Ari's POV
The room felt smaller than it had ever been. Four walls closing in, shadows gathering thick and heavy, and between us, an invisible chasm yawned wide and deep. I sat on the edge of the narrow bed, hands clenched into trembling fists, while Therrin paced like a caged animal—every step sharp and restless, as if she might break free or shatter at any moment.
"Why won't you talk to me?" My voice was barely more than a thread, fragile but strained with desperate hope. "What are you hiding behind that wall?"
Therrin stopped abruptly, spinning to face me. Her eyes were wild, a tempest of fear and fury. "I'm not hiding," she snapped. "I'm surviving. That's all."
"But surviving means shutting me out. It means pretending I'm the enemy."
Her laugh was bitter, cracked like broken glass. "Because sometimes I don't know which part of you I'm fighting anymore — and sometimes I think I'm fighting myself."
I rose, pacing toward her. The distance between us was electric, charged with words unspoken and wounds left raw. "You're scared of me. Of what I want. What I need. You think I'll take everything and leave you empty."
Her voice softened, but the tremor in it only cut deeper. "I'm scared of losing myself. I'm scared of disappearing into you."
"You're already gone." The words ripped from my chest before I could stop them. "You're already fading, piece by piece."
Her eyes narrowed, a flash of pain and defiance sparking there. "Better to fade than be consumed."
"You don't have to choose." My voice cracked. "I'm here. We're supposed to be one — halves of the same soul."
She turned away, biting her lip to keep the tremble from her voice. "But sometimes I feel like you're a stranger inside me. Like a storm I can't weather."
I took a step closer, my voice low, almost pleading. "Let me in. Let me help."
"Help?" Her laugh was hollow. "You don't help. You take. You control."
"I don't want to control you." I reached out, fingers trembling. "I want to love you. Both of you."
Therrin's eyes filled with tears, but she blinked them back. "Both of us? Or just the parts you like?"
The silence stretched between us, thick and suffocating.
And then she said it — the truth that had been clawing at the edges of my mind, the shadow lurking beneath every argument, every fractured moment.
"I don't know if I can trust you anymore."
Those words hit me like a blow. I wanted to scream, to fight, to tear down the walls she'd built. But instead, I sat back, chest heaving, the weight of her doubt crushing.
"I'm not the enemy," I whispered. "But the longer you push me away, the more I feel like one."
The room fell into a tense quiet, broken only by the distant howl of wind outside and the rapid beat of my own heart.
And then, a chill slid through the air like poison.
I felt it before I saw it — the Mistress.
She materialized at the edge of my vision, a shadow woven from silk and venom. Her smile was slow, cruel, like a blade sliding over silk.
"You fight so hard," she purred, voice dripping with malice. "But your bond is fragile, a thread stretched thin."
I turned, my gaze locking with Therrin's, who shrank back as if the Mistress's presence burned her.
"She's right," Therrin whispered, voice trembling. "I can't keep doing this."
The Mistress's eyes gleamed as she leaned closer to me, whispering words that slithered into my mind.
"Let her cast the spell. Let her seal the door between you. Only then will she survive."
I felt the breath leave my lungs. The thought of being locked away, severed from the body and soul I shared—it was unbearable.
"No," I said, voice raw with refusal. "You can't do this."
But Therrin's hands were shaking as she murmured the incantation, eyes wide with terror and resolve.
The spell wove itself around us like cold chains, tightening until I was locked out — a ghost trapped outside my own home.
I reached out, but the barrier was absolute.
Panic surged through me, choking and relentless.
"Why?" I demanded, my voice breaking.
Therrin looked at me with tears I could not reach. "To keep us both alive."
But it felt like betrayal.
Anger flared hot and bitter.
"We are meant to be one," I spat. "How can you push me away when we need each other the most?"
Her body trembled, the tears spilling free at last. "Because this darkness is too much. Because I'm afraid of losing myself. And because the Mistress… she's not lying."
The Mistress's laugh echoed through my mind—soft, victorious.
The fragile bond between us cracked.
But I refused to let it shatter completely.
"We will find a way," I said, voice steady despite the storm inside. "Together. Or not at all."
Therrin's sobs shook the room as we sat broken and divided — two halves of one soul, fractured but not lost.