A Luna for Alpha Kieran-Chapter 289: Rift
(Back to Autumn and Kieran... )
" Kieran?!" Their eyes met. " You feel it too, right? "
The sky was thinning...as if the veil between realms had been stretched too far.
Autumn could feel it... and she knew Kieran’s wolf could pick up the disturbances as well.
The air wasn’t air anymore...it pulsed...almost alive.Breathing with something wrong.
The blue fire around her and Kieran flared brighter, but even that light flickered under the unseen pressure closing in from every direction.
They were almost there.
Almost at the edge of the barrier...the one place in all the old worlds that still remembered how to speak the language of balance.
Autumn’s pulse thrummed in her ears.
The barrier was right in front, leading to the old guardians of balance... the last sentinels.
Autumn turned her head towards Kieran, who was still holding her hand...tight...his eyes reflecting the blue blaze like fragments of moonstone.
"Kieran," she whispered. "Just ahead. Once we cross, the Guardians will help us..."
But the rest of her words drowned beneath a sound.
A low, thrumming growl that didn’t come from any throat or beast.
It came from everywhere.
The light around them bent and then, without warning, a violent gust tore through the sky.
It was like the sky exhaled corruption. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦
The blue cocoon shuddered.
Kieran’s grip tightened instantly.
"Autumn!Karl’s miasma...Freya...she must be close..." Her grip tightened as he pulled her closer, looking around...unsure... both feeling the chill of an unholy presence.
She held tighter too but... a gust ripped between them.
Their fingers slid apart...their palms burned at the loss of the contact.
"KIERAN!"
"Autumn...fuck...hold onto...!"
He was flung backward, the force hurling him into a spiral, stone scattering at the impact like rain.
Autumn’s body lurched in the opposite direction, weightless, tumbling through the fractured light.
Her scream was snatched by the storm as the quakes and tremors hit next.
For a few long seconds, there was nothing but chaos.
The sound of the sky tearing.
The world folding inward on itself.
Autumn slammed against invisible resistance...her entire being vibrating against what looked like glass.
The barrier.
The Sanctuary’s threshold.
She blinked hard, trying to orient herself, gasping for air that burned her throat.
Her palms pressed against the invisible surface, light sparking where her hands met it. "Kieran!" she cried. "Freya..." Autumn sobbed. "I can feel her, Kieran. Help me. I can’t reach her! My baby..." She pressed her hand against the fracturing reality.
And then...she saw her...
She was on the other side.
Thrown to a mirrored plane that looked identical yet not...the surroundings dimmer, colors drained, the air behind her rippling like oil.
The abomination that exuded an aura which was impossible... a mixture of herself and her mother...
Their eyes met through the barrier.
Both breathing hard.
Both terrified to speak.
Kieran’s lips moved first, sprinted to Autumn’s side.
"Autumn, are you..."
But he froze.
Because suddenly, he felt it too...
The vibration.
The wrongness.
His blood ran cold.
And then something moved through the barrier.
The sky above them split open...slow, soundless at first...and then the sound came.
A deep, resonant shudder, like a hundred storms collapsing inward.
And from that rent in the heavens poured miasma.
Autumn’s fingers slammed against the barrier, leaving streaks of blue fire.
"Kieran! He is here...that bastard....
She didn’t finish what she was saying...
Her body moved before thought.
She turned and flung herself upward, wings of flame bursting to life behind her.
Her voice broke through the roaring wind," This is going to be your end, you Mother fucker... how dare you touch my baby... "
"Autumn, wait!"
But she was gone...a streak of blinding blue slicing through the bleeding sky, straight towards the source of that pulsing miasma...
"Dammit, Autumn!"
He was about to leap after her, to force his way through the flickering barrier...when the world behind him shook.
The air rippled like water struck by a stone.
He froze.
A new hum rose. And from the heart of the barrier right behind him, the shapes began to form.
At first, just silhouettes.
Then color.
Then form.
They stepped forward....robes that shimmered like mist and starlight, faces both young and ageless, eyes glowing with pale fire.
A familiar small figure, no longer hunching...
"Mango!!!" Kieran gasped...
Mango was supposed to have died, succumbed to her wounds... never did he expect to see her in this lifetime ever again... yet there she was...
His feet moved to embrace her... lips pulled into a wide smile... When... behind him, the others emerged fully...the very air warped under their presence.
And as the storm raged on and Autumn’s light vanished into the wound above, Kieran turned towards them... his jaw set, his heart pounding, the miasma’s shadow already bleeding into everything...
" Mango?! "
He extended his arms, his posture split between an embrace aimed at his mother figure whom he thought was long lost...and the imminent need to dive right after Autumn... but the window was closed... she was gone...
" Mango... you are alive..." A huffed escaped... " Autumn... my Freya... " He pointed at the rift that had just shut down.
But the look on Mango’s face wasn’t filled with the warmth he was used to. It was stoic... it was fierce... it wasn’t set on him with the affection she always showered him with. It was set straight ahead... Where Autumn had vanished and then very nonchalantly she added. " Kieran Blackmoon. Time has come. We thought we were prepared for this day. But we never will be. It’s time for you to make a choice as well." Then she finally turned in his direction.
But the gaze pierced through Kieran’s soul. "And I really hope Kieran, you make a wise choice! "
And before Kieran could respond, Mango was gone... in a flash... Along with all the others behind her ... Like an army of shadow birds, they swore up and then collectively swooped down at the exact spot where Autumn had vanished... Where the rift had repaired itself.
