Everything Has Changed

Sorrow

The young elvin boy named Tam Song peeked out from the slight gap between his two cupped hands, which had been obstinately obscuring his vision for the past few seconds. His eleven year-old sister was nowhere to be seen, and he heaved a sigh of relief. Linh was long gone, headed off to some clever hiding place, and it was finally time for him, the predatory tiger, to search and seek her out.

Like usual, they were playing hide-and-seek, and clear to say, they were already experts on the game, their skills instinctively honed from the countless years they had spent together running and hiding away from their parents, who were the real predators.

After all, it was them who Linh was really scared of. She wasn't frightened at all by her brother like she used to be when she had first met him, and the important way she held herself with her predatory grace matched his, if not, overpowered his.

It was surely a strange occurrence, given how different she was before. She'd even seemed... weak, but that was all before the Song family found out that she was the true heiress and carrier of the prestigious Song legacy.

Tam snorted at the thought of his family being 'prestigious'.

The hierarchy of the Song family had changed not long after that.

Sure, Linh had became more confident of herself because of that. He could see it in her eyes. Her eyes, once soft and silvery and shining, had hardened over the years to expose a lethal, fierce expression that she used when she was angry at something. She wasn't intimidated easily now, like she had been last time, even afraid of Choralmere's Vortinator.

But if there was still one last thing that she was scared of, it was her parents, no matter how much she tried to hide her emotions.

Why did Tam know? Because he was afraid of his parents too. That was right-Tam Song, the Lost Cities' most notorious Unworthy, who had borne danger over danger, was scared of his father and his mother. He was scared of his mother, her sneaky shadows and her willingness to give up her children all at once, and he was scared of his father, the two contrasting sides of his personality and how he had such power to change everything he'd ever known, for the better or for the worse-that was all up to only him.

"Boo!" Linh shouted from behind him, startling him and making him jump in shock. She laughed, a cheerful laugh, and grabbed him by the shoulders, trying to tackle him to the ground. Tam wrestled himself away from her grip-quite easily, since he was stronger than her-and moved away from her quickly. Linh might be physically weaker, but she was as light as a moonlark's feather and probably the most agile person he'd seen in his life.

But then again, he hadn't seen much people in his life. Yet.

"You might have escaped this time," warned Linh, her eyes twinkling, "but that doesn't mean anything-since this we have established that this is a game of hide and seek, a game of hide and seek it would stay. I still win, because I found you."

"You don't have to try to use diplomacy on me," said Tam tiredly, "but I was supposed to find you, not the other way round. You should have waited for me to find you, not pop out of your hiding place suddenly and scare me half to death. That's not how hide-and-seek works, so this doesn't count."

Linh cocked her head at him mockingly. "Well, you were so deep in thought, I garnered that you would be so distracted that you'd walk straight past me-and that's exactly what you did. You walked straight past me. So I just decided to reveal myself to you."

Tam fell silent at that. He didn't want Linh to know what he had been thinking about. As twins, they were as thick as thieves and they stuck together through and through, but there were some secrets that just had to be kept. Well, for now, at least.