Axel
The first thing I noticed was the quiet.
Not the forest's quiet. I'd walked the east fence line with Rhett's patrol since sundown, and I knew the sounds of the night by heart: the owl that nested in the dead cottonwood, the creek chuckling under its skin of leaves, the wind in the pines turning over like a sleeper. This was a different silence. It lived inside my own head, in the place at the base of my skull where my brother had lived since before either of us had teeth.
Lowen was always there. A low warm hum, like a lamp left on in another room. When he was angry it sharpened. When he was worried it went heavy and slow. When he was with Celeste it did something I'd never admit I could feel, a sort of glow that made me roll my eyes and smile at nothing.
At some point around midni
