Lirian's POV
The portal gate hummed like a living thing.
I stepped through last after Mara and Elias, because I needed one more second to convince myself this wasn't suicide dressed up as science. The air changed before my foot even cleared the event horizon. It thickened, sweetened, pressed against my skin like cool silk. Then the floor beneath me wasn't floor anymore; it was polished crystal that pulsed faintly, the color of moonlit amethyst.
I blinked.
And blinked again.
Floating archipelagos hung in the sky like broken continents, tethered by nothing but shimmering threads of light. Rivers poured upward from unseen sources, silver ribbons twisting into the clouds before vanishing into mist. Below, far below, cascading oceans defied gravity entirely, falling in slow, impossible spirals toward a horizon that curved the wrong way. And the forests… God, the forests. Crystal trees rose in impossible geometries, branches chiming softly against each other, a melody that wasn't wind or instrument but something older. Singing. They were singing.
I had to grip the edge of the arrival platform to keep from swaying. My renowned xenobiologist brain, the one that had cataloged seventeen new extremophile species on Europa's subsurface oceans, short-circuited. This wasn't advanced tech. This wasn't even magic in the poetic sense. This was a violation of every law I'd ever studied. And it was beautiful.
Zephyria.
One word. Unreal.
Earth had flying cars now, neural highways, cities that breathed recycled atmosphere. We'd cracked quantum entanglement for instant communication across light-years. But this… this made our progress look like cave paintings.
A delegation waited at the far end of the platform. Four of them. Towering. Seven feet tall at minimum, skin shifting between deep indigo and liquid silver under the aurora light. Their faces were sharp, high cheekbones, elongated jaws, eyes like polished amethysts or burning coals, depending on the angle. Horns curved from some foreheads, black and glossy. Others bore faint bioluminescent markings that pulsed slowly, like heartbeats. They wore armor that looked grown rather than forged, plates flowing seamlessly into skin.
They stared at us the way children stare at exotic insects behind glass.
I felt small. At five-eleven, I'd always considered myself reasonably tall for a human. Here I was a curiosity. A fragile thing brought in for study.
The one in the center, broad-shouldered, midnight hair bound in silver cords, stepped forward. His voice rolled out in a language like breaking glass and distant thunder. Then, after a beat, a soft click in my earpiece translated it.
"Welcome, emissaries of Terra. I am Kaelith, First Warden of the Gate. The Sovereign awaits."
English. They'd learned it in three months. We still couldn't produce a single syllable of Thaloric without sounding like choking birds. Some of them didn't bother with spoken words at all; they projected meaning straight into your skull, cool and precise, as ice water poured over your thoughts.
Mara muttered under her breath, "Jesus." Elias just kept his jaw locked and his shoulders squared, the way he did whenever he was terrified.
They led us across a bridge made of light and crystal. No railing. Just a translucent ribbon suspended over a drop that could have swallowed skyscrapers. I kept my eyes forward and tried not to think about falling.
The palace citadel rose ahead like something carved from frozen starlight. Towers twisted skyward, joined by arching walkways that shimmered. Vines of living light climbed the walls. The air tasted too clean. No exhaust, no pollen, no trace of anything human-made. Just ozone and sweetness and the faint metallic tang of something ancient.
We were escorted into the grand hall. The king Sovereign "Thalor Rex" sat on a throne that looked grown from the same crystal as the floor. He was larger than the others, older, his skin the color of storm clouds, eyes burning violet. Horns swept back from his brow like a crown. When he rose, the room seemed to dim in deference.
He spoke. The translation came a heartbeat later, warm and resonant.
"Dr. Voss. Dr. Kade. Dr. Thorne. Zephyria opens its heart to you. May your eyes see truth, and your minds carry it gently."
He sounded sincere. That scared me more than if he'd threatened us.
Formalities passed in a blur of gestures, small offerings of glowing fruit we didn't dare eat yet, promises of quarters prepared. Then we were led away, down corridors lined with living murals that shifted when you looked too long. My room was at the end of a private wing.
The door dissolved when I touched it.
Inside: a bed that floated an inch above the floor, sheets of some fabric that felt like cool water. Walls that cycled slowly through twilight colors. A balcony open to the sky, overlooking an archipelago drifting past at eye level. Unreal. Again.
I collapsed onto the bed face-up, staring at a ceiling that reflected the aurora outside.
And then the memories hit.
Three months ago. My apartment in New Shanghai. Lashawn is standing in the kitchen, arms crossed, voice low.
"You're really going."
"It's the opportunity of a lifetime."
"It's a death sentence wrapped in prestige."
"Lashawn—"
"You think I don't see it? You've been pulling away for months. This isn't just about science. You want to disappear."
I'd said nothing. Because he wasn't wrong.
Now, lying here, I activated my neural chip. The intergalactic web bloomed in hologram layers across my vision—familiar blue-white interface, comforting in its Earth-ness. I scrolled through feeds. Friends. Family. Then a repost on Mara's public wall caught my eye.
A photo. Lashawn. Smiling. Head tilted. Kissing a girl I didn't know. Caption: *New chapter, new vibes.*
My chest caved.
I tried calling. Straight to voicemail. Again. Again.
The connection dropped something about spatial interference this far out. Or maybe he'd blocked me.
I curled onto my side, knees to chest.
The bed was too soft. The room was too quiet except for the distant crystal song drifting through the balcony. My throat burned. I pressed my face into the pillow and let the sob come quietly at first, then raggedly.
Three months of training. Months of psych evals. Countless briefings about cultural sensitivity, about not offending beings who could crush me without trying. I'd prepared for awe. For danger. For cultural shock.
I hadn't prepared for this.
Not the planet.
Not the loneliness that had followed me through the gate anyway.
I cried until my eyes stung and my breathing steadied into uneven hitches. Then I wiped my face with the back of my hand, rolled onto my back, and stared at the aurora bleeding across the ceiling.
Tomorrow I will begin work.
But tonight, in this impossible place, all I could do was breathe.
And try not to break.