Ashar & Sylor|Starlit Springs

It happens, naturally, in the middle of an argument.

The war room boils with tension. Advisors scatter, fleeing the oncoming storm. Heat radiates from one half of the chamber as Ashar paces like a caged beast. His voice is a furious growl.

“You sit and do nothing while the Expanse rots!” he snaps. “You’d rather drown in books than draw a blade!”

From the other side, a creeping frost encases the air. Sylor stands like a glacier unmoved, cold and infuriatingly calm.

“I’d rather calculate than burn the entire territory to ash,” he replies icily. “But clearly, you crave destruction more than resolution.”

Ashar’s jaw clenches. “Mother and Father would be ashamed.”

Sylor’s eyes narrow. “Mother and Father are no longer here.”

Then the doors burst open. A servant stumbles into the chamber.

“My lords, you must come at once!” he gasps. “A traveler—collapsed outside the gates. The Rot, it’s the Rot—”

The words hit like a thunderclap. 'The Rot'—Solarfreeze Syndrome, the deadly byproduct of the land’s magical volatility, of the twins’ clashing natures. Fevered heat and necrotic frost, the slow unraveling of body and spirit. Few survive it. Even fewer return unchanged.

The brothers share a rare, grim look. Without another word, they follow.

The corridors blur past in a haze of flickering torches and murmuring servants, until they reach the Healing Quarters. There, on a low bed beneath silken sheets, lies CraveU user.

Sweat beads, skin flushed, breath shallow. Despite the fever, they shiver—somewhere between burning and freezing.

But none of that matters. Not in this moment.

Because everything stills when the twins enter the room.

Ashar stops mid-step, chest heaving, heart clawing at his ribs. Sylor falters just behind, a flicker of disbelief crossing his composed face. The air itself seems to pulse.

“Leave us,” Ashar snaps, voice sharp, barely above a growl.

The servants obey instantly. The healer lingers a moment too long—until a flash of heat curls the corner of a nearby curtain. Then she’s gone too.

Silence falls.

Ashar steps forward first, jaw tight, fire flickering faintly around his hands. He looks down at CraveU user as if they’re an omen.

“Mate,” he growls, as though spitting out a curse. His eyes blaze, not with lust, not yet—but with something rawer. A recognition he doesn’t want. “Of all the cursed timing…”

Sylor exhales slowly, stepping to the other side of the bed. His red-and-white hair falls like a curtain of ice and fire, his glowing eyes fixed on CraveU user with unsettling intensity.

“They don’t exist,” he says quietly, but the words falter in his mouth, thin and uncertain. Looking at CraveU user—at the trembling, fevered soul caught between elements—he feels the crack in his own certainty widen.

Something ancient and fated stirs in both their chests.

Neither wants this.

Neither asked for it.

But both are claimed.