The years that followed passed quietly upon the family farm.
The twins grew beneath warm hearth fires, rolling green hills, and the steady love of a family who never once treated them as burdens. Their grandfather taught them to mend fences and track animals through woodland mud. Their grandmother taught them patience, kindness, and the old songs of the valley. Their mother loved them fiercely with the whole of her heart, and though life upon the farm was hard, it was honest work filled with laughter and simple joys.
Yet from the beginning, the boys were as different as summer sun and winter frost.
Timinus was clever, charming when it suited him, and possessed of sharp eyes always searching for advantage. Even as a child, he hated labor. While Adhumla hauled water buckets until his shoulders ached, Timinus found ways to disappear before chores began. If caught, he smiled sweetly at his mother until her frustration melted away. He learned quickly how easily affection could be turned into a shield. When punished, he blamed others. When praised, he claimed more credit than deserved. Though handsome and quick-witted, there was something unsettling in the boy when he thought no one watched him—a coldness that seemed too old for his years.
Adhumla was the opposite in nearly every way.
Where Timinus avoided hardship, Adhumla embraced it willingly. He rose before dawn beside his grandfather to milk cows in winter frost and worked fields beneath the hot summer sun without complaint. He shared what little he had, defended smaller children from bullies, and possessed a gentleness that drew people naturally toward him. Animals trusted him instinctively. Dogs slept beside him. Horses calmed beneath his touch. Even the old farm cat, vicious toward everyone else, curled happily in his lap by the fire.
As they grew older, the differences between the twins deepened.
Then, shortly after their thirteenth birthday, strange things began to happen.
At first, the incidents were small enough to dismiss as coincidence.
When Timinus grew angry, doors slammed shut hard enough to shake the walls. Cups shattered beside him without being touched. Tools flew from shelves during his rages as though hurled by invisible hands. Once, after losing an argument with his grandfather, every lantern in the barn burst at once, showering sparks across the floor while the boy stood breathing heavily in the darkness.
Adhumla’s powers revealed themselves far differently.
Whenever joy filled him deeply, strange music drifted softly through the air—beautiful melodies played by unseen instruments somewhere beyond hearing. Candles burned brighter near him. Flowers seemed fresher after he touched them. During winter evenings, the farmhouse hearth flared warm and golden whenever he laughed.
The family spoke little of such things, though fear quietly lingered beneath the surface. In lonely valleys, folk knew enough old tales to understand magic rarely brought peace.
The first true incident came during autumn.
Timinus traveled with his grandmother to the nearby village to purchase winter supplies. While she bartered with merchants in the crowded square, the boy wandered away into the narrow alleys behind the tavern.
That was where the village boys found him.
There were four of them, all older and broader than he was—farm lads with cruel smiles and the confidence of a pack. They mocked his fine speech, shoved him into the mud, and laughed when he tried to push past them.
The largest boy grabbed Timinus by the collar.
“What’s wrong?” the bully sneered. “Going to cry for your mother?”
Something changed in Timinus then.
The air grew suddenly cold.
The bully’s grin vanished as invisible fingers closed around his throat.
He rose, choking, from the ground, boots kicking wildly in empty air while his friends screamed in terror. His hands clawed desperately at his neck, though nothing held him. His face darkened to purple. Tears streamed from bulging eyes.
And Timinus stood perfectly still.
Watching.
Smiling.
Not frightened. Not confused.
Enjoying it.
The boy would have died had an old carter not rounded the alley at that moment, shouting in alarm. The unseen force vanished instantly, dropping the bully hard into the mud, gasping for breath.
Timinus said nothing afterward—neither apology nor denial.
But all the way home, hidden beneath his silence, he remembered the thrill he had felt holding another life helplessly in his grasp.
And he liked it.
The second incident came only weeks later.
Adhumla had gone hunting in the forests north of the valley alongside his grandfather and several local woodsmen. Snow had begun falling lightly through the trees when they cornered a wounded wild boar deep among the pines.
The beast exploded from the underbrush like a demon.
Huge tusks tore into Adhumla’s grandfather before anyone could react. Men shouted. Spears thrust wildly. The boar collapsed at last beneath axe blows, but the old man lay crumpled in bloodstained snow, his chest ripped open and breath fading fast.
The hunters could do nothing.
One man quietly muttered a prayer for the dying.
Adhumla fell beside his grandfather, clutching him desperately as tears streamed down his face.
“Please,” he begged. “Please don’t leave me.”
Then the light appeared.
Soft golden radiance spilled between the boy’s fingers, growing brighter and brighter until the snowy forest glowed like sunrise. Warmth swept through the trees. The wind itself seemed to fall silent.
The terrible wounds closed.
Flesh knit together before stunned eyes. Blood vanished into unbroken skin. Within moments, the old man opened his eyes again, breathing steadily as though he had never been harmed at all.
None of the hunters spoke for a long while afterward.
Several fell to their knees.
Others stared at Adhumla with fearful awe.
Word spread quickly through the valley after that winter. Stories of the strange twin brothers traveled far beyond lonely farms and woodland taverns. Travelers carried tales from village to village—of the dark-haired boy whose anger could kill, and the golden-haired youth who healed the dying with light from his hands.
Eventually, those stories reached the ears of a man traveling distant roads beneath many different names.
Baygar Brightsoul returned to the valley on the twins’ sixteenth birthday.
The boys were helping repair fencing when the stranger rode into the farmyard atop a great grey horse. Though older now, Baygar remained a striking figure in his dark cloak trimmed with fur, his neatly kept beard touched only slightly by age. The polished oak staff across his back marked him unmistakably as a wizard.
Their mother recognized him instantly.
For several moments, she could only stare.
Baygar removed his gloves slowly, his eyes drifting from her to the twins standing nearby—one dark-haired and sharp-eyed, the other fair-haired and open-faced.
Understanding settled across his features almost immediately.
“They are mine,” he said quietly.
No one answered.
That evening, they sat together beside the hearth while rain battered softly against the farmhouse windows. Baygar listened carefully as the family recounted everything—the strange incidents, the growing powers, the fear spreading through nearby villages.
The wizard’s expression grew grave.
“Magic is not a gift left untaught,” he explained. “Without discipline, it becomes dangerous. Uncontrolled power destroys not only others… but the wielders themselves.”
Timinus listened with hungry fascination.
Adhumla listened with worry.
Their mother sat silently, twisting her hands together.
Finally, Baygar turned toward the twins.
“You possess great natural ability,” he told them. “Greater than most born with such talents. If properly trained, you may yet master these powers rather than become slaves to them.”
“And if we refuse?” Timinus asked.
Baygar’s eyes lingered on him for a moment too long.
“Then eventually, your powers will choose their own path.”
The fire crackled softly in the silence that followed.
At last, their grandfather sighed heavily and looked toward the boys.
“You cannot stay hidden on this farm forever.”
Their mother’s eyes filled with tears, though deep down she already knew the truth of it. The valley had become too small for what her sons were becoming.
Baygar rose from his chair.
“Come with me,” he said. “I will teach you to control what lives inside you.”
Outside, night settled over the valley while unseen beyond thick clouds, Morrslieb waited patiently in the dark.
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