The air shifted the moment Aria stepped into the rift.

One heartbeat, she was in the forest surrounded by allies, blood, and the scent of war. The next—silence.

The sky here was a mirror, fractured into shifting panels of gold and void. Stars blinked in patterns that changed every second, like runes being rewritten. The ground beneath her feet wasn't earth but glowing mist, pulsing with the heartbeat of an ancient realm. She had crossed into the Spirit Plane—a place between time, memory, ...