The dream was not a place of sanctuary; it was a cathedral of ice and jagged silence. Soren stood upon a mountain peak, the alpine air so thin it felt like breathing glass.
A blizzard raged with a ferocity that defied the natural world, wind howling like a thousand dying wolves. He could barely see his own hands, but he wasn't cold... he was the source of the cold.
As he turned, shielding his eyes from the stinging spray of white, he saw it. In the middle of the atmosphere, hanging over the precipice, was a split.
It looked like a crack in a mirror, a jagged fissure in reality itself. It started small, a hairline fracture at ground level, then it began to grow. Soren watched, transfixed, as the crack raced upward, tearing the sky apart like fabric caught on a nail.
The crack, he thought, his heart thudding against his ribs. The one from the forest. It's the same.
He felt an irresistible pull, a magnetic compulsion to reach out and touch the void beyond the tear.
