At first, it was only the small magics that failed.
A lantern-flame that refused to light when he whispered the rune.A scrying bowl showing reflections of places that didn't exist.The wards that hummed faintly off-key, as though remembering a melody from another world.
Arjun ignored them. He had seen fluctuations before—magic was as fickle as weather.But when the failures began to speak, he knew denial could no longer save him.
The first whisper came from a healing charm.
A young soldier lay on a cot, leg torn open by shrapnel. The medic had done what he could, but infection had already crept upward. Arjun knelt beside him, pressing his palm over the wound."Be still," he murmured, summoning light.
The spell bloomed in a perfect circle. The boy sighed in relief.
And then the light flickered.
A new sound threaded through the air—not pain, not wind. Speech.Whispers, fragmented, overlapping, familiar and wrong.
"Stay with me, baby. Please—Aarav—don't move—"
Arjun's blood turned to ice. That wasn't his voice. That wasn't this world.
The soldier's eyes opened wide, frightened. "My lord?"
The light burst outward, uncontrolled. The scent of antiseptic and hospital linen filled the tent.Arjun jerked his hand back. The magic sputtered, leaving the boy untouched.
And somewhere deep inside, a heartbeat that wasn't his own thudded once, heavy and human.
The next failure was worse.
During council, maps on the table began to bleed ink. Rivers on parchment reversed direction, drawn toward the center, where a pale sun began to sketch itself—one that belonged to no place here.
Arjun tried to cover it, but the others saw.
"What does it mean?" the general demanded.
He didn't answer. He couldn't.
Because for a moment, he saw not their war but a living room full of sunlight, a cracked window, and a child drawing circles in spilled cereal.
He blinked. The vision vanished. The generals stared, waiting.
"Nothing," he said hoarsely. "An echo. Nothing more."
But the lie sat bitter in his mouth.
By nightfall, the air itself had changed.
The camp fires burned too cold, their flames blue-white and silent. The twin moons trembled in the sky, thin clouds spiraling around them like halos.Somewhere beyond the hills, a sound like distant glass breaking rolled across the plains.
Soldiers awoke shouting. They said they'd seen ghost cities hovering above the horizon—streets lined with lights that blinked and hummed.
Arjun climbed the ridge alone. From there he saw it too: a faint mirage of skyscrapers bending over the battlefield like reflections on water. The worlds were overlapping again.
He pressed his hand against the nearest ward-stone. It flared crimson, hot enough to sear. The runes beneath his skin—those crystalline marks—lit up in response.
He could feel her heartbeat through them.
Maya's.
Steady. Human. Terrifyingly alive.
The magic that once obeyed him now pulsed to her rhythm. Each beat sent a tremor through the barrier between worlds.
He realized, with growing dread, that his own power was no longer his.He was a conduit.
And the conduit was breaking.
The general found him at dawn, standing in the middle of the ridge, the wards around him flickering like dying stars.
"Archmage," she said softly. "The men can't sleep. The rivers have stopped flowing again. The sky—"
Her voice caught. She pointed upward.
The moons were gone.
In their place hung a single sphere—half golden, half pale blue, pulsing faintly like a living eye.
"Tell me what it means," she whispered.
Arjun swallowed. "It means the worlds are remembering each other."
She stared at him. "Can you stop it?"
He looked at his hands, the faint lattice of cracks glowing under the skin. "I don't know anymore if I should."
That night he tried one last spell—a containment weave older than the kingdom itself. He stood in the center of the camp, chalking runes into the earth, his fingers trembling.
He spoke the old words, each syllable heavier than the last. Magic gathered, thick as mist.
For a moment, he thought it was working. The hum softened, the stars steadied.
Then the ground shuddered.
The runes on his palms blazed white-hot. His body convulsed.
Images flashed: Maya at her window; Aarav's sleeping face; the sound of a child whispering, "Mama?"
Arjun screamed. The light tore through the camp like a shockwave.
When it cleared, the fires were out. The wards were gone. And the stars above the ridge had split in two—one set for each world.
He fell to his knees, chest heaving, magic smoking from his fingertips. The general rushed to him, but stopped short when she saw his face.
His eyes—once the calm gray of stormlight—now glowed with two reflections: one of twin moons, one of a single sun.
"Archmage?" she whispered.
He looked past her, to the horizon where both skies overlapped in trembling light.
"It's too late," he said. "They've already found each other."