I stroked my fingers up, feeling the ridges of the grip and wrapping my fingers around it. Instantly, I felt the energy through the hilt and readjusted my hand to make sure I didn’t let go.
“Bronte’s lightning,” I said through a heavy breath. “The dagger, it’s giving me energy from her lightning… I’ll not take too… too much… Just enough,” I pushed out, still trying to fill my lungs fully.
“Alex, no, it’s too dangerous, we don’t know what could happen,” Aster said, making me grip his hand tighter.
“It’s the only way. Last time, I always had Atlas to help me open the Rift. I need the extra power, Aster.”
He gritted his teeth, and I could see he was about to argue, but I only needed to say two words.
“For Atlas.”
His face twisted in frustration before he nodded, finally relenting. He then reached for the dagger and helped me do what I needed to.
The energy continued flowing through me, helped now by the weight of the dagger in my hand. It felt like I was on an IV drip. I could feel the energy pouring into my veins, and as soon as the nauseating feeling of weakness subsided, I released the dagger. Opening my eyes, I was met by Aster's reassuring expression.
“Let’s get you up, Sleeping Beauty.” He held out his hand, and I took it.
“I wasn’t sleeping,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him and his silly joke.
“Sleeping, lying down on the job, same thing.” He cocked his head to the side.
He lifted me to my feet as if I weighed nothing at all. I wanted to ask him how he knew who Sleeping Beauty was, but I knew it would take us down a rabbit hole so deep, we’d end up at Disney World instead of in Theïkós.
He helped me get closer to the Rift once more, and with the power of the dagger running through me, this time when I raised my hand to the shimmering veil, my fingers eased right through. Our bodies were held suspended, but not for nearly as long as the last time.
So, we pushed through, each of us focusing on breathing as the odd mass seemed to clog our throats. We continued fighting our way through the mass until we finally reached the other side.
Which was when I gasped in horror…
Because death was all we found.
What greeted us on the other side was something that would have had me running back to my own world, had I not a king to save. The air felt different here. So different, in fact, that it made the back of my neck prickle like I could feel all the death that had occurred here at the hands of Demetrios.
Aster stood beside me, completely silent. His eyes swept across the horizon, and I followed his gaze to where a rising sun hung low in the sky. Its red light bleeding over a land colored only in shades of black and grey.
“No… no, this… this isn’t how it should look,” he said painfully, and my heart broke for him seeing his home like this. I remembered in the early days after the Rift, seeing towns and homes ravaged by desperate people or damaged from myth attacks. It hadn’t been an easy sight, but one that had gotten easier with time.
I reached out and put a hand on his arm, holding the apology that lay on my tongue. The words ‘I’m sorry’ didn’t feel right in this moment. I knew nothing I said would help.
“It used to be so green… so alive,” he murmured, half to himself. Then he started walking, and I stayed silent as he made it a few steps ahead of me, his boots crunching on the dry soil where I assumed green grass once grew.
He looked up, the only color coming from the sun, which painted the soil and the sky with a tint of red. It reminded me of blood.
“It was so beautiful. A landscape so vivid, so full of color.” He crouched, scooping up a handful of blackened soil. “Now look at it.” The dust sifted through his fingers, dry and lifeless, and I couldn’t help but squirm at the fact that he was touching the soil. Soil that was tainted by the darkness. All I could hope for the lost land was that, in time, it would regrow. But then his words killed the hope as quickly as it arose.
“Theikos is rotting.”
I winced at his disgusted tone, hating seeing him this way. He was a giant of a man, yet I had never seen him look so small, so fragile.
“It will grow again, Aster. Once we get to Atlas, once we stop the one who did this.” I tried to reassure him, hoping my words didn’t sound empty as I feared they might have.
He stood, the look on his face still showing defeat.
“Yes, you're right,” Aster said, dusting off his hands on his pants.
“We must get to him in time. Atlas travelled with an army, which would have slowed him down, and even magic cannot carry that many souls at once.” Well, that was good to know, I guess. Although if I were honest, I would have also told him that I had no idea what he meant by that statement. Instead, I favored the obvious question.
“What if he decided to go on ahead on his own, you know, to try and get there quicker?”
