Chapter 69

ALARIC POV

Inside the Rift: Trapped Between Worlds

I had screamed myself hoarse.

My fists were bloodied. The enchanted wall before me—a rippling membrane of silver mist and arcane runes—refused to break no matter how hard I struck it. Magic flared uselessly from my palms, and the pain of failure settled into my bones like rot.

I could see them.

Abby. Damian. Norma. Even the blasted knights. Their outlines shimmered just beyond the glassy barrier, distorted like reflections on water. I could see Abby collapsing. The storm around her. The way her hand trembled on the scorched ground.

But they couldn’t see me.

Couldn’t hear me.

Like I didn’t exist.

“ABBY!” I bellowed again, pounding the barrier. “I’m here! DAMN IT—LOOK AT ME!”

The wall pulsed in response. Softly. Mocking me.

A hand touched my shoulder.

“You’re wasting your voice, Alaric.”

I turned, teeth clenched. Max stood there, expression calm—too calm—his face half-lit by the glowing blue cracks in the Rift’s floor. His silver hair stuck to his forehead, sweat beading at his temple despite the cold inside this twisted dimension.

“She’s right there,” I growled. “I see her. I saw her lightning. I saw Damian—she’s right there, Max!”

He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he walked forward, bare feet silent on the crystalline floor. Around us, the Rift shimmered like a dream caught between sleep and nightmare—frozen stars in a liquid sky, ruins from a forgotten age floating past like broken memories. Gravity didn’t mean much here. Time meant even less.

“I told you before,” Max said finally, hands clasped behind his back. “The Rift is sealed. This is no longer the same plane as the one they’re standing on.”

“They were this close.” I pointed, eyes wild. “I could touch her if not for this damned wall!”

“Yes. You could touch her. And you could drive yourself insane in the process.” Max turned to me, his gaze heavy with something I hated—pity. “Alaric. She can’t hear you. Not through that. She’s alive. But you’re not in the same world anymore.”

I stared at him. “What the hell are you saying?”

Max hesitated, then sat on a floating shard of rock that looked like obsidian carved with bones.

“This Rift isn’t just a passage, Alaric. It’s a prison. One that was designed to contain me.”

“What?” I muttered. “You…?”

He nodded. “I was cursed. Long ago. Banished here. And when the Rift cracked open, it gave me a glimpse of the world I’d lost. That’s when you came. When you fell in.”

“No. I jumped in,” I snapped. “To save you.”

Max smiled faintly. “Still stubborn. But noble. Unfortunately, you made a mistake. You followed me into a realm that only allows the damned. And you—” He looked at me now, eyes dimmed with guilt. “You weren’t meant to survive.”

I stepped back, like he’d struck me.

“That’s not possible,” I whispered. “I’m alive. I’m breathing. I can feel magic. I’ve been fighting monsters since we landed in here.”

“Yes,” Max said gently. “Because you weren’t supposed to live. The Rift rejected you. But instead of killing you… it sealed you here with me.”

My breath caught.

“You mean I’m—”

“You’re a ghost to them, Alaric.” Max stood slowly, shadows curling around his feet. “Not dead. Not alive. Stuck. The Rift has you in its grip.”

My hands fell to my sides. Numb. Everything in me went cold.

“You should’ve told me sooner.”

“I didn’t want to believe it.” Max’s voice cracked now, the first real emotion I’d heard from him in days. “I thought maybe—maybe with Abby’s magic, with the storm summoning, she might crack the wall. I hoped... but now? I saw the Warden retreat. The seal is repairing.”

“No,” I said. “She’ll find a way. She always finds a way.”

“Even if she does,” Max whispered, “I can’t leave.”

I stared at him. “What?”

He looked away. “The curse is still on me. This place is me. Every stone, every shadow, every monster. If I step out… the Rift collapses. It drags back everything it’s taken. Including you.”

“No,” I whispered, throat tightening. “That’s not how this ends. You deserve freedom.”

“I deserve what I got,” he said simply. “But you—Alaric—you were the best of us. And now you’re stuck here because of me.”

The silence that followed was heavier than any monster’s roar.

I turned back to the wall. Abby was gone now, her outline faded. Maybe she’d passed out. Maybe she’d left. Maybe she thought I was dead.

The thought gutted me.

Max joined me beside the wall. “We may not be able to leave. But we can reach her. Somehow. The Rift is changing. Your bond with her—it’s strong. Too strong for this place to completely silence.”

I clenched my jaw. “Then we make noise.”

He smiled faintly. “Now that’s the Duke I remember.”

And so we stood. Shoulder to shoulder. Looking into the world we left behind. Searching for cracks.

Waiting for her magic.

Hoping she’d come back.

ABBY POV

Seven Days in the Storm

Three days in the Rift outskirts felt like being inside a nightmare with no pause button.

Every night, the same thing. Monsters—twisted shadows made of teeth, claws, and malice—crawled out from the volcanic ground, their screeches echoing louder than the thunder. No matter how many we killed, they came again. Same numbers. Same rhythm. Same chaos.

It was like the Rift was resetting itself after midnight.

Like it was alive and playing with us.

Prince Damian Lucien said nothing at first, only drew his blade and fought with terrifying precision. But I saw it—the frustration bleeding into his movements, the doubt in his voice when he called out orders to the knights.

Even Norma, who’d stood calm through storms and fire, began to flinch when the ground cracked open a fourth night in a row and the same three-winged serpent burst from the magma lake. I remembered how she froze for a heartbeat, like she recognized it.

Because we had seen it before.

Every damn day, we were fighting the same enemies.

By the end of the fifth night, half our squad was injured, everyone was exhausted, and I hadn’t slept in more than four hours without waking from nightmares of glass walls and someone banging on them with bloodied hands.

On the sixth day, Damian pulled me aside after sunset. The air was thick with sulfur and magic, and the lightning had started to arc across the clouds like it was hunting something.

He looked at me with those sharp gray eyes—still regal, still calm—but this time, there was something else. Weariness. Defeat, maybe.

“We’re going in circles,” he said.

I didn’t want to hear it. “We just haven’t found the right path yet.”