The transition wasn't what Kael expected.
He'd imagined pain, or cold, or some dramatic sensation of worlds colliding. Instead, it was like stepping from shallow water into deep—one moment his feet touched solid ground, and the next, he was falling through layers of reality that peeled away like old wallpaper.
Each layer showed him something different.
In one, Millbrook still stood, but the houses were built from bone and the wheat fields grew hair instead of grain. In another, his father was burning, screaming his name while Mira watched with empty eyes. In a third, Kael himself stood as a fully grown man in armor made of shadow, commanding legions of the creatures that had attacked his home.
"None of that is real," a voice said beside him—the woman from his kitchen, falling alongside him as casually as if they were taking a pleasant stroll. "The veil shows you possibilities. Futures that might happen. Pasts that almost did. Your mind trying to make sense of traveling between realms."
"Get away from me," Kael snarled, trying to push her away, but his hands passed through her like she was made of smoke.
"I'm not really here," she said with a thin smile. "Just a projection. An... orientation, if you will. Someone has to explain the rules before you arrive."
"I don't want your rules. I want—"
"Your family safe? Your village restored? Your normal life back?" The woman's expression softened into something that might have been pity. "Those aren't options anymore, Kael Ashford. The moment you saw the stars fall, the moment the Calling woke in your blood, you stopped being a farm boy and became what you were always meant to be."
"And what's that?"
"The weapon that will end the war. Or the one that will reignite it. Depends on whose side you choose."
Another layer peeled away, and this time Kael saw the Seventh Realm clearly. It spread below him like a wound in creation—seven territories surrounding a central wasteland, each dominated by a massive tower that seemed to be built from crystallized darkness. The sky churned with perpetual storm clouds that pulsed with green lightning. There were cities down there, he realized with shock. Whole civilizations existing in this nightmare realm.
"There are people here?" he asked despite himself.
"Not people as you know them. But yes, there is life. The Seventh Realm isn't hell, boy. It's a kingdom. One that was locked away three thousand years ago by your ancestors."
"I don't understand."
"You will. You must." The woman gestured, and suddenly they were standing still in mid-air, the fall suspended. Below, Kael could see figures moving through the twilight cities—some humanoid, others decidedly not. "The Seventh Realm was once part of your world. One of seven interconnected realms, all existing in harmony. But there was a war. A terrible war over something so powerful that its very existence threatened reality."
"The thing you mentioned before. The Broken Pact."
"Yes. Your bloodline—the Ashford line—was instrumental in sealing this realm away. In cutting it off from the other six. You saved the world, Kael. Or rather, your ancestors did." Her eyes glowed brighter. "But they also doomed us. Cut us off from the flow of time and magic that sustains all realms. For three thousand years, we've been dying. Slowly. Inexorably. Fading into nothing."
Kael felt something twist in his chest—not quite sympathy, but not quite rejection either. "So you want revenge."
"We want survival. The pact your ancestors made was supposed to be temporary. A hundred years, no more. But they never came back to undo it. They left us here to rot." The woman's voice hardened. "And now the seal is weakening. The stars fall because the boundaries between realms are breaking down. In five years, maybe ten, the seal will fail completely. And when it does, three thousand years of rage and hunger will spill into your world like a flood."
"Then why bring me here? If the seal's breaking anyway—"
"Because there's another way." The fall resumed, faster now. The ground rushed up to meet them. "The pact can be renewed. Strengthened. Made permanent in a way that allows both realms to survive. But it requires someone with Ashford blood. Someone with the power to walk between worlds. Someone who can make a choice that your ancestors were too cowardly to make."
Kael's mind reeled. "What choice?"
"Bind yourself to the Seventh Realm. Become its anchor. Its living seal. Your life for two worlds." The woman met his eyes, and for the first time, he saw genuine emotion there. Desperation. "Or let everything burn."
"That's not a choice, that's—"
They hit the ground.
Or rather, Kael hit it alone. The woman vanished the moment before impact, and he crashed into earth that felt wrong—too soft, like landing on flesh instead of soil. He rolled, gasping, his body aching but somehow unbroken.
