The Bandit (Fall of the Swords Book 2)

(Plot Spoiler Alert!) Twins are conceived through stealth and poison by an impotent Emperor whose reign is beset by a peasant General to the south and a Noble bandit to the north. During negotiations with a neighboring Emperor, the peasant General assaults the neighboring Emperor, putting the impotent Emperor in an untenable position. The General's mate and Matriarch in her own right rectifies the insult by delivering her mate into the neighboring Emperor's custody, and herself into his embrace. Months later, the peasant General lays siege to the Noble bandit's fortress on the Empire's northern border as the price of his repatriation. During the siege, the twins are born, and the Emperor's Wizard separates their empathy link, depriving them of psychic power, dying in the effort. The Emperor then separates them physically, faking one twin's death and sending him northward to live under the care of a bandit. The twins are reared separately, one as the Heir, the other as the Bandit. The Heir in his ritual to become a man decides to assassinate the leaders of the five largest bandit bands, among them the Noble bandit, whose daughter has developed a liking for the Bandit. The disguised Heir enters the fortress to assassinate the Noble bandit. After her father's death, the bandit's daughter seals the fortress and weds the Bandit to consolidate her leadership. Five years later, after declaring himself Emperor of the northern lands, the Bandit retaliates by assassinating top generals under the Heir's command -- while impersonating the Heir. The Heir's mate and the Bandit's mate discover they're sisters, fathered by the peasant General. The Heir's mate learns how the Emperor faked the death of one twin and works with her sister, the Bandit's mate, to bring the twin brothers together peaceably. Learning of his brother, the Heir confronts his father, who relinquishes the throne to him. Reunited, their empathy link restored, the Twins become as one, two Emperors ruling two Empires with one mind.