Astelion POV
Kiono didn't slow down. He navigated the bustling streets of Rakon's upper district with smooth, deliberate steps calm, untouchable, as if the very fabric of the world adjusted itself to accommodate his massive frame.
Above us, magic shimmered in drifting ribbons of violet and gold. Street lanterns in rich jewel tones, and raw spell-threads flickered between the fingers of passing people like sparks caught in glass.
My eyes darted everywhere. I turned slowly in a circle, a breathless laugh escaping me as I watched floating items drift past my nose, my gaze locking onto a young man suspended midair. This world was so alive. So untainted by the rot I knew.
Kiono glanced back down at me. I could feel the latent power radiating off him a telekinetic pressure strong enough to tear stone from the earth and crush bones with a mere thought. But as his blue eyes mapped the awe on my face, something gentler surfaced beneath his rigid discipline.
"Here we are," he said quietly.
We stood before a massive lodge. The Welcome In rose high into the sky, carved entirely from a pale blue stone that shimmered like frozen moonlight. Floating lanterns spiraled lazily around the grand entrance, and two crystalline pillars twisted upward beside the mahogany doors, humming with ancient wards.
"Wow..." I breathed, stepping closer.
Inside, the lobby stretched three stories high, wrapped in elegant and circular It felt like the beating heart of the city's elite.
Then, a blur of black silk collided directly with Kiono.
"I told you not to touch me," Kiono said flatly.
The air rippled faintly between them as an invisible wave of telekinetic force firmly eased the woman back. She stepped away, unbothered, tossing a long sheet of white hair streaked with pitch-black over her shoulder. It looked like spilled ink across fresh snow.
I knew that hair. But from where?
The woman turned lazily toward me, her sharp eyes scanning my short frame. "Oh," she said, her voice dripping with a casual disdain. "You brought a stray, Captain."
I stepped forward before Kiono could answer, lifting my chin. "I'm Astelion."
Kiono unexpectedly rested his massive hand lightly atop my head. The gesture felt possessive, a silent warning to the woman before us. "She's one of us. She'll be training with me at the palace."
The woman lifted a skeptical brow. "I'm not a babysitter."
My eyes narrowed into slits. "Good. I don't need one."
"Kris," Kiono warned softly. The tone wasn't harsh, but it carried the absolute weight of his rank.
Kris rolled her eyes, turning on her heel. "Come with me, stray."
As we climbed the grand spiral staircase, I glanced back down at Kiono, suddenly feeling entirely exposed in this unfamiliar place. "You're not leaving me alone with her, are you?"
"I'll return tomorrow at sunrise," he replied, his blue eyes holding mine across the distance. "She won't harm you. I've ensured it."
"Who is she to you?" I asked quietly, looking up at Kris's retreating back.
"No one."
The answer came entirely too fast, entirely too clean. I didn't miss it.
Kris stopped at a heavy door on the third balcony and shoved it open. "This is yours. Meals are on a strict schedule. Don't miss them if you want to eat."
With a petty, deliberate tilt of her wrists, she let a stack of clothes drop straight onto the dusty floor, turning and walking away without another word.
Silence settled over the door. The room was grander than I expected boasting arched windows, soft blue stone walls, and pale curtains that billowed gently despite the lack of wind. But it felt temporary.Not mine.
I exhaled slowly. With a small, practiced flick of my finger, my telekinesis flared. The dresses lifted from the floor, spinning once in midair to shake off the dust before settling neatly over my arm. I stepped inside, and the heavy door clicked shut, plunging me into a deep, heavy quiet.
In the adjoining washroom, the pipes hissed softly as I turned the brass handles. Steam curled upward, thick, silver, and smelling of old stone. I undressed slowly, letting the phantom weight of a fifty-year time jump finally drain from my aching shoulders.
"Flowers," I whispered to the empty air.
Soft, glowing blooms materialized in my palms—a trick of molecular manipulation I'd perfected back home. I let them fall into the steaming bathwater, the petals dissolving into swirling eddies of liquid gold and pale violet.
When I sank into the water, the heat wrapped around my skin like a protective barrier. My eyes drifted shut, and the world finally softened.
The steam thickened. Outside the arched window, the light shifted. At first, it moved slowly, then with an unnatural, sickening velocity. The shadows along the walls stretched into long, skeletal fingers, retracted, and lengthened again.
Time was correcting itself around me. Bending. But not for me.
By the time the petals had completely vanished into the clear water, the temperature had cooled. Distant footsteps echoed in the corridor, passing my door before fading into nothingness. I slept, trapped in a timeless stasis, until the harsh rays of morning pierced the glass.
Downstairs, Kiono arrived just as the first sun broke over the horizon.
"Good morning, Captain," the lodge-keeper greeted, adjusting his ledger. "Kris is already upstairs. She's been knocking at the new girl's door for ten minutes."
Kiono's chest tightened, a sudden, instinctual alarm flaring in his throat. He was already moving, his massive strides eating up the stairs before the keeper could even finish his sentence.
Kris stood outside my door, her knuckles slamming against the wood harder than necessary. "She missed the morning bell," she muttered as Kiono approached, her face tight. "She isn't answering. The room is dead silent."
Kiono didn't hesitate. He knocked once, hard enough to rattle the frame. No response.
