The moment the ground slipped out from under my feet again, the familiar dizziness struck with a violence that hollowed out my stomach. For a heartbeat there was only a ringing silence—then everything cut away. When I opened my eyes, Brooklyn's noise, the sharp paint smell trapped in the studio walls, the chaos of the workshop… all of it was gone.
We were somewhere else entirely.
This room was different from the carved-walled chamber from the last vision. Softer light filtered in—greenish, muted—like sunlight passing through the hollow of an ancient tree. Dried herbs, unfamiliar roots, and crystal-like fragments shimmered faintly from the shelves. The air carried the scent of damp earth, sweet grasses, and something metallic. This was a healer's room—though definitely not any healer from our world.
Harper stirred beside me, breath shaky. Her amber eyes, usually bright with mischief, were clouded with fear.
"What… what happened?" she whispered, as if afraid her voice might shatter something fragile around us.
"Transition," I said. But even to my own ears, my voice sounded foreign. My instincts kicked in—scanning the room for exits, dangers, shadows shifting where they shouldn't.
We weren't alone.
A man rose slowly from where he'd been sitting by the worktable. His eyes—those same sharp, unsettling green eyes from the earlier vision—caught the dim light first. That strange sense of regal danger flooded back into me, wrapping cold fingers around my spine. This time he held no blade. Instead, he wore a simple dark-green tunic, its texture rough yet somehow ancient. His long, coal-black hair spilled over his shoulders as he took a step toward us.
His expression was emotionless. Like a mask carved from ice.
"I expected you to arrive faster," he said. His voice was soft, velvety even—but edged with judgment, as if we were two incompetent couriers who'd kept him waiting.
"Who are you?" I asked, my tone sharper than I intended.
Harper jumped in immediately. "What do you mean faster? We didn't choose to come here! And who do you think you are talking to us like—"
He stopped walking. Just… stopped. His gaze flicked to Harper's paint-stained overalls, then to my denim skirt and worn blouse. A trace—barely a shadow—of dry amusement touched his lips.
"I doubt your peculiar attire is responsible for your delay," he said coolly. "But I'd recommend that the next time you're transported somewhere against your will, at least make an effort not to drag your feet."
Harper flushed bright red. I ignored the insult—because there was one word hidden in his lecture that mattered more than anything:
Transported.
This was not a dream.
I stepped closer to him. "Our methods aren't your concern," I said. "Just answer the questions. Where are we? What is Orinlafec? And who are you?"
He didn't flinch under the barrage. Instead, he observed—everything. The pulse in my neck. The tension in Harper's shoulders. Our breathing. Our stance. As if information meant more to him than emotion ever could.
"I am a healer," he said at last, the title falling from his tongue like something sacred. "A native of this realm. This place is Orinlafec."
He didn't offer his name. And I didn't pretend to know it. I couldn't have known it yet.
Harper's voice cracked as she stepped in front of me. "Then why are we here? We both saw the same vision. Why would our souls come to this place?"
He hesitated—only a second, but enough to reveal that emotional reasoning wasn't his usual field. Still, he continued with cold clarity:
"Orinlafec is the realm of the ancient. Home to elves, element wielders, witches… and shadows." His tone carried the weight of centuries. "A place where the order of elements has never fractured and pure energy flows freely."
Then his gaze locked onto mine.
"The Tower—the crown from your vision—belongs to it. Your visions are not dreams. Your souls have a connection to this realm."
I drew a slow breath."No," I said firmly. "We have no connection here. We're from Earth. We are… human."
The moment that word left my mouth, something in his expression darkened. As if an equation he relied on suddenly failed.
"Humans," he repeated, tasting the word like it carried bitterness. "Humans were exiled from this realm thousands of years ago."
Harper choked. "Exiled? Why?"
"Because they sought power they could not wield. Because they tried to bend the gifts of the realm to their will—turn them into weapons." His voice deepened, sharpened. "Earth—your 'world'—is a prison of your own making."
Silence hung heavy.
"And Thuban…" he added softly, "the Watcher of Earth. Even under his vigilance, your presence here should be impossible."
I opened my mouth to ask about the wound on his arm—
Then the floor lurched violently beneath us.
This transition was different—more forceful, like we were being expelled.
For the first time, urgency cracked through the healer's frozen composure.
"Stand back!" he shouted, voice ringing like metal struck against stone. "The passage is closing! Move—"
I never heard the end of the command.
The smell of herbs, the green-lit chamber, the intensity of his gaze—all of it dissolved into spinning darkness.
Then impact.
Hard wood. Brooklyn.
When my eyes snapped open, Harper had collapsed on top of me, breath heaving. The workshop's familiar noise seeped back into existence, rebuilding reality piece by piece.
Harper stared at my bleeding palm, horror widening her eyes.
But then I saw it—on the floor.
A small, dried root. Something impossibly fragile.
Something that did not belong to Earth.
Something we had brought back.
I closed my eyes.
This wasn't a dream.
Our souls had truly gone there.
And we had returned carrying his words like a burn on the inside of my mind:
Exile.Hubris.Orinlafec.Thuban.Chaos.
And worst of all—
We weren't outside of that chaos.We were already standing in the center of it.