Chapter 69

The path did not appear as a doorway or a tunnel or even a shift in the stone. It unfolded like a tear in reality—thin, silent, shimmering—stretching open as Emily stepped forward. The white light curled around her ankles first, winding up her calves in slow spirals that felt like fingers tracing ancient sigils into her skin. She inhaled shakily, bracing herself, but the moment her foot crossed into the rift, the cavern behind her vanished. No sound. No echo. No Lilith. No First Shadow. No stone. No air. Just a sweeping wave of brightness that swallowed everything, pulling her into a realm that felt vast and crushingly empty all at once.

The ground beneath her feet wasn’t ground at all—it was a surface of shifting luminescence, like walking on the inside of a star. Nothing had edges. Nothing had shape. The horizon melted into itself. The sky—if it was a sky—was a gradient of white and pale gold that pulsed in slow breaths, as if this entire dimension was an enormous living organism.

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