After what felt like an eternity, Arthur’s body twitched.

  He didn’t wake up all at once; it was a slow, painful drag back to consciousness. His body felt heavy, like he was buried under a pile of wet sand.

  He peeled his eyes open. The world was a blurry mess; the violet sky was still there, swirling with nausea-inducing geometric shapes, but the rain had stopped. The forest was dead silent. No wind. No growls. Just a ringing in his ears that wouldn’t go away.

  Am I dead?

  Arthur pushed himself up. His arms trembled violently, threatening to give out. He managed to roll onto his back, gasping for air.

  Flashbacks of the intense fight he had just survived a few hours ago washed over him—and with them the realization that he actually managed to break the seal on his core.

  “I did it,” he whispered, a hysterical laugh bubbling in his throat. “I actually did it.”

  He sat there for a long time, just breathing as he watched the floating trees drift aimlessly in the distorted gravity. He checked his body for any fractures or deep wounds, but luckily, aside from the scrapes and bruises, there was nothing fatal.

  He grabbed his cane, which lay a few feet away. The tip was charred black, looking like it had been dipped in lava.

  Arthur used it to hoist himself up. He swayed, dizzy, but managed to stay upright.

  “Now... where is the wolf?”

  He turned to look at the clearing behind him.

  His eyes widened.

  There was no wolf. There was no mud.

  In a cone-shaped blast zone stretching twenty feet from where Arthur had collapsed, the forest floor had been scorched clean. The wet mud was baked into cracked ceramic, while a massive tree trunk had been snapped cleanly in half.

  “There is no way I did that?” Arthur muttered in disbelief, staring at his own hands. Sparks of blue mana danced faintly between his fingers before flickering out.

  He walked toward the impact site, expecting to find the body of the wolf or something. But instead he found shattered pieces of space.

  Thousands of shimmering, violet shards littered the center of the crater. They faded in and out of existence, dissolving into mist before reforming, just like everything in this strange dimension.

  He stepped closer, crunching the mist under his boots.

  And then he saw it.

  In the center of the shards, curled into a tight ball, was a person.

  Arthur gripped his cane, holding it like a club, and edged closer.

  It was a girl. She looked older than him—maybe fifteen or sixteen. Her clothes were a mess of tattered silk, looking like a noble’s outfit that had been dragged through a war zone.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  But it wasn’t her clothes that made Arthur drop his guard slightly. It was her hair; the color was unmistakable.

  Silver.

  Not grey, not white. Silver. The same metallic shade that Arthur saw in the mirror every morning. The signature of the Ashborn blood.

  “No way,” Arthur whispered.

  He dropped to his knees beside her.

  She was burning up. He could feel the heat radiating off her skin from a foot away. It wasn’t fever; it was raw mana. She felt like an overheating radiator.

  “Hey,” Arthur said softly, reaching out to touch her shoulder. “Can you hear me?”

  She didn’t react. Her breathing remained as shallow as before.

  Arthur looked around. The violet sky was darkening, and the shadows in the twisted forest were stretching, looking more and more like claws.

  Hmm, I can’t leave her here, he thought. Whoever she is, she might be an Ashborn too, which means saving her will benefit me, one way or another. He looked at the girl, then at the rock where he had hidden earlier. It was about fifty yards away.

  “This is going to suck,” Arthur groaned.

  He took off his heavy coat and laid it on the ground, then he carefully rolled the unconscious girl onto it. After that he grabbed the sleeves and started pulling.

  Step. Drag. Step. Drag.

  It took him a grueling fifteen minutes to cover those fifty yards; his body was weak from day one to begin with, and that is without mentioning the ordeal he had just survived.

  He popped her up against the stone wall, making sure she could breathe before starting to look for some water.

  He scanned the immediate area; a twisted root in the corner was dripping with clear liquid. He tasted a drop; it tasted like metal but still was drinkable.

  He cupped a large leaf, collected a mouthful, and brought it back. He trickled it between her cracked lips.

  She swallowed instinctively, then coughed.

  Her eyelids fluttered.

  Arthur scrambled back, giving her space, holding his cane defensively.

  She opened her eyes. They weren’t brown nor blue; instead, they radiated a deep, burning crimson—the color of the dying embers.

  She gasped, her hands snapping up.

  FWOOOOSH.

  Small, unstable flames flickered to life in her palms. “Stay back!” she rasped. “Don’t come near me!”

  Arthur raised his empty hand, keeping the cane lowered.

  “I am not going to hurt you,” he said, keeping his voice low and steady. "I am the one who pulled out of that crater.”

  The girl blinked, her chest heaving. The flames in her hands flickered and died as her exhaustion snuffed them out. She looked around—at the floating trees, the violet sky, and the barren rocks.

  Clear confusion washed over her face. “Where are we right now? And why does the sky look this odd?”

  “I honestly have no idea,” Arthur said with a sigh. “I found myself here, too, after a spatial rift swallowed me up.”

  The girl turned her gaze back to him. She squinted, as if trying to focus through a thick fog. She stared at his face, her eyes tracing the shape of his jaw before locking onto his hair.

  “Ashburn?” she murmured. She squinted, as if trying to focus through a fog. “You... you look like Uncle Roderick.”

  “That hair...” she murmured, her guard dropping a fraction. “You have the Ashborn silver. But... you look just like Uncle Roderick.”

  Arthur froze.

  Uncle? “I am Oliver,” he said slowly. “Roderick is my father.”

  The girl frowned and clutched her head. “Oliver?” She shook her head. “No, that is not right. Oliver is a baby.

  Arthur felt a chill that had nothing to do with the wind. He looked at the girl in front of him, wearing clothes from a decade ago, remembering him as an infant.

  She was stuck in time, Arthur realized.

  "Time works differently where you were," Arthur said gently. "I'm thirteen now."

  She stared at him, her mouth slightly open. "Thirteen..." she whispered. Tears welled up in her red eyes. "Then... I've been gone..."

  She hugged her knees to her chest, making herself small. "My name is... Aria. I think."

  "Nice to meet you, Aria," Arthur said. He sat down opposite her, keeping a respectful distance. "We can figure out the timeline later. Right now, we have a bigger problem."

  "Problem?"

  Arthur pointed toward the forest entrance.

  The sun had fully set. The violet glow of the sky was the only light source now.

  And in the darkness between the twisted trees, pairs of glowing violet eyes were appearing.

  One pair. Two pairs. Ten.

  “It seems we are going to have some company," Arthur said with a grim expression.

  (To be continued...)