THE FALL INTO ALEXIA

The ground trembled beneath Kieran and Elara as they faced Rebel, his form bathed in golden energy. His power crackled through the air, bending reality itself around him. The portal behind them still flickered with unstable energy, its connection to Natuka wavering like a candle in the wind.

Kieran clenched his fists. "Rebel, stop this! You're making a mistake!"

Elara stepped forward, her voice softer but no less urgent. "You think ruling Natuka alone will fix everything, but it won't. The Reckoning broke more than just the balance between these worlds—it broke you. You can't carry this weight alone."

For the first time, something flickered across Rebel's face—**hesitation**.

But just as quickly as it came, it was gone. His golden eyes hardened. "You don't understand," he said, voice laced with quiet rage. "You think I want this? That I want to be alone? I didn't choose this power. I didn't choose to be torn between two worlds!"

Kieran took a step forward. "Then don't do this! We can find another way together."

Rebel's fists clenched. "**Together?**"

The word came out bitter. His energy surged. The wind around them howled.

"You think you have the right to stand here and judge me?!" Rebel's voice echoed across the clearing. "You who only discovered your powers **because of me**? You who never knew what it meant to be caught between two worlds?"

Elara tried again. "Rebel, we're not your enemies—"

"**Enough!**"

The force of his shout sent a shockwave through the ground. The portal **shattered**, and the sky above them seemed to crack, revealing a **dark, endless void** beneath the fabric of reality itself.

Kieran and Elara barely had time to react before Rebel **raised his hands**, his power surging to its peak.

"You don't deserve to be part of this world anymore."

With a final, devastating pulse of golden energy, **the world collapsed beneath them**—and they fell.

—

### **Falling Into Alexia**

The moment Kieran and Elara tumbled into the void, everything **changed**.

There was no light. No sound.

Only **falling**.

Kieran gasped, his body weightless as he plunged through nothingness. He reached for Elara, but she was just out of reach, her form flickering between human and beast.

"Elara—!"

His voice **vanished** before it could even reach her. **There was no air here. No reality.**

A deep, endless **cold** wrapped around him.

Then, the whispers began.

**"You are not welcome."**

Kieran's blood turned to ice. The voice wasn't Rebel's. It wasn't even human.

He felt **something** shifting in the darkness around him. Something **watching**.

His powers surged in his veins, and for a brief moment, his vision **flared white**—a glimpse of the future.

**A thousand eyes blinking open in the void. A monstrous shape writhing in the distance. A gate of twisted bone and shadow.**

Then, the vision was gone.

Kieran hit something **hard**.

Pain exploded through his body. He groaned, his breath ragged. **He wasn't falling anymore.**

He was on a surface.

A cold, obsidian floor stretched beneath him, slick like glass yet covered in **cracks that pulsed with blue light**. The space around him was **wrong**—**shifting, warping, pulsing**.

"Elara?"

He pushed himself up, his heart pounding.

She lay a few feet away, unmoving.

"Elara!" Kieran crawled to her side, shaking her. "Wake up!"

She gasped awake, her golden eyes wide with terror. "Kieran—where—?"

She looked around. Then she **froze**.

Because now, they **saw** it.

The void around them was not **empty**.

Shapes slithered in the shadows, watching, **waiting**. In the distance, an enormous, hulking **thing** shifted, its form too vast and unnatural for Kieran's mind to fully comprehend. It **dripped with darkness**, tendrils extending like feelers, searching.

And all around them, **the whispers grew louder**.

**"You should not be here."**

Kieran's heart pounded.

They had to get out. **But no one had ever escaped Alexia before.**

And now, they were trapped inside it.

—