Astelion POV
I stood frozen in the middle of the cozy wooden room, my hand pressed flat against my stomach. Another soft flutter rippled beneath my palm—faint, but unmistakably alive.
My heart began to hammer wildly against my ribs as my mind raced into overdrive.
How? When?
I started pacing back and forth across the woven rug, my boots digging into the floor as I grabbed my head with both hands. I began calculating the days, forcing myself to track the blur of events since I had been flung into this timeline. Time moved so differently here—past, present, reality, and memory all bleeding into one another. A week in this era could be months, or days, or something entirely outside normal logic.
I stopped dead in my tracks, my breath catching as I searched my memory for when my last period had actually been.
It never came.
A sudden, dizzying wave of realization washed over me, making the room tilt. Everything—everything—finally made sense. The sudden, terrifying spikes in my emotions, the bone-deep fatigue, the way my telekinesis had been flaring out of control and snapping at the slightest provocation... it wasn't just stress. My body was adapting to fuel a second life growing inside me.
I'm pregnant.
The shock lasted only a second before sheer, cold panic seized my throat.
If I somehow found a way to break through time and return to the present... what would happen to the baby? It didn't exist in that timeline yet. Would the temporal magic erase it?
And worse—I looked around at the glowing, ethereal beauty of Fantas—this realm was pure spirit energy. The child wouldn't possess enough raw spiritual blood or aura to survive the heavy, crushing ambient magic of the Spirit Realm for long. Being here would slowly drain its fragile life force until—
No.
"No, no, no!" I gasped aloud, spinning toward the door.
I had to leave. I had to get out of Fantas immediately, but I had nowhere to go, no safe haven left in any of the realms. Driven by pure maternal instinct and frenzied terror, I threw the wooden door open and sprinted out into the misty woods.
I ran blindly, tracing the path Mell and I had taken earlier, my heart pounding in my ears like a war drum. My vision blurred with tears as my mind screamed for an answer—Where do I go? Where can I hide us?!
As I rounded a sharp turn near the stone pathway, I crashed hard into a heavy chest.
"Oof—"
I stumbled back, my hands flying out to balance myself. The moment I looked up, a horrified scream tore from my throat, and I instantly slapped both hands over my mouth.
It was Kiono.
But he looked horrifyingly distorted. His body was literally being torn apart by the raw, unrefined aura of the Spirit Realm—his skin cracking like burning glass, shadowy wisps of his mortal soul peeling away into the air like smoke as he fought just to maintain a physical form.
"What are you doing out here?!" Kiono yelled, his voice strained and raw with agony as he grabbed my shoulders, his eyes wild.
"The baby!" I cried out, tears streaming down my cheeks as I pointed desperately at my midsection. "I can't stay here! Our baby will die!"
Kiono froze. The air left his lungs in a sharp gasp. His eyes dropped instantly to my stomach, staring at it in absolute, speechless shock.
Without a single word, he swept me up into his arms, pulling me tightly against his chest, and turned back toward the realm boundary.
"Hold on to me!" he growled through gritted teeth.
He sprinted with terrifying speed, every step causing his body to shudder and crack further under the spirit weight. I could feel the agonizing, searing heat of his pain radiating against my skin. He was being torn to shreds from the inside out, yet he didn't slow down for a fraction of a second.
We reached the edge of the realm—where the floating spirit islands gave way to the endless, dark void separating the worlds.
Kiono didn't hesitate. He hurled us straight out of Fantas, rotating his body in mid-air to completely shield me with his own frame as we crashed down through the atmospheric tear.
We hit the ground hard on a rocky, secluded hillside far from the grand palace. Kiono took the entire brunt of the impact, groaning deeply as we skidded across the dirt.
"Kiono!" I gasped, scrambling off him.
I watched frantically as the terrifying spiritual cracks on his skin slowly sealed up, his body reverting back to its normal, mortal state as the heavy human air filled his lungs. He lay on his back, breathing heavily, before slowly raising a trembling hand to rest it over my stomach.
His eyes searched mine, filled with a raw, fragile hope. "Are you... are you sure?"
I looked down at his hand, then back to his face, and gave him a small, tearful nod.
The moment I nodded, a distinct, firm kick fluttered right beneath where his palm rested against my belly.
Kiono's eyes lit up with a brilliant, breathless joy—a look so pure and loving it made my chest ache.
But in that exact split second, as he stared up at me in wonder... his brilliant blue eyes shifted.
For a horrifying fraction of a moment, his irises flashed a vivid, unnatural green. Then, they instantly bled into absolute, pitch-black darkness—void of any light or soul—before snapping right back to his clear, beautiful blue.
It happened so fast it felt like a trick of the light.
My breath hitched in my throat. Cold dread spiked through my veins, freezing the blood in my heart. I pulled back slightly from his touch, staring at his smiling face as a sickening realization washed over me.
What was that?
Looking into the eyes of the man who had just nearly died to save our child, a terrifying wave of doubt crept into my soul... and I suddenly found myself second-guessing everything I knew about Kiono.