My beloved twin:
It is strange, writing a letter to someone you may never meet. Twenty-six years ago we were separated on the shores of the Demons’ Ocean, too young to do anything but breathe and suckle and cry. Our lives diverged: you taken to the deepest interior of the Protectorate, cocooned in secrecy at the heart of one of the empire’s biggest lies, and I exiled to the fringes of society, never quite belonging anywhere.
I spent my life in ignorance of your existence, convinced that there was no other like me. And then I learned the truth from the woman who attended our birth all those years ago, the handmaiden who witnessed the sale of two helpless infants and carried that secret as a weight in her heart for decades. Suddenly I understood why I had always felt there was some part of me missing.
But no more. I have spent the past two years searching for you as the Protectorate slowly spiraled toward civil war. I found where they kept you. And now my quest to rescue you begins. I have never done anything more dangerous. If I succeed, you will never have to read this letter, because I will tell you all of this firsthand. This letter, really, is for myself to read in the long days ahead. It is a record, and it is a promise.
I will find you. I will not give up.
Your twin,
Rider