2. Auslin

Chapter 2

Auslin

W ith a crackle of ancient magic, Auslin emerged on the other side of Fate's Gate. His eyes went wide when he saw the old annex completed instead of being new construction. He spun around to see the stairs behind him were rubble, like they had been in his own time. With a rising sense of panic, Auslin ran back through the ancient monument, but it failed to activate once more.

"No, no, no!" Auslin exclaimed as he once again tried to return to the past. "Take me back!"

Fate's Gate lay dormant as Auslin desperately kept walking back and forth through it, begging it to return him to the past with Kitaro—who was now Kitsuki. Auslin couldn't believe he had been so stupid as to go through Fate's Gate without thinking of the consequences. "Please, Sophina, let me go back to Kitaro!" Auslin pleaded with the Fate Power, who controlled the ancient monument.

"Auslin!"

The human mage turned around at the sound of his name. His panic temporarily abated when his younger brother rushed toward him. His heart overflowed with love as he hurried to meet Sephen halfway, giving him a crushing hug with a sob.

Sephen clung to his older brother. "I can't believe I saw you come through Fate's Gate with my own eyes! Your letter was actually real."

It was a relief to hear Sephen had received his letter, although it felt like Auslin had sent it a lifetime ago. "I missed you so much! There are so many things I need to tell you." Auslin pulled back without letting go of Sephen. "Are you okay? Did anything happen to you while I was gone?"

"I'm fine. Everything is great now that you're back."

Auslin was about to ask another question when he heard Kio yelling in the glen below the temple, "If that's all you've got, I'm going to live forever, fucker!" The clang of swords meeting rocketed Auslin's heart into his throat. There was only one person Kio would fight in Valzerna, and it was who Auslin most needed to see. But what could he possibly say to Kitsuki to make abandoning him for six hundred years okay?

"Sorry, I have to stop them," Auslin told Sephen. "Stay here. I'll come back once I've spoken with King Kitsuki."

Sephen's eyebrows furrowed. "King Kitsuki? Why do you need to talk to him?"

"I'll explain everything later. But I have to go before it's too late."

"Before you leave, promise me one thing. Don't go back to Kio." Sephen's fearful expression made Auslin's heart twist with guilt.

"I swear to you that nothing in the world would make me get back together with him." Auslin moved his jacket and shirt collar to the side to show Sephen his claiming mark that bound him to Kitsuki for life. "A lot of things have happened while I've been gone."

Sephen's eyes went wide. "You were claimed by a shifter?"

"I'll explain everything when I return. Just know that I love you, and I'll come back after I've been able to talk to King Kitsuki." Auslin gave his brother another hug before he went to confront the consequences of his own foolish actions.

When he reached the top of the staircase that descended to the forest glen below, his heart hammered with complicated emotions as he watched Kitsuki violently attacking an already profusely bleeding Kio. Auslin rushed down the stairs as fast as he dared and ran into the field, crying out the only word he could think of that would stop the fight.

"Kitaro!"