{This is only a short preview! The full chapter 61 will be published tommorow evening after a final read through! Thank you for your patience.}
. . .
Long red hair had fallen over Hoku's shoulder. Behind him, Lunhard rested both hands on his shoulders and whispered near his ear.
"Try to take deep breaths—slowly.
"They are only pre-casting rituals. Such manifestations can feel terribly real, but they deserve no more faith than a vivid nightmare. You shouldn't go searching through them for omens."
Hoku swallowed. A faint iron taste rose at the root of his tongue.
The hairs along the back of his neck still stood on end, and a tremor lingered from his shoulders down into his forearms.
Lunhard's hands fell away from his shoulders.
Only after Hoku collected a bit of himself and straightened did he properly look around the room again.
Everything had returned to its "ordinary" state. The iron plate was no longer there, and even the small flames that had been wavering around his hand had vanished.
Hoku's fingers twitched once before spreading apart, revealing his empty palms.
'What the hell just happened?'
His teeth pressed into the inside of his lip, and his hand had already gone to his back pocket, then the other, and finally over his sleeves, checking each place where something might have reappeared.
But, there was only empty cloth.
By the time he lowered his hands, his brows had slowly drawn together.
His body had never left its place. The thing that made him himself had been led forward instead, as if toward a doorframe standing alone in the dark. There had been no wall behind it, no light beyond it. The nearer he had come, the more certain he became that crossing over would not require him to take a single step.
He pressed his tongue to the spot he had bitten and lowered his gaze to the mural beneath him.
The translucent stars remained among the symbols as they had been. At the center, the largest was still left bare.
"My compass hasn't returned," he muttered. "And I don't see the card I cast either. So where—"
"I confess, I did not expect that to be your first choice."
Hoku stared forward at once.