Rowan.
They were bone-thin and blistered when he found them.
The mine had collapsed sometime before dawn. No one knew how long the twins had been down there—trapped beneath slag rock and the half-melted corpses of other hybrids, clawing toward the surface like animals. The smoke had choked out the moon. The tunnels were still hot. Still breathing.
He found the girl first.
She was curled around her brother, singed hair stuck to her face with soot and blood. One arm was broken. The other clung to him like the world would end if she let go.
The boy had passed out—face covered in ash, lips cracked, but still warm.
They weren't crying.
They didn't scream when Rowan lifted them from the rubble.
Just looked at him with hollow, molten eyes, like they didn't know whether to thank him or burn him alive.
He didn't ask their names. Not at first. Names could come later.
Names were for the living.
They started calling themselves Ashen and Brisa two days later.
