It was a time when I didn’t know I was the reason for all the mess to begin with.
The second time, I felt uneasy and worried, but I also felt the tug of selfishness within me. A piece of me that hadn’t wanted to open the Rift at all because that would have meant saying goodbye. Goodbye to the one I had fallen in love with.
As for the third time…this time…I felt an unwavering determination and an urgency to try and save him from his own actions. Save him from becoming just another puppet in evil hands.
When Aster asked me if I was ready, I thought back to all those years of what-ifs. Thought back to what my life could have been had the day the Rift opened never happened.
Then I took his hand and just as my scars were starting to respond to it, I told him,
“Fuck the picket fence.”
“What?”
Aster’s face was a picture, but I just shook my head with a grin and said, “Never mind.”
I reached out, and, as before, the hum of the Rift began to echo through the forest behind us. But this time, there was a weighted strain bearing down on me. As if it knew there was trouble on the other side and the unnerving feeling did little to settle my worries.
The scars itched and were lighting up as the static began to prick my skin. I closed my eyes as the magnetic pull drew in my hand. Bands of light settled on the back of my eyelids, and I picked up its urgent rhythm quickly.
As soon as it brightened, I thrust my hand forward, not only touching the Rift, but entering it before it hardened around us both, holding us in a vice grip of pure magic.
After that, the world around us started to distort, stealing the breath right out of my body with a gasp that felt a million miles away and yet all around us. The pain surged through me. Through every inch until my knees buckled from the burden of it all. Yet despite the crushing feeling, I was unable to fall. The Rift held me suspended like I was trapped in a wall.
I bared my teeth as the screams started to leave my body, and I could feel my energy being sucked out of me. Aster’s voicecalled to me, but it was distant, getting quieter as if moving away.
I could tell he was worried as my name was being echoed around me as if the Rift was mocking me by knowing my presence here was unwelcome.
I wondered if Aster knew that something wasn’t right. That all of this felt wrong. That the Rift shouldn’t be holding me captive like this, because we both knew that we should have made it through by now. But then a thought came to me. I wasn’t from this world, and I had to question whether or not that was the reason it was harder for me to get through. Because I was just the key to unlocking it, not made for using it.
Well, despite what it did or didn’t want, I was getting through this thing, whether it liked it or not! So, I forced myself to concentrate through the pain, allowing the Rift to take the energy it needed as it gave me no choice. I then watched the bright lights on the back of my eyelids as they became brighter, dulling less, realizing that my energy was feeding that brightness.
I wasn’t able to release myself like I had last time when I had worked with the rhythm to pull myself free one digit at a time. No, I had to endure it and hope that it left me enough energy to get through the Rift and to the King.
To my Atlas.
The brightness grew, and suddenly the humming stopped. My body released. Aster reached his arm under me to stop me from hitting the ground hard. I felt incredibly weak, like I hadn’t slept in weeks, and all I wanted to do was curl up in the grass and sleep.
But I couldn’t.
Atlas needed me.
Hell, Lazaros needed me, and we hadn’t even exchanged pleasantries yet.
“Alex!” Aster cried out, and I tried to draw enough strength to reassure him,
“I’m… fine.”
“The hell you are! You’re too weak,” Aster snapped in alarm as I opened my heavy eyelids to find him kneeling over me.
“Did we make it? Is this Theikos?” I asked breathlessly, and I nearly screamed in frustration when he shook his head slowly, telling me no.
“That… no, we…” My words trailed off as I closed my eyes in pained frustration.
“We can’t go ahead with it, Alex. I am sorry, but we will need to think of another way.” Aster looked down at me, his hair falling in front of his face. He didn’t look disappointed, just concerned for me.
“No, we stick to the plan. Just give me… me a moment.” I lay there with my eyes closed and focused on my breathing. Focused as my chest moved up and down, despite the discomfort burning in my back. I thought about that moment, how Riley had dragged me across the floor with my hair like I weighed nothing. How he had overpowered me and then disfigured me. I had needed strength then, and I needed strength now.
But the difference this time was that I had a weapon. And not just any weapon, a weapon forged by the gods. I reached out for the dagger that lay by my side, attached to my belt in its matching scabbard of obsidian black.
