Maya noticed it first in the small things.
A flicker of light at the corner of her vision when she wasn't near a lamp.A hum in the air that didn't belong to any machine.A shadow that seemed to hesitate half a second before she did.
She told herself it was exhaustion again, the leftover static from the dreams she'd spent weeks trying to forget. She told herself she was getting better—going to work, packing Aarav's lunch, breathing normally.
And for a while, she believed it.
Then came the second sunrise.
She was pouring cereal for Aarav when it happened. One heartbeat the morning light streamed through the kitchen window—gold and gentle. The next, a red-gold radiance flooded the room, heavier, thicker, like syrup.
Aarav squinted. "The sun's weird."
Maya followed his gaze.
Above the buildings beyond their window hung two suns—one pale, familiar, and another deeper, molten, trembling faintly like a living thing.
Her hand went slack. The cereal spilled across the counter, forgotten.
"Mom?" Aarav whispered. "What's happening?"
The hum she'd been hearing for days rose to a near-choral vibration. It wasn't inside the room. It was inside her.
For a moment, she saw a flicker through the glass: tents, banners, a river running backward beneath twin moons.
Then the vision snapped, and she was staring again at the skyline of her own city, both suns flickering, one fading.
By noon, the second sun was gone—but the air had changed. People on the street moved with unease, whispering about the "optical illusion." The news blamed atmospheric distortions. Social media called it a solar flare.
Maya knew better.
She recognized the hum of the other world's heartbeat. The weight of its light.
Something—or someone—had disturbed the balance.
That night, when Aarav was asleep, she went to the window again. The sky looked ordinary, but she could feel the shimmer hiding under it. She closed her eyes and pressed her hand to the glass.
For a heartbeat, warmth spread through her fingers—familiar, resonant.
A voice brushed her mind. Not the queen's voice, not the echo of her past self.A man's. Steady, tired, powerful.
Hold fast, it whispered. The worlds are thinning.
She jerked back, heart hammering. "Who—who's there?"
The room was empty. But the air smelled faintly of rain and smoke.
Sleep didn't come easy. When it did, it carried her into a dream that wasn't a dream.
She stood in a vast, dark field under a split sky—half her city skyline, half an alien warfront. The two horizons overlapped like broken glass, shards of one world bleeding into the other.
Between them, at the center, stood a man with silver-streaked hair and eyes like stormlight.
He turned when he saw her.
For an instant, the worlds froze.
Neither of them spoke, but understanding hit like lightning. He was real—one of the others. Another Borrower.
And whatever he'd done, whatever tether he'd refused to release, had started this.
She felt it instinctively: his world pulling, hers unraveling.
The wind rose around them, tearing fragments of both skies into spirals.
"Stop!" she shouted over the noise. "You're breaking it!"
He stared at her, face stricken. "I can't."
The ground gave way beneath them. Maya fell through darkness and woke with a scream lodged in her throat.
The alarm clock blinked 3:00 AM.
Aarav slept peacefully beside her, oblivious to the tremor that still rippled through the walls.
Maya sat upright, pressing a hand over her racing heart. The hum had grown louder again—steady, rhythmic, and unmistakably alive.
It wasn't just calling her anymore.It was calling everyone.
She rose, went to the window, and looked up.
The stars were wrong.
They were rearranging themselves into lines—thin, luminous threads crossing the sky, drawing the faint outline of a map she didn't recognize.
One of those lines pulsed brighter, connecting her horizon to something far away.
And for the first time since the crown had left her, she whispered the truth she had been afraid to admit:
"It's starting again."