Chapter 8 — The Boy Who Walked Beyond Worlds
1313 Words
POV: Damieon
The star-gate closed behind me with the sound of a heartbeat being ripped in half.
One moment I was standing on the cliffs of the Royal Moon, the scent of home still clinging to my lungs—pine, ash, moon-burned stone—
and the next, the universe folded.
Light crushed inward.
Sound vanished.
My body stretched into something not quite mortal and not yet divine as the stars swallowed me whole.
I did not scream.
I refused to give Nytherion even that.
The crossing tore through time instead of space. Colors I had no names for streamed past me like broken rivers. My wolf howled inside my soul as gravity reversed and memory shattered into fragments—visions of worlds I had never lived in and futures I had not yet chosen.
Then—
Impact.
I struck cold obsidian ground hard enough to drive the breath from my chest. The stars above were wrong. Too many. Too close. And not a single familiar constellation among them.
I lay there for several long seconds, chest heaving, palm pressed into cracked black stone that pulsed faintly with heat.
I was alive.
Exiled.
Alone.
The bond inside me pulsed once—soft, distant.
Seraphyne still lived.
So did my mate.
That was all that mattered.
I pushed to my feet.
The air tasted of metal and magic. Three moons hung overhead—one pale silver, one crimson, one void-black that drank light instead of reflecting it. Wind whispered through twisted crystal spires that jutted from the land like the ribs of a dead god.
A realm between realms.
The kind of place stories warned children never to dream about.
I rolled my shoulders, feeling my power settle into my bones. It felt different out here. Wilder. Untamed. As if the world itself did not recognize royal bloodlines—only strength.
Good.
Let it test me.
A presence stirred just beyond my awareness.
Not hostile.
Watching.
“You can come out,” I said calmly into the darkness. “Or I will tear the veil myself.”
The shadows shifted.
A figure stepped forward from between the crystal spires—a woman wrapped in layered robes of midnight blue and silver thread. Her eyes glowed faintly gold, pupils slit like a predator’s. Power coiled around her like living smoke.
“You walk like a prince,” she said. “But bleed like a boy.”
I met her gaze without flinching. “Then you’d better decide which is more dangerous.”
A faint smile curved her lips.
“Good. You’ll survive longer than the last one.”
She studied me openly now. My scarred armor. The faint royal crest still burned into my shoulder by ancient rite. The faint celestial glow leaking through my veins when I breathed too deeply.
“Name,” she demanded.
“Damieon of the Royal Moon.”
Recognition flickered.
Then curiosity sharpened into interest.
“So the star-blood finally leaves its cage,” she murmured. “Nytherion will be hunting hard.”
“He already is,” I replied. “That’s why I’m here.”
Her gaze darkened. “Then you have chosen the Path of Shards.”
“I chose survival.”
She considered me a moment longer.
Then turned.
“Follow if you wish to live through the night.”
I followed.
Her name was Kaelthis.
A realm-walker.
A contract guardian between dying stars.
She led me through valleys of molten glass and forests of living crystal that sang when wind touched them. Creatures slithered beneath translucent ground like shadows swimming beneath ice. Once, something massive circled beneath the earth itself, its heartbeat shaking the sky.
“You don’t ask questions,” Kaelthis observed.
“I will when the answers won’t get me killed.”
A faint huff of approval.
We reached a ruined citadel carved into the side of a floating mountain—its stone drifting several feet above the ground as if gravity had simply given up trying. Broken runes pulsed weakly along its gates.
“Shelter,” she said. “And trial.”
“I didn’t agree to a trial.”
“You crossed a god-gate alone at fourteen,” she replied. “The universe already put you on trial, prince.”
Inside the citadel, the air shifted. Heavier. Denser with ancient ward-magic. Torches ignited along the walls without flame, casting blue light over massive carved symbols of forgotten celestial orders.
Kaelthis stopped at the center of a circular chamber etched with star-maps older than recorded time.
“This realm was once a sanctuary for heirs hunted by gods,” she said. “Now it is a graveyard for their failures.”
I lifted my chin. “Then I’ll be the exception.”
Her eyes glowed brighter. “Then survive the first night.”
The floor beneath me ignited with light.
The chamber sealed itself.
And the world turned feral.
The first creature crawled from the walls.
It had too many joints. Too many eyes. Its body was woven of shadow and bone, stitched together by living void-energy. Its scream vibrated directly through my skull.
I shifted instantly.
My wolf exploded free in a flare of silver fire, my bones reforging in an agony I welcomed. I hit the ground on four blazing limbs, claws striking sparks from ancient stone.
The creature lunged.
We collided like colliding stars.
Claws tore through void-flesh. Black energy scorched my flank. Pain sang through my nerves, sharp and grounding and real.
Good.
Pain means I’m alive.
I killed the first one in less than a minute.
The second took longer.
The third nearly took my throat.
By the fourth, blood coated the floor.
By the fifth, my arms trembled.
By the sixth—
I fell.
To one knee.
The creature towered over me, its ribcage splitting open to reveal a core of pure void.
Death, shaped.
My bond surged violently.
Seraphyne’s light answered.
Not as rescue.
As reminder.
You survive.
Not for vengeance.
For love.
I roared.
Starfire detonated from my spine.
The chamber exploded into sound and light as my claws burned pure silver. I drove straight through the creature’s core, tearing it in half with my bare hands.
When the light faded, I stood alone.
Breathing hard.
Bloodied.
But unbroken.
Kaelthis watched from the broken doorway, her expression unreadable.
“The first night usually kills them,” she said.
“It didn’t kill me.”
“No,” she agreed quietly.
“It marked you.”
Days blurred into weeks.
Weeks into months.
The citadel became my forge.
Kaelthis became my blade.
She taught me to survive realms where gravity bled sideways and monsters hunted by scent of fear itself. She taught me how to fracture my presence across planes so Nytherion’s gaze would slide past without locking on.
I learned to fight without shifting.
To shift without rage.
To call starfire without burning myself hollow.
But the bond never quieted.
Every night I slept beneath dead constellations, dreaming of Seraphyne trapped in crystal and of a future clawing its way toward me through time.
One night, after a brutal spar that left me cracked and shaking against the citadel wall, Kaelthis finally spoke the truth.
“He will come for you himself.”
“I know.”
“You cannot defeat a god alone.”
“I don’t intend to.”
She studied me with something like respect now.
“And when you return?”
I wiped blood from my jaw.
“I won’t be a boy walking into exile.”
Her lips curved slightly.
“You’ll be the storm walking home.”
Far across the void, Nytherion stirred.
He smiled.
The game had begun.
And beneath three alien moons, in a realm built from broken stars and forgotten heirs, a prince began forging himself into a weapon no god would ever be able to ignore.
- Writer
