Chapter 20 – Beneath the Threadrift Veil
Raen fell—not through space, but through meaning.
The world around him dissolved into fluid concepts. Time curled into loops. Sound pulsed like liquid. Each breath dragged memories from his lungs, and every blink rewrote the laws of nature. He had plunged beyond the mortal, beyond the divine—into the Threadrift.
His feet touched down on something that wasn't a floor. A field of shifting mirrors stretched outward, reflecting him—but not as he was. Some showed him as a child, weeping over a broken sword. Others bore monstrous images—horned, grinning, godless things with his face and Lyra's eyes. Some mirrors whispered.
"He still breathes."
"This is his third descent."
"He will not survive the next fracture."
Raen clenched his fists. His demonmark pulsed with erratic heat, trying to anchor him to identity. He focused on his name. Raen Valor. He repeated it like a mantra, each syllable a nail hammered into his reality.
"Where—am—I?" he rasped.
A voice answered. But not from the mirrors.
From within.
You are in the cradle of gods and monsters. Welcome to your becoming.