Between Two Worlds

The last silver tooth of the moon had caught in the gate’s broken arch when Lysara Elowen pressed her map against the stone.

The parchment was stitched from rumors: tavern marks, half-burned letters, a ferryman’s drunken directions, and one name written three times in her sister’s hand. Beyond the gate lay the other world. Somewhere past its forbidden courts, her missing kin waited - or had been made to wait.

Lysara folded the map beneath her cloak and touched the promise tied around her wrist.

“I will find you,” she whispered.

The gate answered by opening an eye.

A pale slit appeared between two leaning pillars. Silver light spilled across the ruined road, revealing roots coiled through old flagstones and iron nails driven into the earth. The stones shuddered beneath Lysara’s boots.

She stepped back.

From somewhere above, a voice said, “That promise was not made to the gate.”

Lysara drew her knife.

The blade flashed blue in the moonlight, too small for the thing watching her and large enough to make a point. She turned slowly, searching the broken battlements. Nothing moved except the thin branches of a dead ash tree.

“Show yourself.”

“Why? So you may decide whether I am worth fearing?”

The voice was neither male nor female. It seemed to come from the stones, from the air behind her, from the hollow beneath her ribs.

Lysara tightened her grip. “I have no quarrel with a ruin.”

“Then you have chosen a poor place to cross.”

The slit in the gate widened. Beyond it, she saw a forest under a different moon. Its light was green, and the trees bent away from one another as if avoiding an unseen road. Farther off, spires rose through mist - thin towers crowned with gold.

The other world.

Her breath caught. For three nights she had followed rumors toward this place, sleeping beneath hedges and lying to patrols from both courts. She had traded her mother’s silver comb for the map. She had crossed a river where the water whispered her name. Now the way stood open.

She lowered the knife but did not sheath it.

“I am going through.”

“No.”

The word struck with physical force. The gate’s light narrowed. Stone scraped against stone, and the green forest beyond seemed to draw away.

Lysara stepped forward before the opening could close. Heat bit through her boot. She smelled rain, crushed fern, and something metallic beneath both.

“Who bars me?”

“A watcher.”

“That tells me nothing.”

“It tells you enough.”

“No.” She raised her chin. “A watcher watches. A guard bars the road. Which are you?”

For the first time, the voice seemed amused.

“Both, when the crossing is forbidden.”

Lysara looked at the ruined arch. Old carvings covered its face, most worn smooth by weather. One remained clear: two hands clasped around a crown split down the middle. Beneath it, a line of script had been gouged away.

She had heard stories of the boundary gate. Every village told them differently. Some said it opened only for the dead. Others claimed it belonged to the Moon Court and had been abandoned after the courts divided. Her map called it a wound between worlds.

None of the stories had mentioned a watcher.

“Let me pass,” she said. “I seek my kin.”

“Many seek what they have lost.”

“And many are turned away?”

“Those who cannot pay.”

Lysara slid the knife into its sheath. A weapon would not help against a living gate or a voice that had no body. “I have no coin.”

“I did not ask for coin.”

The stones warmed beneath her palm.

A line of light crawled from the arch to the ground, curving around her boots. It formed a circle. The roots beneath the road stirred, pushing against the cracks like fingers testing a locked door.

Lysara moved toward the opening. The circle moved with her.

“What payment?”

“A debt.”

“I owe you nothing.”

“Not yet.”

The gate snapped shut.

The sound rolled through the ruins. Birds burst from the dead ash tree, black wings beating against the moon. Lysara stood alone inside the circle, her hand hovering over her knife.

Then something breathed behind her.

She spun.

A figure stood between the broken pillars, tall and narrow beneath a cloak made of overlapping strips of darkness. Its face was hidden by a smooth mask of pale wood. Two holes showed where eyes should have been, but no eyes looked through them. Only the green light from the other world burned in the hollows.

Lysara backed away.

The watcher tilted its head. “You carry a promise tied in red thread.”

Her fingers closed over her wrist. “You have been following me.”

“I have been waiting.”

“For me?”

“For someone desperate enough to open the gate without permission.”

“I did not open it.”

“No. You asked it to open. That is worse.”

The mask turned toward the arch. The gate trembled, its stones drawing together like muscles around a wound.

Lysara forced herself not to look away. “My kin crossed before me.”

“Your kin crossed under a different name.”

The words cut deeper than they should have. “You know where they are?”

...