Chapter 20: The Crossing

—ARYN'S POV—

---

I stepped through the archway of ash and vine.

And the world blinked before my eyes.

One breath — and the forest was behind me.

The next — I stood somewhere else entirely.

In this world, there was no sky.

No wind.

No sound.

Only a vast dome above, swirling with slow, celestial fire. Not flame as I knew it, but starlight, curved and endless, painted in hues of silver, gold, and onyx. The light pulsed — alive, steady, ancient — like the inhale of a sleeping god.

I looked down — below my feet stretched smooth obsidian glass. Dark, flawless, cold. But etched with glowing runes that danced with every step I took — lines that kept shifting, changed shape, and shimmered in response to my mark. Each symbol flared, then dimmed, as if whispering, "She's here. She has arrived."

The silence wasn't empty.

It was sacred.

It pressed around me like breath that had been held too long.

I glanced behind me.

Garrick and Nessa had crossed too, but something in their posture said they felt it — this... place. They stood just inside the threshold, half-shadowed, half-lit. Their eyes darted across the strange sky, the still trees, the glass beneath their boots.

The moment I looked back, the archway vanished.

No cracking. No sound.

Just... gone.

We were sealed in.

The Warden's Realm.

---

"Stay close," I said softly.

Nessa's hand slipped into mine without hesitation. Her small fingers trembled, but her grip was strong. Garrick moved to her other side, his stance alert. His hand hovered near his blade — not drawn, but not relaxed either.

He didn't speak, but I felt it through the silence between us: Tension. Fear. Readiness.

But also trust.

We walked.

There was no path, no trail, no map, no guide of any sort. We relied solely on instinct.

Or perhaps something deeper.

Something older.

The ground pulsed beneath me, not just underfoot but inside my bones. The realm itself was... aware.

As if it recognized me.

---

The world around us unfolded like a dream, or a memory borrowed from someone else.

Pale silver trees rose from the ground, their bark smooth like skin and veined with glowing crystal. No leaves — only obsidian glass that grew in fragile, fanned patterns at their tops, catching light from the swirling sky above.

Shards of starlight drifted in the air like ash that never fell.

And above us, birds with no feathers — only shifting threads of light and shadow — circled in slow silence. One passed overhead, and I saw that its body was hollow — a cage of glowing veins around a single flickering flame.

A river ran uphill to our right.

It wept steam as it flowed — not water, but something more viscous, as if memory itself had melted and poured through the rocks.

None of it should have made sense.

But it did.

It felt right.

It felt like returning to a place I had never seen… and yet had always known.

---

And then we reached it.

A clearing.

Perfectly round, etched into the obsidian like the center of a sigil. The runes here glowed brighter, almost gold. They pulsed not in rhythm with my heartbeat — but in sync with something else.

Someone else.

He was waiting.

---

He stood alone, yet filled the clearing as if the trees themselves bowed to him.

Not tall by human standards, but rooted — unshakable. Like the ground had grown around him rather than beneath. His antlers arched high, but they were not made of bone. They were living branches, covered in frost and unfurling leaves of light.

His skin shimmered with faint silver, like starlight caught beneath water. No cloak. No armor. No blade.

But power rolled off him like thunder sealed beneath calm stone.

He turned — slowly, deliberately — and looked at me.

And in that gaze, I was seen.

Not my face. Not my flame.

Me.

Every scar. Every silence. Every fear I'd hidden behind clenched teeth and battle training.

The way I flinched from my own power. The way I longed for answers and feared them all the same.

"You've come," he said.

His voice was not loud.

It didn't need to be.

It wasn't made of sound.

It was made of memory.

I stepped forward, my breath caught in my chest. The mark on my collarbone throbbed once — hard — then settled into a quiet hum.

Not burning.

In harmony.

"I didn't have a choice," I said.

His head tilted.

"None of us do," he replied. "But we can choose what to become."

---

Behind me, Garrick bristled.

"Is she safe here?" he asked.

The Warden turned to him. Slowly. Not unkindly.

"You carry old blood, Garrick," he said. "Tainted. Redeemed. Loyal."

His silver gaze softened — barely. "Yes. She is safe."

Garrick stiffened, jaw tight. But he said nothing more.

The Warden's gaze returned to me.

"You carry more than fire, daughter of flame. You carry memory. Memory that was taken. Stolen. Broken."

"Stolen? Broken? What memory... by who?... Or... what?" I asked many questions, my heart thudding.

He didn't answer.

Instead, he lifted one hand — and the world changed, yet again.

---

A wave of golden fire burst from his palm.

Not hot. Not wild.

Illuminating.

Visions rose around us, dancing in the air like smoke caught in sunlight:

A woman — her eyes my own — screamed as shadows dragged her from a field of gold.

Her mark blazed.

Behind her, the Hollow Court watched, unmoved. Cold. Distant. Watching as her flame was extinguished.

But it didn't die.

It hid.

It burned low.

It survived.

The vision shattered like glass.

The air stilled.

"She was the first," the Warden said. "You are her echo. Her heir. Her defiance."

I staggered back a step.

"She… she looked like me."

"She was you. And more. A shard of the first flame buried in flesh."

I pressed my hand to my chest.

"Why now? Why me?"

He stepped closer.

"Because the Hollow Court stirs. And this time, they will not simply take."

His voice darkened.

"They will erase."

---

The silence around us grew cold.

He turned toward the silver trees, raising his hand.

"Come."

They parted like curtains.

And beyond them — a bridge.

Wide. Straight. Made of black stone inlaid with veins of light, stretching across a river of stars.

Not water.

Not liquid.

A sky flipped upside down — filled with constellations that moved like thoughts through a sleeping mind. The bridge shimmered. Ancient. Untouched.

I stared at it, my throat dry.

"What lies beyond?" I asked.

He didn't look at me.

"Your questions," he said. "Your kin. Your undoing."

Then his eyes locked onto mine — sudden. Sharp.

"Do not falter, daughter of flame. The world has burned before."

---

I stood frozen.

The path ahead waited.

The bridge beckoned.

But my feet refused to move.

What if I wasn't enough?

What if I walked across and never returned?

What if who I was now — this flamebearer, this echo — wasn't enough to survive what waited beyond?

A small hand slipped into mine.

Nessa.

Eyes wide. Brave.

She didn't speak.

She just looked up at me, her presence grounding me more than any spell could.

Garrick stepped to my other side.

"I won't let you fall," he said, voice firm. Steady.

I turned to the Warden.

He was already fading.

Not stepping back — dissolving.

Becoming mist. Light. Memory.

But his shadow…

His shadow stretched behind him like roots beneath the world.

Watching.

Waiting.

I took a breath.

Tightened my grip.

And stepped forward.

One foot.

Then the next.

The bridge did not tremble.

It welcomed me.

As if the stars had been waiting, too.

---

Together — flame, protector, child — we walked into the light.