Lira and Lyra. Twin roses.

On it, written in Lira’s delicate hand and Lyra’s jagged scrawl: “You wanted one soul. So we became one knife.” The Eagle stood in the doorway for three days, unwilling to leave the space where their scent still hung. When his falconer found him, his eyes had turned the color of old wounds. He was still whispering:

When the Eagle entered at midnight, expecting to choose between mercy and storm, he found neither rose in their rooms. Only a single stem left on his pillow, wrapped in a page torn from his own journal.