Mira’s voice thundered through every skull on base.“I can’t hold both portals! Anchor them, or the bridge will collapse and our chance to rescue the cub with it!”
Oren shot upward again, lightning splitting the sky. I followed—the air bending around me as if the storm itself obeyed. Nathan burned through the ground forces, a living wildfire, as Mira planted herself between the two portals, psychic tendrils digging into the earth.
Every animal on base howled, screamed, or shrieked—the sound of nature itself tearing as reality began to fold.
“Mira!” I shouted, hovering above the chaos. “Pull back!”
“No!”Her voice cracked through my mind.“I will not fail!”
The second portal exploded outward, light swallowing everything.
For a heartbeat, I saw Mira and the two Draxon through the glare—wings spread, power colliding—and then they were gone.
We had saved the base, but only two of our Faction had made it through to Aurathia.
When the light died, silence fell hard. The rain hissed on scorched asphalt. The wolves whimpered at the tree line, tails tucked.
Oren landed hard beside me, smoke curling off him. “They’re alive,” he rasped. “I can hear them—through the portal. Every creature in this hemisphere just felt them cross.”
Nathan stared at the empty air where the portal had been, flames still licking his hands. “Then we go after them. I’m not going to be left behind this time.” The kestrel landed on his shoulder and cawed in response to his statement.
I holstered my weapon, throat raw. “We will.”
Lightning forked overhead, and it looked like the world was burning.
The hangars were gone, the sky a storm of flame and screaming wind. Mira was standing near the first portal. The light dimmed inside, but it was still open. Our brothers—Zeke and Zane—vanished into light.
And yet, I could still feel them. Not see.Feel. The bond between us humming in my chest.
Oren was right. “They’re still alive,” I said. My voice didn’t sound like my own.
“Then we follow,” Nathan snapped, repeating his earlier statement.
Oren didn’t hesitate. Lightning rippled over his shoulders as he floated above the cracked tarmac. “We don’t have a complete portal anymore. It’s raw, unstable?—”
I stepped closer to the fading portal. “Then we make it stable.”
Mira’s voice whispered through my skull,“The tether remains open… if you dare.”
I didn’t think. None of us did. When family burns, you run into the fire. There is no other option.
Nathan reached out, clasping my shoulder, his skin hot enough to sear. They still echoed faintly through the bond. Oren hovered beside us, eyes bright with electricity.
“On my mark, I said.
“One,” Nathan growled.
“Two.” Oren’s hands sparked.
“Three,”Mira growled, and she dug both tentacles into the ground and opened the portal as wide as she could.
We stepped into the light.
Zeke (immediately after stepping through the portal)
Heat.
That was the first thing. It wasn’t the sunlight—it was alive, pulsing, invasive.
