We cross the threshold, and the world behind us folds closed.
The breach opens like a wound in reality, not tearing but dissolving. Colors shift wrong here, light bending at impossible angles. The air feels thick, resistant, pressing against my skin with unnatural pressure.
The silvery mark on my wrist pulses with faint light, responding to this place. Guiding me deeper.
The knowledge settles cold in my gut. I wasn’t just tracking energy. Iamthe energy source. Marked, shaped, and positioned without consent.
Dane’s jaw tightens beside me. His focus sharpens. I feel his understanding through the space between us—this changes nothing and everything.
The breach expands, responding to my presence. But as Dane steps forward, something strange happens. The air ripples, light stutters, and the threshold seems to hesitate. I sense resistance around him, like the Fade pushing back against something it doesn’t recognize.
Angel blood. His heritage thrums beneath his skin, reacting to the unstable energy. His ancestors were never meant to cross such barriers. They were made to guard them.
I adjust, shifting closer until our shoulders touch. The connection between us steadies the fluctuation. My presence grounds whatever his bloodline disturbs.
We don’t speak. No words could capture this moment. No promises make sense when walking into a realm where reality unravels. But I feel his certainty matching mine.
He’s not backing down. Neither am I.
We move forward as one. The breach parts around us, resisting, then yielding. First my shoulder breaks the threshold, then my chest. The sensation crawls across my skin like static electricity, neither pain nor pleasure but something primal and ancient.
Light shatters into fragments. Color drains away, leaving only muted shades of what was once vibrant. Gravity shifts, pulling sideways instead of down.
All sound cuts out, not gradually but instantaneously.
Silence.
The world turns inside out.
I’ve been here before, but never like this. The edge visits were echoes. This is the source.
The Fade doesn’t unfold around us. It absorbs us. Colors run backward, light bends at impossible angles, and the ground shifts under my feet—not unstable, but listening. Recognizing. This place has a pulse that matches the rhythm in my veins.
The scar on my wrist flares hot, then cold, then hot again. Not pain. Something worse. Something familiar. The silver line pulses violently, sending shock waves up my arm that don’t hurt but realign, like bones finding their original position after years of incorrect healing.
“Nova.” Dane’s voice sounds wrong here.
I look back at him. His outline blurs then sharpens, the Fade pushing against him like water resisting oil. Even standing still, he creates ripples of disturbance in the air around him.
“Don’t move too fast,” I warn, keeping my voice quiet. “This place reads intention before action.”
The terrain stretches before us—a fractured echo of Ash Hollow’s highest ridge. Trees grow sideways. Rock formations float inches above the ground. The sky isn’t above but all around, pressing close with too many stars that move when you try to focus on them.
Gravity pulls from multiple directions. My hair lifts slightly, not from wind but from a sideways tug that comes and goes in waves.
“Do you know where we are?” Dane asks, his jaw tight with tension.
“Not where,” I say. “What.”
I move forward, and the ground responds—not just accepting my weight but slightly curving to match my footprint. The scar throbs with each step, not warning me away but guiding me deeper.
“This isn’t a realm,” I say, voice barely audible. “It’s a scar.”
The word feels right. This place wasn’t built. It was torn. A wound in reality that never healed properly, just scabbed over and festered. And somehow, I recognize its shape.
No sign of Faelan yet. But I feel him everywhere—in the whispers that slide past my ears without words, in the pressure that builds behind my eyes, in the weight that settles in my chest with each breath.
Dane stays close, his presence creating constant disturbance in the Fade’s pattern. But he doesn’t falter. Doesn’t hesitate. Just keeps pace with me, silent and watchful.
