separated for so long.
Never again.
I breathed shallowly.
“Of course, my King, let me be clearer.” The oracle giggled and swirled her hands in the air. “I speak through the mouth of the stars as I proclaim this fate.” I shoved John further behind me, heart pounding with fear as I protected him with my scrawny frame.
The three of us sat down together at the table as food was passed out by workers.
I slid my chair closer to John, and he slid his closer to Aran. We sat pressed against one another.
Breathing deeply, I searched for calm.
Voices spoke around me, but I didn’t hear a word they said, because I didn’t care about them.
I didn’t make friends.
I ignored everyone.
I didn’t talk or interact.
No one existed but John—and now Aran. Two people were the center of my world.
They were my world.
The fateful day on the cliff had solidified my attachment to my twin into something that defined my being.
Codependency consumed every moment of my life.
It was me.
We were two halves of a whole, and even though John could put on a mask and socialize, he suffered from the same dependency.
Memories swirled around me.
The past was alive, and it reached for me.
The king had never revealed to the realm that the lost princes had been found, because you couldn’t lead a powerful realm if you refused to acknowledge that anyone else but your brother existed.
You couldn’t play the political game of survival if everyone else was already dead to you. So the lost princes had stayed lost; we’d been nothing more than rescued humans living in a foreign realm.
We’d liked it best that way.
But over time, the king had grown disappointed because he thought I’d grow out of my issues. He’d thought John would help me change into someone different.
My twin loved me the way I was.
As a result, when Lothaire returned years later to take us to Elite Academy, the king made a horrible decision: he blackmailed Lothaire with secret information in exchange for keeping our identity a secret. Worst of all, he convinced Lothaire to let only one of us attend Elite Academy at a time.
The king claimed it was because he needed our abilities to run the realm.
He lied; it was a desperate bid to fix our crippling dependency problem.
The king pulled us aside and promised we could be reunited if we could prove we’d both formed a relationship with someone else.
What proceeded were the worst years of my life training at Elite Academy.
They thought I was John, and I never bothered to correct them because they didn’t exist to me. Not in any way that mattered. I let my twin do the socializing for both of us; it wasn’t for me.
In the beginning of my time at Elite Academy, I was alone in a sea of faces.
Desolate.
Unmoored.
Until a blue-haired boy with haunted eyes and a mouth dripping in sarcasm draped his arm across my shoulders and called me John.
I tried to ignore Aran, but it was impossible.
For some confounding reason, I wanted to help the pretty boy floundering to stay alive in the dark sea. My heart pounded wildly in my chest as a pipe was pressed against my lips and a joke whispered in my ear.
Aran refused to leave my side.
And for the first time in my life, I latched onto someone that wasn’t John.
I saw someone else.
The twin that refused to interact with anyone besides his brother was cured.
Months later, the king wept with relief and rejoiced with his family when we asked for Aran’s hand in marriage. Everything he’d ever wanted had come to fruition.
But when all three of us had been reunited, I’d immediately realized the king’s plan hadn’t worked at all.
I was no longer codependent with one person.
I was codependent with two.
It was like the oracle had prophesied that fateful day in the cave.
Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she spread her arms wide, the prophecy exploding from her lips. “The master number surrounds the lost princes. The strongest of them all; two will become three. Multiples of three are golden, you see. The broken soul leads them down a twisted path of darkness, but they will remain the three of three. Eternally.”
I didn’t need to smoke the blessed fumes at Delphi to confirm that Aran was the third from the prophecy.
I knew it in my soul.
Now, beside me in the cafeteria, Aran leaned her head on her hands and stared off into space as I cut up fruit into bite-sized pieces and gave them to my twin.
John didn’t have to ask what they were for, because we were on the same wavelength; the Greek letter lambda was tattooed on my back for a reason.
He hand-fed her bites of food.
Together we took care of her.
Across the table, the devils said something, but I didn’t register their words; my attention was wholly focused on Aran.
My skin crawled with the need to feed her.
For the entirety of my life, when my twin suffered, I suffered.
Now when Aran suffered, I suffered.
It was how I operated.
After the cave, the king was unhappy with the oracle’s prophecy. He raged to the other kings and queens about how unfair it was because we’d already known darkness. The kings and queens shook their heads as they muttered about the poor Princes of Darkness.
We nodded back sullenly.
That night John and I giggled with excitement in our shared bed because we knew what three meant. It wouldn’t just be the two of us for our entire lives. We’d find someone else to love.
John caught my eye as Aran delicately ate the fruit he handed her, and he smirked.
Leaning over the table, I put my arm around his shoulders and tangled my fingers in curly turquoise hair as I made sure they both ate.
My stomach grumbled, but I didn’t care.
I pushed more food onto John’s plate, and he smiled.
His dimples were my home.
We clasped our hands together under the covers, and John’s dimples were stark on his cheeks as he laughed. I rolled onto my back and clutched my stomach as I joined him.
I watched Aran and John eat with rapt attention. The two of them would never be parted from me—if they were, I’d be dead.
