Astelion POV
The darkness wasn't empty. It was an echoing chamber filled with the very monsters I thought I had left behind.
My head throbbed with a sickening agony, each heartbeat driving a fresh spike of pain behind my eyes. And there, looming over me in the pitch-black of my mind, were the faces that haunted my worst nightmares.
My brother. My mother. My father. And standing right beside them, his eyes gleaming with malicious satisfaction, was Cion.
They stood in a tightening circle, looking down at me as I lay paralyzed. Their voices bled together, a chorus of mocking, cruel laughter that vibrated through my bones.
*Powerless,* they sneered, their pointed fingers cutting through the dark. *Weak. Look at you brought to your knees by a power you that are not even yours.*
I tried to scream, to lash out with the power that usually answered my call, but my throat was tight, choked with dust and blood. Cion's laughter grew louder, closer, echoing in my skull until it transformed into a sharp, piercing ringing.
"Astelion... Astelion..."
The ringing began to fragment, the mocking voices fading as a frantic, deeply familiar tone called my name from somewhere far across the distance.
My eyes snapped open.The oppressive black darkness vanished, replaced instantly by the warm, exposed wooden beams of our mountain cabin. The harsh palace stone was gone, we were back at home. I was lying in our bed, the soft blankets pulled up to my chin, and sitting right beside me was Kiono.
He was gripping my hand so tightly, his massive frame hunched over the mattress. When he lifted his head, my breath caught in my throat. His eyes were heavily bloodshot, surrounded by dark, hollow shadows, his face stained with the unmistakable tracks of raw, panicked tears. He looked entirely broken.
The moment he saw me blink, a ragged, breathless sob escaped him. He lunged forward, wrapping his arms around my shoulders and pulling me tightly against his chest, burying his face in the crook of my neck.
"What's going on... why am I here?"
I whispered, my voice incredibly weak, my throat burning as I tried to wrap my arms around his broad back.
"I thought I had lost you," he choked out, his voice cracking, his body trembling against mine.
"I genuinely thought you were gone."
"Why would you think that?"
A cold dread began to seep through the physical warmth of his embrace. I pushed back from him just a little, my palms resting against his shoulders so I could force him to look at me, needing to see his face.
Kiono swallowed hard, his chest heaving as he kept his eyes locked onto mine.
"You lost control today in the kitchen, Astelion. The energy... it blew through the entire wing. You've been completely unconscious for hours now."
"Oh my God," I breathed, the memory of Miracle's warning and the sudden, out-of-body fracture slamming back into my brain. The panic hit me instantly, hot and suffocating. I wrapped my arms back around his neck, pulling him into me as the tears finally spilled over my eyelashes.
"I am so sorry. Kiono, I am so sorry for scaring you."
He didn't answer right away. He just held me, his hands anchoring into my shirt as if he were trying to physically stitch me back into his reality. After a long minute, he slowly pulled back, his lips trembling as he pressed a tender, desperate kiss against my forehead.
"How are you feeling?" he asked, his hands moving down to cradle my wrists, his fingers checking the erratic jump of my pulse.
"Does anything hurt?"
"Just my head," I admitted, closing my eyes for a brief second as a wave of nausea rolled through me.
"It's like a drum. It won't stop beating."
I opened my eyes and reached up, cupping his rough face in my palms, my thumbs gently smoothing over the damp tracks of his tears.
"Are you okay?"
"No, I am not," he whispered, a sudden, jagged edge of anger and desperation bleeding into his tone. He didn't pull away from my touch, but his gaze darkened, the intensity in his pupils almost blinding.
"Today... today I was so afraid of losing you, Astelion, that I completely lost my bearings. I didn't know what to do. Standing there in that hallway, watching you fall... I thought of destroying everything and everyone around me just to keep them away from you."
The sheer, unfiltered weight of his devotion terrified me just as much as it anchored me. I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his, a soft, heavy kiss meant to quiet the violent storm raging inside his chest.
I pulled back slightly, keeping my hands on his cheeks, staring directly into the blue depths of his eyes.
"I am here. I am okay."
Kiono took a deep, shuddering breath, his hands coming up to cover mine, pressing my palms harder against his skin.
"I think it's best that you stay away from the palace for a bit," he said, his voice dropping into a hard, commanding captain's tone, though the underlying panic was still transparent.
"Until we figure out what the fuck is going on with your powers, you don't step foot near that palace ."
The words shattered the fragile peace of the bedroom. My hands dropped from his face.
"I can't do that," I said, my voice hardening as the terrifying reality of the timeline reasserted itself. Cion had a daughter. The Choosing Festival was tomorrow. The alignment was moving, and if I stayed hidden in these mountains, everyone would die.
"I have to be at the festival. I have to be in the palace."
"Why?!" Kiono snapped, his volume suddenly spiking, the unpolished terror making his voice harsh. He stood up from the edge of the bed, pacing the floorboards like a cornered beast.
"You could have died today, Astelion! Do you not understand that?!"
"There is something I must do," I insisted, sitting up straight in the bed, my fingers twisting into the heavy blankets as I fought through the blinding ache in my skull.
"I will figure out my powers. I promise you, Kiono, I will control it."
"Are you not seeing what I am seeing?!" he yelled, turning back to face me, his chest heaving up and down as he threw his hands out in frustration.
"You are actively losing control! Everyone in the palace saw it today! Castel felt it! He was ready in the hallway, Astelion! If you step back into that palace and test his patience one more time, he will kill you. He told me himself. He will kill you, and I won't be able to stop him!"
The visual of Castel's eyes and the impending butchery of my future made my throat constrict. I looked up at the man who was currently unraveling at the seams just trying to keep me alive.
"I wish I could tell you what's going on," I whispered, the heartbreak choking my words as I looked at him through a blur of fresh tears.
"I wish I could explain it all to you... but it's not time yet. Can you please... can you please just give me time?"
Kiono stopped dead in his tracks. He stared at me, his eyes fracturing into a cold, devastating look of betrayal and utter exhaustion.
"Are you serious right now?" he said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, quiet whisper that hurt worse than his shouting.
He looked at me as if I were a stranger, his shoulders dropping under a weight he couldn't carry anymore. "I am going for a walk. I need to clear my head."
He turned on his heel and marched out of the bedroom, the heavy front door of the cabin slamming shut a moment later, leaving the house in absolute silence.
I collapsed back against the pillows, pulling my knees up to my chest as a cold, paralyzing panic fully took hold. A terrible ache bloomed in my chest, a mixture of the lingering trauma from my nightmare and the sharp, fresh guilt of the hurt I had just inflicted on Kiono.
I knew how he spoke to me wasn't out of malice it was the terrifying projection of a man who was watching the woman he loved dance on the edge of an executioner's blade.
But I was trapped.
If I stayed away from the palace, Cion's bloodline would secure the throne through Eina, the timeline would lock into its destructive loop, and the future would burn. But if I went back, my fracturing powers could tear my mind apart, or Castel would deliver on his promise and end my life.
I stared at the empty room, the fading scent of Kiono's skin the only reminder of the peace we had shared just hours before. I was standing at a catastrophic crossroads, completely blind, utterly terrified, and running out of time.