He pressed his broad palm flat against the center of the wood, closing his eyes. The hallway grew unnaturally still as he focused. He felt... nothing. No shifting weight, no heartbeat, no aura. His jaw tightened into a hard, dangerous line.
"Kris. Move."
She scrambled aside. Kiono clamped his jaw. A massive, concentrated pulse of psychic force rippled outward from his hand. The heavy iron lock snapped. The door didn't explode, but it burst open with a deafening crack that shattered the morning silence.
I froze in the center of the room.
I was wrapped in nothing but a damp, thin towel. My dark hair was dripping wet, my eyes wide with a wild, cornered panic.
For one agonizing breath, no one moved.
Then, the scream tore from my throat.
Kiono reacted on pure instinct. He slammed into the room, his telekinesis ripping the door shut behind him and sealing the lock before Kris or anyone else in the gallery could catch a glimpse of me.
"You—!" I didn't think. I lunged forward, my fist driving straight into his solid stomach. It wasn't a playful tap. It was a hard, combat-trained strike fueled by absolute mortification.
He staggered back, winded, but before he could catch his breath, I blasted him with a raw wave of telekinetic force. The psychic shockwave shoved his massive 6'9" frame backward until he slammed hard against the blue stone wall.
"You blasted my door down!" I shrieked, clutching the towel to my chest.
"You didn't answer!" he shot back, his voice rough and slightly wheezing from the blow to his gut.
"I was sleeping!"
"You weren't responding to my energy!" he yelled, stepping forward. Then, he stopped. His voice changed, losing its defensive edge, dropping into something heavy, rough, and deeply unsettled. "I thought... I thought someone had taken you."
Silence stretched between us, thick and suffocatingly hot. My anger stalled. His eyes were wide, unreadable, but the raw worry radiating off him was undeniable.
I crossed my arms tightly over my chest, glaring up at him through my damp lashes. "You could have knocked louder."
"I did."
Another pause. The sheer proximity of him in my room, his shadow completely blocking out the morning light, made my skin prickle with an entirely different kind of heat. I hated him for looking at me like this. I hated that he had seen me uncovered.
"Since you've already seen far more than you were supposed to, Captain... it seems you owe me the same."
His dark brow lifted slightly, his blue eyes dropping to my bare shoulders before snapping back to mine. "Are you sure about that?"
"Yes, I am. It's only fair," I challenged, crossing my arms tighter, fully expecting him to flinch, to stutter, to back away from the tiny girl threatening his rigid modesty.
Instead, Kiono took a step closer. He didn't rush, and he certainly didn't hesitate.
The space between us vanished. He reached down, his massive, calloused hand gently but firmly taking mine. Before I could pull away, he dropped gracefully to one knee before me. Keeping his piercing blue eyes locked entirely on mine, he lifted my knuckles to his lips and pressed a slow, deliberate kiss against my skin.
A violent rush of heat flooded my face. My breath caught in my throat, and my absolute confidence shattered into a million useless pieces.
He rose smoothly to his full, towering height, a ghost of a smirk playing on his lips, though his voice remained entirely soft. "I truly am sorry, Astelion, the girl that fell from the sky."
I swallowed hard, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. He turned and asked me to step into the bathroom and get myself together.
When we finally stepped out into the hallway, Kris was leaning heavily against the far wall, her arms crossed. Her sharp gaze flicked between me and Kiono, lingering on my flushed cheeks and his unbothered expression.
I lifted my chin, throwing her a glaring look as I brushed past her. Kiono didn't say a word, but as he fell into step beside me, his massive fingers slid between mine, intertwining our hands in a grip that left no room for argument.
We descended the grand stairs together and stepped out into the crisp morning air.
The lower market was calmer now, the chaos of yesterday replaced by the orderly hum of commerce. Sunlight spilled cleanly between the stone buildings. The energy felt sharper today less like a dream I had broken into, and more terribly, dangerously real. The world felt heavier. As if time had shifted forward while I slept, locking me into this past.
Suddenly, a flash of movement near the whispering edge of the forest caught my eye.
A sleek, ethereal fox shifted briefly, its violet eyes locking onto mine for a fraction of a second before it vanished into the shadow of the mountains.
"Grandma..." I whispered under my breath, my throat tightening. Arastella.
I immediately tried to tug my hand free from Kiono's grasp, desperate to run toward the treeline. But Kiono's grip tightened instantly not enough to hurt, but with the unyielding force of an iron shackle.
"You're not leaving my sight, we need to control all that built up energy inside of you before he finds you." he said, pulling me back to his side.
"Why are you helping me?" I asked
"I guess you can say I have a weak spot for beautiful women."
I tilted my head far back, glaring up at his dark, unreadable face, trying to mask my panic with spite. "If you want me in your bed that badly, Captain, you could have just asked."
A faint, dangerous smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, but his blue eyes remained as cold and sharp as winter ice. "Don't tempt me, little star."
Behind us, high on the shaded balcony of the lodge, Kris stood in the shadows, watching our retreating figures close ground toward the palace. She brushed a stray strand of her black-and-white hair over her shoulder, her eyes narrowing.
She had never met me before yesterday. But something about the way the gravity had warped upstairs... something about the phantom scent of ash and blood that followed me... unsettled her.
And so, she kept watching