The next day at breakfast, the king ranted to the two others about how the oracle was a fraud. He went on and on about how we deserved light in our future. The queen smirked down at us from her silver throne covered in violets as intelligence sparkled in her majestic eyes.
I smirked back.
John winked up at the queen and held up his fingers. She tipped her head back and laughed.
“Three of three. Eternally,” he whispered to the queen as he covered his smile with his small hand.
The queen laughed because she saw what the king couldn’t, and she beamed down and said, “Lucky boys.”
We nodded in agreement.
The queen was one of the foremost scholars of enchantments in the realms because she could often see what others couldn’t. This time was no exception.
Under the table, John smirked as he poked his three fingers gently against my thigh, and warmth flooded my chest at his gesture.
After the meal, with John’s hand wrapped around Aran’s, I carried her down the tree-lined path toward our legion’s sleeping quarters. The shifter legion branched off toward their barracks. The kings walked behind me, bristling with agitation and growling under their breath.
I barely noticed as I clutched my treasure.
Aran mumbled about lost books and palaces as she cuddled into me while holding my twin’s hand.
Snowflakes dusted turquoise curls as I shielded her from the chilly air with my chest.
The position was familiar.
Back at Elite Academy, she’d clutched onto my arm for hours in the black sea, hanging off my shoulders as she quivered from exhaustion. Her arms had tightened around my neck as I’d hauled her across the rocky shore to safety, and we’d fallen asleep cuddled together on a broken cot.
In the present, snow kissed her rosy cheeks. Frost clung to her cheekbones like decoration.
Her breaths came out in dainty puffs of ice, and I stared, enraptured by the graceful column of her pale neck and the slight ripple of her pulse.
She looked like a dream.
Her existence provided me with a shelter from the world, and just like my twin, she was home.
When we were finally back in the warmth of our room, I cupped the back of her curly head protectively and laid her onto her designated bunk bed.
She sighed with relief.
Unlacing her combat boots, I gently tugged them off her feet and pulled the covers up over her chest.
I brushed a curl off her forehead.
Dark lashes fluttered.
John leaned against me, and I relished his proximity. Together we watched her. The bonds of brotherhood and love strummed between us like a golden ray of sunshine on a cloudy day.
Slowly, John kissed his three fingers, then pressed them against Aran’s flushed cheek. He kissed me on my cheek, then climbed up to his top bunk.
I stood frozen.
Emotional.
Overwhelmed.
Tucking Aran’s feet underneath her blankets, I climbed into my bunk above hers with one arm hanging down toward her like I did every night since we’d moved into the war camp.
Delicate fingers tangled with mine. Cold and pale contrasted with warm olive skin.
Even half-asleep, Aran had reached for my hand.
The position was uncomfortable for both of us, but neither of us could sleep without the other’s touch.
I exhaled tension. Compulsion turned into something warm, something new and precious.
“Sleep well, brother,” John whispered from above. “I’m grateful for every day that we get to spend together.”
My voice cracked as I responded, “Every day together is a blessing—I will never leave your sides again.” I’d survived the hellfire of separation, and now life beside them felt like a dream.
“Eternally,” he murmured.
It didn’t matter that we were going to war. Unlike other people, I never got caught up in circumstances. It was the people closest to you that made up your life. Period.
Other people never seemed to understand that.
Dainty fingers curled against my palm in agreement.
The narrow bunk above me creaked as John draped both his long arms off the front of his bed and buried his hands in my hair.
Every night, the three of us slept contorted in awkward positions.
Tethered.
Touch reflected our souls.
As I drifted into oblivion, a smile curled my lips because the queen had understood a decade ago what the king still could not fathom: you didn’t fear darkness if together you were light.
The prophecy was not a bearer of doom; it was a promise of paradise.
The last few years at Elite Academy, I’d suffered true darkness: loneliness.
I’d suffocated in desolation as my skin crawled, alone and unmoored in a universe filled with people who would never understand. I’d degraded at the edges until I was nothing.
I’d been no one.
Now the ones I loved pressed their warm fingertips against my flesh, and our blood pounded in tandem through corporeal forms.
We were connected.
Forever.
I was never letting them go.
The betrothal jewelry hanging around Aran’s neck and wrist was a testament to that promise. The pieces were priceless, imbued with rare enchantments that sensed a person’s soul and connected them with the givers of the jewelry.
Until we held a marriage ceremony and said the official bonding words, the enchantment was mostly inert. All the jewelry would do was familiarize itself with Aran’s soul.
At least, that was what the queen had told us.
The enchantment was an ancient one that was only used by the leaders of our culture, and even then, the last time it had been used was thousands of years ago when the queen had gotten married.
Aran was worthy.
Even though it was mostly dormant until the ceremony, it was still symbolic of the promises we’d made for one another, and that meant something.
One day, we’d complete the bonding, and the enchantment would tie our souls together.
Until then, all I could do was hold on to Aran.
My soul was already hers.
As I rested, a tear of pain streaked down my cheek because the High Court had scheduled her and the kings to have therapy in the shifter realm, which meant we would be parted.
It would be pure torture.
