The listening city did not greet me.
It absorbed me.
The moment my foot crossed its outer threshold, the hum beneath the stone intensified not loud, but layered. Threads of pale light ran through the channels carved into the ground, weaving between structures like veins beneath translucent skin. The bridges overhead curved in impossible arcs, and the cloaked figures lining them did not move, did not whisper, did not blink.
They watched.
Not me.
Through me.
I felt it immediately the difference between being observed and being evaluated.
Behind me, I could sense Arres.
She had stepped back as promised. Not gone. Not distant. Just… removed from the center of this moment. The space between us felt wider than the physical distance allowed.
I did not turn around.
If I did, I might hesitate.
And hesitation felt dangerous here.
The city's air was cooler than the valleys, tinged faintly with something metallic and ancient. Each step forward triggered a subtle reaction in the ground symbols dimly flaring beneath my feet before fading again.
Recognition.
Not welcome.
Recognition.
A bridge shifted overhead.
Soft footsteps echoed somewhere beyond my sight.
Then a voice spoke not from a single direction, but from everywhere at once.
"You carry a door within you."
I stopped.
The cloaked figures had not moved, yet the sound felt close like breath against my ear.
"I didn't mean to," I said quietly.
Silence.
Then:
"Intention is irrelevant."
The ground pulsed.
A narrow path of brighter stone illuminated before me, cutting through the center of the city toward a circular structure carved low into the earth.
The sanctum.
I knew without being told.
Behind me, Aries exhaled softly. Not loud enough for anyone else to notice. But I heard it.
I walked.
Each step forward felt heavier not physically, but in consequence. The city was not threatening. It was not hostile.
It was measuring.
The circular structure opened as I approached, its stone shifting seamlessly aside. Inside, the air grew warmer. Symbols lined the interior walls in concentric rings, each faintly glowing in a different hue silver, pale gold, muted blue.
And at the center stood a basin of still water.
Perfectly still.
The cloaked figures now gathered along the perimeter, silent.
The voice returned.
"Step forward, Gate-Bearer."
Gate-Bearer.
The word landed differently than "chosen."
Chosen felt accidental.
Gate-Bearer felt deliberate.
I stepped closer to the basin.
The surface of the water did not ripple from my movement. It reflected only the ceiling above until I leaned over it.
Then it reflected something else.
Not my face.
A door.
Tall. Ancient. Bound in light.
And behind it
Movement.
My chest tightened.
"I don't understand," I whispered.
"You are not required to."
The water shimmered.
Images flickered across its surface not clear visions, but fragments. A sky torn open. Bridges collapsing. Towers lit in blinding radiance. A field of silver grass bending beneath a wind that did not belong to Astrion.
And Arres.
Standing alone.
Watching something vanish.
The image shattered.
The water went still.
My pulse thundered in my ears.
"What was that?" I demanded.
"Potential."
The voice softened not in tone, but in presence.
"You are a hinge. Worlds do not remain unchanged when hinges move."
My hands curled at my sides. "I don't want to break anything."
"Breaking and becoming are often indistinguishable."
Silence fell.
I felt it then the weight of attention. Not just from the cloaked figures. Not just from the city.
From Astrion itself.
Waiting.
"For what?" I asked.
"For you to choose how wide the door opens."
The basin's water darkened.
And suddenly I understood something instinctively, terrifyingly clear.
If I remained here if I let Astrion anchor me fully the door within me would root into this world.
And if that happened
Going back would not simply be difficult.
It would become impossible.
A tremor ran through my chest.
Not magic.
Decision.
The cloaked figures shifted almost imperceptibly, sensing the direction of my thoughts.
"You hesitate," the voice observed.
"Yes."
"Why?"
The answer came before I could filter it.
"Because I'm not ready to lose everything."
And there it was.
Not fear of power.
Not fear of responsibility.
Fear of permanence.
The water brightened once more, then dimmed completely.
"You may leave," the voice said at last.
That was it.
No ritual.
No binding.
Just awareness.
The path behind me illuminated again.
I turned.
And the first person I saw when I stepped back into the outer air was Aries.
She hadn't moved.
But something in her posture had changed.
She already knew.
"You felt it," she said quietly.
I nodded.
"The anchor," she murmured.
"Yes."
The space between us felt fragile now like thin glass stretched over deep water.
"If you stay," she said carefully, "Astrion will bind to you fully."
"And if I don't?"
"It will still change because you came. But it won't claim you."
Claim.
That word hurt more than it should have.
We walked away from the sanctum in silence. The city did not stop us. It did not speak again. The cloaked figures dissolved back into their stillness as if nothing extraordinary had occurred.
But something had.
The air outside the city felt different now. Thinner. Sharper.
"How long do I have?" I asked once we reached the outer edge.
Aries did not pretend not to understand.
"Until the next moonrise," she said.
I inhaled slowly.
That wasn't long.
"If I cross back through the gate before then," she continued, "the anchor won't set."
"And if I don't?"
She met my eyes.
"Then Astrion becomes your world."
The hills stretched wide around us, the wind threading through silver grass in long, sighing waves.
The beauty of it felt almost cruel now.
"I don't want to leave it like this," I admitted.
"You won't," she said.
"You don't know that."
"I do."
Her certainty wasn't forceful.
It was quiet.
And that made it harder.
We walked toward a ridge overlooking the valley where the gate had first opened. The path was familiar now. Too familiar.
Every step closer to it tightened something in my chest.
Aries walked beside me not leading, not guiding.
Just present.
"Why aren't you telling me to stay?" I asked suddenly.
She didn't look at me immediately.
"Because wanting you to stay would be selfish."
The honesty struck clean.
"You think I'd stay for you?"
Her expression shifted soft, but steady.
"I think," she said carefully, "that bonds form faster when worlds are unstable."
That wasn't denial.
But it wasn't encouragement either.
We reached the ridge by late afternoon. The sky had begun to shift toward amber again, the same slow descent into indigo that had marked my first night here.
The gate shimmered faintly below unstable, like a reflection in disturbed water.
"It won't hold past moonrise," Aries said.
Silence stretched between us.
Heavy.
Not with tension.
With inevitability.
"I didn't expect this," I admitted.
"Few do."
I turned to face her fully.
The wind caught strands of her dark hair, silver threads glinting faintly in the fading light. Her temple mark pulsed once soft, restrained.
"You knew this could happen," I said.
"Yes."
"And you still helped me."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Her answer took longer this time.
"Because your arrival was not an accident," she said. "And because helping you leave might be the only way to keep Astrion from forcing you to stay."
That hit deeper than I expected.
The sky darkened another shade.
We stood there, watching the gate flicker.
Not speaking.
Because once words began, they would not stop.
And neither of us was ready for that yet.