The heavy, iron-wood doors of the royal chambers did not just open; they were violently shoved apart by Syris.

The King of the Swamps, usually the absolute pinnacle of aristocratic grace and composure, stumbled into the room like a starving man.

Behind him, Zarek, Kaelen, Torian, and Caspian poured into the birthing chamber, entirely abandoning the terrifying, untouchable mantles they wore before the continent. They were not rulers in this moment.

They were just frantic, desperate fathers.

The heavy, metallic scent of blood and sweat hung thick in the warm air, mixed with the sharp, clinical smell of restorative magic.

The elite midwives stepped back from the massive bed, bowing their heads respectfully.

"She did flawlessly, my Kings," the head midwife murmured, her hands still glowing with a faint, fading light. "She is just exhausted."

Roxy was lying back against the mountain of thick, white furs. Her dark curls were plastered to her forehead with sweat, her chest rising and falling in shallow, weary breaths. She looked entirely spent, completely drained of every ounce of energy she possessed. But despite the harrowing ordeal, her pale lips were curved into a small, breathtakingly beautiful smile.

And in her arms, wrapped securely in a pristine, soft silk cloth, was the absolute greatest treasure the Beastworld had ever seen.

Zarek stopped dead in his tracks at the foot of the bed. The colossal Dragon King’s breath hitched in his throat, his golden eyes completely fixated on the tiny bundle resting against Roxy’s chest.

It was a beautiful baby girl. She was incredibly small, but she radiated an undeniable, vibrant spark of Vanguard life. She possessed a thick tuft of dark hair, exactly like her mother’s, and across her plump, rosy cheeks were tiny, glittering, iridescent scales that caught the ambient light of the hearth fire. She was the perfect, miraculous blend of two completely different worlds.

Torian choked back a raw, heavy sob, his massive hands covering his mouth. Kaelen slowly dropped to one knee, the stoic King of the North completely overwhelmed by the sheer, fragile beauty of his new daughter. Caspian’s bioluminescent scales glowed with a blinding, joyful blue, his oceanic eyes swimming with unshed tears.

But it was Syris who moved first.

The Snake King glided to the side of the bed, his emerald eyes completely overflowing. Syris gracefully dropped directly to his knees beside the mattress.

The cunning, ruthless strategist of the Vanguard was entirely broken down by the sheer magnitude of his love for the woman lying before him. She had faced the absolute brink of death, braved the harsh, volcanic environment of the Dragon Peaks, and given them a future.

Tears spilled freely down Syris’s pale, aristocratic cheeks. He leaned forward, his heart swelling with an agonizing, profound gratitude. He closed his eyes and pressed his lips gently against Roxy’s damp forehead, intending to whisper a thousand promises of eternal devotion into her skin.

But the absolute second his lips made contact with her flesh, a violent, unnatural jolt shot straight through Syris’s spine.

The King of the Swamps froze.

The ambient temperature of the Obsidian Palace was comfortably warm, perfectly regulated by Kaelen’s magic. The thick dire-wolf pelts beneath her were heavy and insulating. Yet, beneath his lips, Roxy’s skin was entirely, unnervingly freezing.

It was not the cold of the Northern winds, nor the chill of the deep ocean. It was a hollow, empty, and terrifyingly absolute cold. The kind of cold that belonged to the void.

Syris slowly pulled back. His elegant brows knit together in sudden, sharp confusion. The euphoric high of the birth instantly evaporated, replaced by a dark, creeping Warlord dread. He looked down at Roxy’s face. Her brilliant green eyes were closed, her expression peaceful, but the beautiful, vibrant flush of motherhood had entirely vanished from her cheeks, leaving behind an ashen, terrifying pallor.

Syris snapped his head to the side, his emerald eyes locking onto the head midwife.

"Was Roxy this cold?" Syris asked, his velvety voice suddenly dropping into a low, extremely dangerous hiss.

The head midwife’s triumphant, exhausted smile instantly faltered. The sudden shift in the Snake King’s combat aura sent a shockwave of alarm through the room. She immediately stepped forward, her brow furrowing in professional concern.