When he looked up, he wasn't alone.
A dozen figures surrounded him, each one different. Some looked almost human, pale and tall with elongated limbs. Others were clearly something else—beings made of living shadow, creatures with too many eyes, things that shifted between forms like they couldn't decide what shape to wear.
But they all had weapons.
And they all looked hungry.
"Well, well," said a man at the front of the group—if 'man' was the right word. He was beautiful in a terrible way, with silver hair and eyes like molten gold. "The Ashford heir, delivered right to our doorstep. The Sorceress said you'd come, but I didn't believe her. I thought you'd have more sense."
Kael pushed himself to his feet, his hands already glowing green. The power felt stronger here, more natural, like he was finally using a muscle he'd never known he had.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
The man smiled, showing too many teeth. "Lord Theron Vex, First Sword of the Crimson Tower and leader of the resistance. And you, boy, just made the second biggest mistake of your life."
"What was the first?"
"Being born an Ashford." Theron's sword appeared in his hand, a blade that looked forged from starlight and malice. "Kill him."
The creatures lunged.
Kael didn't think. He didn't plan. He just reacted.
The green light exploded from him in a wave, and for a moment—just a moment—reality bent to his will. The creatures stopped mid-attack, frozen like insects in amber. Time itself seemed to hiccup.
And in that frozen moment, Kael understood something fundamental.
In the Seventh Realm, he wasn't weak.
Here, he was dangerous.
The moment snapped back, and the creatures unfroze—but three of them were already dead, their bodies rejecting existence itself. The others stumbled back, shock and fear evident even on their inhuman faces.
"Impossible," Theron breathed. "You've been here less than five minutes. You shouldn't be able to—"
Kael didn't let him finish. He ran.
Not away from the group, but through them, using his power like a battering ram. He had no idea where he was going, no plan beyond survive, but his instincts screamed at him to move, to keep moving, to not let them corner him.
He burst out of the circle of attackers and found himself running through a city of sorts—buildings that looked grown rather than built, all angles that hurt to look at and colors that shouldn't exist. Creatures scattered as he passed, some screaming in languages he couldn't understand.
Behind him, Theron's voice rang out: "After him! The Sorceress wants him alive, but I'll settle for mostly intact!"
Footsteps pounded behind him. Not just boots, but other things—claws, hooves, appendages that shouldn't exist.
Kael rounded a corner and nearly ran straight into a wall that pulsed like a heartbeat. He skidded to a stop, looking for another route, but the alley was a dead end.
And Theron's group was closing in.
"End of the line, Ashford," Theron called, his sword glowing with deadly light. "You put up a better fight than I expected, I'll give you that. But you're in our world now. And here, you're just—"
A hand grabbed Kael's shoulder and yanked him backward.
He spun, power flaring, ready to fight—and found himself face to face with a girl who couldn't be older than him. She had silver eyes and hair the color of midnight, and she wore armor made of what looked like solidified smoke.
"If you want to live," she said, her voice urgent and oddly gentle, "shut up and follow me."
She didn't wait for an answer. She pulled him through a tear in the pulsing wall—a tear Kael was sure hadn't been there a second ago—and suddenly they were running through a network of passages that definitely shouldn't exist in three-dimensional space.
Behind them, Theron's frustrated roar echoed: "Find them! Search every shadow in the Lower Reaches! The resistance will have that boy's head!"
But they were already gone, swallowed by the impossible geometry of the Seventh Realm.
Kael wanted to ask a thousand questions. Who was this girl? Why was she helping him? Where were they going?
But the only question that made it out was: "Why?"
The girl glanced back at him, and for just a moment, her silver eyes held something that looked like recognition. Like she'd been waiting for him.
"Because," she said, "you're supposed to save us all. And I'm supposed to make sure you survive long enough to learn how."
And then they were falling again, through layers of reality, into depths Kael couldn't begin to comprehend.
But this time, at least, he wasn't falling alone.