The pillar rose from the center of the valley where his containment spell had failed—an immense column of gold and silver light that touched earth and heaven both.From a distance it looked still, like a beam carved into the air.Up close, it moved.Threads of energy coiled and uncoiled, whispering languages older than stars.
Arjun stood at its base, the ground trembling under his feet. The light didn't blind him anymore; it recognized him. Every beat of it was a breath through his lungs, every pulse a mirror of his racing heart.
The worlds had found their hinge, and it was him.
He could see both sides now—one superimposed over the other like twin transparencies.The valley and the city.Tents and skyscrapers.Two skies braided together, twin suns and twin moons rising over the same horizon.
He saw soldiers from his world advancing, drawn by fear and faith alike, their banners rippling in the warped air.And he saw, layered faintly through them, flashes of the other world's armies—human shapes with police shields and helicopters, sirens wailing faintly through the roar of magic.
The seam wasn't just joining places. It was rewriting them.
He sank to his knees, pressing his hands into the dirt.
The earth beneath him wasn't soil anymore; it was glass, humming faintly with the same pulse that ran through his veins. He could feel Maya somewhere beyond the horizon, her heartbeat syncing with his own.
He wanted to reach for her—but every time he tried, the light surged higher, dragging more of the sky down with it.
"Enough," he whispered. "Let it stop."
The pillar brightened.
The general arrived first, riding through the waves of heat that rippled outward. Her armor was cracked, her sword drawn, her soldiers fanned out behind her like an iron tide.
"Arathen!" she shouted, though her voice barely carried through the thunder. "Stand down!"
He looked up. "You don't understand. I can't."
"You're killing us!" she cried. "Look around you!"
He did. The fields were folding into themselves—patches of terrain blinking between realities. One moment grass, the next asphalt, the next a river running uphill. Creatures flickered in and out of existence: horses twisting into cars, campfires turning to streetlights.
And amid the chaos, people were screaming—both kinds of people. His soldiers and the humans of Maya's world, overlapping, some merging, some vanishing.
It was everything he'd feared—and everything he'd caused.
He forced himself to stand, light bleeding from the cracks in his skin. "Go back!" he shouted. "Get them away!"
"From what?" the general demanded. "From you?"
Her words hit like a blow.
"Yes," he said finally. "From me."
He lifted his hands and tried to draw the power inward, folding it, sealing it.The pillar answered like a living thing—wrapping around him, curling closer, its edges bright as knives.He gritted his teeth, pushing against the tide. The sound of it was unbearable, like glass shattering in slow motion.
The ground split.
He saw the soldiers stumble, the sky tear wider, and through it—clearer than ever—Maya, standing on a hill under the wrong sky, a child at her side.
The light between them throbbed once, then divided: one beam toward him, one toward her.
The seam had found its balance.
Something heavy struck his shoulder—an arrow, old-fashioned, iron-tipped, fired by one of his own.It didn't pierce him, but the shock drove him to one knee.
"Hold your fire!" the general shouted. But the line had broken. Panic ran faster than orders.
They saw the light bleeding from his wound and mistook it for proof of divinity—or damnation.The first volley of arrows turned the sky black for an instant.
Arjun didn't retaliate. He couldn't. He raised one hand, more to shield them than himself, and the pillar responded with fury.
A ring of energy erupted outward, tossing soldiers and illusions alike into the air. The echo rolled across both worlds—a single, unearthly chord that made buildings quake and mountains bow.
When the noise faded, the battlefield was gone.
The armies stood scattered across a plain of translucent glass stretching in every direction. Above, the two skies merged completely, twin suns orbiting one another in slow, terrible beauty.
At the center, Arjun knelt, the light pouring through him like water through a sieve.
He looked up, vision blurring.
"Maya," he whispered.
And from the horizon, through the glow, came a second voice:
"Arjun."
Their names carried across the expanse like the first and last words ever spoken.
The light between them pulsed, almost tenderly.
Then the air split.
Half the armies fell to their knees, half turned and fled. In both worlds, every mirrored surface rippled—the sound of a heartbeat rolling across creation.
And in that beat, Arjun understood.
There would be no sealing this.No closing the seam.
One of them would have to cross completely.
He stood, the cracks in his skin glowing brighter. The general called his name again, begging him to stop. He looked back at her, at the army that had once been his.
"I told you I was borrowed," he said. "Maybe now it's time to return what I took."
He stepped forward into the light.
And the pillar flared so bright that both worlds screamed.