Page 7 of Ash and Burn

"What is that for?"

"This is how we're getting to Nova Aurora." Gerri's tone carried the casual certainty of someone explaining how to operate a coffee maker.

Arvid decided to stop asking questions. The answers weren't helping her feel more grounded in reality—if anything, they were making her feel like she'd fallen down a rabbit hole with no bottom.

Gerri moved to the center of the small room and whispered something to the metal egg that Arvid couldn't quite catch. The words sounded like they might have been in another language entirely, or perhaps no language at all.

But what happened next shattered every remaining assumption Arvid had about the possible and impossible.

The egg lifted from Gerri's palm and began spinning with increasing velocity, generating a low humming sound that seemed to resonate in Arvid's bones. Blue light began emanating from its surface, growing brighter and more intense until the spinning object became a blur of radiance.

The light expanded outward, forming a perfect circle in the center of the room like a window had been cut through the fabric of space itself. And through that impossible aperture, Arvid could see another world.

A massive volcano dominated the horizon, its dark slopes rising against alien skies. Below it spread a city built from black stone, with architecture that looked both ancient and purposeful. Steam rose from various points throughout the settlement, and the quality of light suggested this place orbited a different star entirely.

Arvid's scientific mind stopped fighting the impossibility and surrendered to pure wonder. She was looking at another planet. An actual, literal alien world, visible through what could only be described as a tear in space-time itself. The theoretical had become tangible, and despite every rational instinct screaming that this couldn't be happening, she found herself stepping closer to examine the phenomenon.

"That's Ashvorn," Gerri said with obvious pride. "Beautiful, isn't it? A bit warm, and the air does carry a sulfurous edge from the Caldran—that's the volcano—but you'll hardly notice after a while."

She turned and met Arvid's gaze, flashed a mischievous smile, and gave Arvid a quick wink.

"I'll meet you on the other side," she added, then stepped through the portal as casually as walking through a doorway and disappeared entirely.

Arvid stood alone in the sterile office, staring at the swirling blue gateway to another world. Her fingers tightened around her suitcase handle as she approached the portal, every instinct warring between scientific curiosity and survival caution.

She reached out tentatively to touch the edge of the phenomenon. The moment her fingertips made contact, electric sensation shot up her arm—not painful, but intensely energizing, as if she'd touched a live wire made of pure possibility.

Then, taking a deep breath that tasted of ozone and anticipation, Arvid stepped forward into the portal.

The sensation defied description. Time seemed to compress and expand simultaneously while her body became weightless yet somehow more solid than ever before. Every nerve ending sparked with electric energy, and for a brief, glorious moment, she felt completely alive. Then her feet touched solid ground, and the overwhelming sensory experience faded to reveal her new reality.

The ground beneath her boots radiated warmth even through the soles, and the air carried the faint sulfurous scent Gerri had mentioned, along with something else—something that made her skin prickle with recognition she couldn't name.

"Welcome to Ashvorn," Gerri said, standing nearby looking completely unaffected by their interdimensional travel.

Arvid took several experimental steps, testing her balance on this alien soil. Something about this place felt familiar. It was as if some deep part of her soul recognized this world, though that was impossible. She dismissed the sensation as an aftereffect of wormhole travel and focused on her immediate surroundings. The volcanic landscape stretched in all directions, beautiful in its grandeur, and the city ahead looked both ancient and thriving.

"Isn't this place refreshing?" Gerri asked, checking the designer watch on her wrist. "Oh, shoot. We really must get a move on. The king is waiting for us."

"King?" The word came out sharper than Arvid intended.

"Yes, King Calix is expecting us at Ashspire, his estate, any minute now."

Arvid hadn't known she would be meeting royalty today. Then again, twenty-four hours ago she hadn't known dragon shifters existed, so perhaps she should stop being surprised by new information.

Still, the prospect of meeting an alien king while carrying a single suitcase and wearing her most professional Earth clothes felt surreal beyond measure. But then, everything about this situation had crossed the line into surreal long ago.

As they walked, the pathways beneath Arvid's boots radiated warmth through the soles, each step a reminder that she walked on alien ground shaped by forces beyond her understanding. The material Gerri had called pyrestone gleamed with an inner heat that seemed to pulse in rhythm with her heartbeat, though that had to be her imagination running wild.

"The Caldran's been watching over this place for millennia," Gerri said, gesturing toward the massive volcanic peak that dominated the horizon like a sleeping giant. "Forty miles across at the top, but don't let the word 'dormant' fool you. It's more like a silent guardian than anything truly sleeping."

Arvid found herself mesmerized by the sheer scale of it. She'd studied volcanoes in textbooks, seen documentaries about Mount Vesuvius and Kilauea, but nothing had prepared her for the raw majesty of something this enormous. The Caldran rose from the landscape with the kind of presence that made everything else seem small by comparison, its dark slopes catching the alien sunlight and throwing it back in shades of amber and gold.

"I've never seen anything like it," she admitted, adjusting her grip on her suitcase handle. The air carried a sulfurous edge that should have been unpleasant but somehow felt right, as if her lungs had been designed for this particular atmosphere. "It's... perfect for dragon shifters, isn't it?"

"Oh, honey, you have no idea. Wait until you see them fly."

They continued along the pyrestone walkway, and soon the sounds of civilization reached them—voices calling across the market square, the clatter of wheels on stone, children's laughter echoing between buildings. But as they entered the bustling heart of Ashvorn, Arvid's trained eye caught details that made her chest tighten with recognition.