"Cold? No, my Lord, the physical exertion of labor should leave her running warm—"

The midwife reached down, pressing two glowing fingers against the side of Roxy’s pale neck, searching for the strong, vital rhythm of her heart.

One second passed.

Then two.

The faint, restorative glow around the midwife’s fingers flickered and died. Her eyes widened, completely dilating with absolute, unadulterated horror. She pulled her hand back as if the flesh had physically burned her, her chest heaving with a sudden, terrified gasp.

"She has no pulse."

The words dropped into the quiet birthing chamber like an apocalyptic bomb.

For a fraction of a millisecond, the universe simply stopped.

And then, everywhere, it was in absolute chaos.

"Move!" Zarek roared, a deafening, earth-shattering sound that literally cracked the obsidian walls of the room. The Dragon King lunged forward, violently shoving the midwives aside. "Roxy! Roxy, open your eyes!"

"Heal her!" Torian screamed, his tiger fangs completely extending as he grabbed the nearest medic by the robes, his Warlord logic entirely shattered by panic. "Do something!"

"Caspian, the water!" Kaelen bellowed, his voice cracking with raw terror as he scrambled to the other side of the bed.

But before Caspian could summon a single drop of the healing seas, before Zarek could press his massive, blistering hands to her chest to force his own fiery life-force into her heart, a terrifying, impossible phenomenon began to occur.

Roxy’s physical body began to fade.

It did not happen slowly. The edges of her skin, the dark curls of her hair, the very fabric of the silk nightgown she wore began to blur, turning into a fine, dissipating golden mist.

"No!" Syris shrieked, desperately throwing his arms over her body to hold her down. "No, you cannot take her! She is ours!"

Zarek frantically grabbed her shoulders, his golden eyes wide with absolute, blinding madness. But his hands simply passed right through her. There was no physical resistance.

She was becoming a ghost. She was only meant to deliver the child. The universe was completely, ruthlessly correcting the anomaly.

The newborn baby girl, suddenly sensing the vanishing warmth of her mother, let out a loud, piercing wail, slipping slightly onto the furs as the arms holding her literally dissolved into nothingness.

"Roxy!" Zarek screamed, his voice tearing his vocal cords to shreds as the last, glittering particles of her face faded entirely from the Beastworld, leaving nothing behind but the crying infant and the suffocating, world-ending despair of five broken Kings.

***

Roxy jolted violently upwards, her spine snapping completely straight. Her lungs burned as she violently gasped for air, her hands clawing desperately at her chest.

She expected to smell the sharp, metallic tang of blood and the heavy, sulfurous air of the Dragon Peaks. She expected to feel the soft, thick furs of the Obsidian Palace beneath her, and the massive, blistering hands of her Warlords holding her down.

Instead, her senses were violently assaulted by something entirely different.

The deafening, heart-wrenching roars of the Alpha Kings were completely gone. In their place was the shrill, irritating, and incredibly loud sound of blaring car horns echoing up from a busy street below.

The heavy, magical warmth of the mountain was instantly replaced by the low, mechanical, and entirely artificial hum of a cheap window air conditioner unit struggling to cool a small room.

Roxy choked on the dry, stale air, coughing violently as her vision slowly, agonizingly began to focus.

She was sitting on a lumpy, faded fabric couch.

She looked down at her hands. They were pale, completely devoid of any golden magical glow, and empty. She was no longer holding her newborn baby.

The Beastworld was gone. The Warlords were gone. Her children were gone.

Roxy slowly lifted her head, her brilliant green eyes wide with an absolute, suffocating terror as she stared at the glowing digital clock on the microwave across the room, the cheap coffee table, and the locked front door of her terrestrial apartment.

The heavy, agonizing realization crashed down on her like a physical execution. She was back on Earth.

Roxy stared at the blank screen of her television, her chest heaving with ragged, panicked breaths, and whispered to the empty room.

"What the fuck?"