The Tale of the Twin Shadows

In the time before the Year One, when Winter was colder than now and the moons hid behind storms, there lived two friends in the Hearth of Sembor: Therem and Rai, born on the same night under the same frost. The people said the sky froze twice to make room for both their souls. From the moment they were swaddled, they were inseparable, two children bound by laughter, curiosity, and warmth. Even their mothers would sometimes mistake one for the other, for their faces mirrored each other like sunlight on snow. The old hearth-keeper once said, “They are two lights cast by one flame.”

 

As they grew, their likeness became less of the body and more of the heart. Yet, like all things under Winter’s rule, balance meant difference. Therem was bold and restless, drawn to the silence of the snowfields and the thrill of the hunt. Rai was gentle and patient, a thinker who found beauty in tending fires and telling stories to the Hearth-children. When Therem returned from long journeys across the tundra, he would bring carved bone charms, polished stones, and tales of frost-spirits and silver herds. Rai would listen, smile, and offer him stew warmed by the fire.

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“You chase the wind,” Rai often said, shaking his head.

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“And you sit too still,” Therem would laugh. “How will you ever know what lies beyond the ridge?”

 

“To keep the fire,” Rai replied, “someone must stay.”

 

Despite their teasing, there was no envy between them, only a quiet understanding that each completed what the other lacked. When kemmer came upon them in youth, they turned away from desire, fearful that to take would mean to lose. “Let no shadow fall between us,” they swore. “For what we are is already whole.”

 

Then came the Long Storm. The year was colder than any remembered. The rivers froze to glass, the sky went gray for months, and the herds fled into the east. Even the thickest Hearths began to starve. Smoke thinned over villages, and songs gave way to silence. The people prayed to the Handdara for balance, but the storm did not end.

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Therem rose one morning and said to Rai, “I will cross the Frostwall. Beyond it, there may be herds still living. If I return, it will be with food. If not then let my name be warmth to you.”

 

Rai caught his arm. “The Ice will take you.”

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“Then let it take me,” Therem said, “but it will not take us both.”

 

He wrapped himself in furs and vanished into the white horizon. Days passed, then weeks. Rai kept the Hearth alive, feeding the flame with every scrap of wood left. When that ran out, he burned the tools, the chairs, even Therem’s bow. Still, the fire dimmed. The children huddled close, whispering prayers.

 

When the last coal faded, Rai sat in darkness and thought he saw two shadows on the wall, his own, and another beside it. He stood, lit a small lantern, and said softly, “If the storm will not end, then I will go where it leads.”

 

Rai stepped into the night. The wind screamed through the valleys like a living thing. For three days and three nights, he walked through the white silence, following tracks half-buried by snow. He ate nothing, slept little, and dreamed only of the Hearth-fire and Therem’s laughter echoing in the wind.

 

On the fourth day, the blizzard broke. In the pale stillness, Rai saw a dark figure ahead. It was Therem, frozen upright, his body bent as if kneeling before the storm. In his hands he clutched a bundle wrapped in his own cloak. When Rai opened it, he found the meat of a snowbeast, still preserved and clean, Therem’s final gift.

 

Rai fell to his knees. “You found life and gave it away,” he whispered. He lifted the bundle and wept until his tears froze. Then he turned toward home, carrying the burden with both arms, the lantern light swaying like a star through the snow.

 

When Rai reached the Hearth, he laid the snowbeast upon the stone and lit the fire anew. The smell of cooking filled the air, and the Hearth-children stirred from their hunger-sleep. He fed them first, saying, “Eat, for this warmth is not mine alone.” When they asked where the meat had come from, he said only, “It was given freely. The hand that gives and the hand that takes are one hand.”

 

The storm broke the next morning. The air cleared, and sunlight fell across the snow for the first time in months. When Rai went out to gather wood, he saw two shadows beside him, side by side though he stood alone. From that day on, people said Therem still walked with him, one shadow bound to another in light and in darkness.

 

The Hearth of Sembor built a shrine of ice and flame in Therem’s honor, not to mourn but to remember. Within it burned a small lamp that never went out, its flame fed by the oil of every household. The Handdara adepts came and inscribed words on the ice wall:

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“To give is to live. To take is to sustain.

Between the two, the world endures.”

 

Each year during the first storm of winter, the people of Sembor gather around the Hearth and retell the story. They say that on nights when the wind howls over the Gobrin Ice, two shadows walk together, one carrying a lantern, the other a bundle of warmth. Together, they remind all who listen that on Gethen, no one lives for themselves alone, and no one dies apart.