“I felt it first,” he continues. “A pull. It was faint and inconsistent. Like something brushing against the edges of perception.” His gaze flicks briefly upward, towards the strange green sky. “I didn’t understand it. But I followed it.”
Sonny mutters under his breath, “Of course you did.”
“I began experimenting,” the king says, ignoring him. “Pressure points in the air. Instability in the fabric between worlds. At first, there was nothing. Then—storms.”
We’ve all seen them… felt them.
“The lightning was not random,” he continues. “It revealed… glimpses. Brief fractures in reality. Through those flashes, I saw other lands. Other skies. Other… worlds.”
My stomach twists.
“So I pushed,” he says simply. “Harder. Further. Until those flashes became tears.”
Silence pulls taut around us.
“My adviser assisted me,” he adds.
Aelith’s head snaps up. “Who?”
The king’s gaze meets his directly. “Theryn Valis.”
Aelith goes still, his recognition obvious. “Theryn,” he repeats, softer now, like the name means something deeper than rank or title. “He was?—”
“My closest adviser,” the king confirms. “And the only one who understood the scope of what we were attempting. One day,” the king continues, “we succeeded beyond intention.”
The air feels heavier now.
“The largest tear we had ever created opened.”
No one moves. No one breathes.
“And it didn’t remain stable.” His gaze goes distant again, not soft, but fixed on something only he can see. “It pulled.”
The word is simple, but the weight of it isn’t.
“I was taken through.”
The clearing feels colder as surprise ripples through the group. I assumed Jamie had been the only one to travel out of Terrafeara. Hell, before Jamie, none of us thought it was really possible.
“Transported into another world.” He pauses for a beat. “Human.”
My brain stutters for half a second. Because—Yeah. That’s not something you just gloss over.
“How the hell did you not get locked up?” I mutter before I can stop myself.
Sonny huffs out a laugh. “Mate, have you not seen the stuff on Earth? Area 51, little green men?—”
“He’s blue,” Shanae says dryly.
“Right, well, that would’ve really thrown them off.”
Despite everything, Sonny’s words almost get a reaction out of me.
Almost.
The king ignores us entirely.
“I should have died there,” he says. “The environment was incompatible. The transition… violent.”
