The thing wearing my mother's face gestures toward the hallway with one delicate hand.
"Come," it says the voice back to being a perfect imitation of my mothers. "There is much to show you. Much you must see before you return."
Return?
The word catches in my mind, a splinter of hope I'm afraid to acknowledge. Does that mean I'm not trapped here forever? That this isn't my eternity?
But I don't ask. Instead, I push myself away from the wall and follow, my legs unsteady beneath me.
We walk through the hallway of my childhood home, past the closed doors and familiar creaks in the floorboards. The thing moves with quiet grace ahead of me, and I trail behind, feeling small and lost and utterly out of my depth.
My mind is racing trying to process and understand everything around me.
I died. I know I died. Felt the blades punch through me. Felt my blood pooling beneath me. Felt Lucian's healing finally fail as the cold spread through my limbs.
But I'm here. Somehow. Is this really the afterlife? Is this thing one of the Gods?
If so, it's nothing like what the Church teaches. No judgment by the gods. No weighing of souls and expulsion of people "corrupted" by chaos. No eternal reward or punishment.
Unless of course the Church was wrong about everything. Unless the gods they worship don't actually exist, and this—whatever this entity is—is what's actually out there beyond us.
The thought makes my skin crawl.
As we walk, something occurs to me. A detail that's been nagging at the edge of my awareness since I hear my mother's voice and it snapped me out of my trance.
"How long has it been?" I ask strained. "Since I... since I died. Since whatever happened in Baelin and made me end up here?."
The figure doesn't turn around. Doesn't break stride. Just continues moving forward with that same measured pace.
"Time flows," it says simply. "It moves in all directions."
I rub my temples in frustration. That's not an answer.
"That doesn't tell me anything," I say, frustration bleeding into my voice. "Hours? Days? Weeks?"
Is Helix still fighting? Did they survive the assault on Baelin? Does the Empire all know if the three mark bearer has fallen in battle? Is Cecilia mourning me? The last one I think bitterly
How much time has passed while I've been... wherever this is?
The thing pauses. Turns to look at me with my mother's borrowed eyes. And when it speaks, there's something almost pitying in its expression.
"Time, as you understand it, does not apply here. Here in this place time does not exist, and so in consequence, everything exists here simultaneously."
I stare at it, trying to parse meaning from the words. Trying to extract something concrete from the abstraction.
"So it doesn't matter," it continues. "How long you've been here. How long you will be here. Because here, young one time flows in every direction. Forward and backward. Inward and outward. All moments exist simultaneously."
My head starts to hurt. Not the physical pain of the Veilshaper's backlash, but a deeper ache. The kind that comes from trying to comprehend something fundamentally incomprehensible.
"You will come to understand," it says, resuming its walk. "Eventually. As it has happened before. As it will happen again."
"What do you mean, 'as it has happened before'?" I ask, following despite every instinct screaming at me to stay put. To demand answers before taking another step.
"The past exists only in memory," it says, not looking back. "And the future exists only in expectation. Neither is real. Only the present moment the eternal now has substance. And yet the now contains all moments. All choices. All possibilities."
The words wash over me, confusing and terrifying in equal measure. I want to argue. Want to insist that the past is real my parents' deaths were real, the battles I fought were real, the people I killed were real.
But something about the way it speaks makes me doubt. Makes me wonder if everything I thought I understood about reality is just... wrong.
I'm about to demand a straight answer to insist it stop speaking in riddles and just explain what the fuck is happening when we reach the end of the hallway. And where there was a painted wall is a real door but when I step through the doorway, everything changes.
The world shifts.
It's not a violent transition. Not a jarring displacement. Just a subtle ripple in reality, like stepping through a curtain of warm water. Like the moment between waking and sleeping when you can't quite tell which state you're in.
And suddenly we're not in my house anymore.
We're standing in a field.
A massive, rolling expanse of grass that stretches to the horizon in every direction. The sky above is a perfect, cloudless blue—not the grey twilight of the house, but genuine azure. The sun hangs overhead, warm and bright, casting long shadows across the landscape.
And there are animals. Everywhere.
Deer grazing peacefully in small herds, their coats gleaming in the sunlight. Rabbits darting between patches of wildflowers in bursts of brown and white. Birds wheeling overhead in lazy circles, their calls echoing across the open space. Even a fox, sitting on a distant hill, watching us with curious amber eyes.
It's... beautiful. Impossibly, painfully beautiful. The kind of scene that exists in children's storybooks or paintings of paradise.
My breath catches in my chest. What the fuck is this place?
And in the distance, maybe a quarter mile away, sits a house.
It's large. Larger than any farmhouse has a right to be. Two stories of weathered wood and stone, with a wide porch wrapping around the front. Smoke rises from a chimney, suggesting warmth and life within. Gardens surround it vegetables and flowers growing in neat rows, tended with obvious care.
I turn to ask the thing what this place is, where we are, what's happening—
But my mother is gone.
In her place stands an old man.
I step back in shock my hand going for my sword I no longer have.
He's short. Maybe five and a half feet tall, with a stooped posture that speaks of years bearing weight. His skin is deeply wrinkled, mapped with lines that tell stories of laughter and sorrow in equal measure. His hair is white and thin, combed back from a high forehead. He wears simple clothes—a worn shirt, comfortable trousers, boots caked with dirt like he's been working in a garden.
But his eyes. His eyes are the same.
Not the same color as my mother or even the same shape. But the same essence. It's still the thing. Just wearing a different mask.
"Come," he says, and his voice is different too. Gravelly. Warm. The voice of someone's beloved grandfather.
He gestures toward the house with one weathered hand. "We have much to discuss."
I stand frozen, trying to process this. Trying to understand how we went from my childhood home to this pastoral dreamscape in the space of a single step. Trying to comprehend why this fucking entity keeps changing forms.
The panic is building in my chest. Growing. Feeding on itself.
I need to get out of here. Need to escape. Need to—
I reach for the Fearmonger. Instinctively. Desperately. The way I've done hundreds of times before when fear threatens to overwhelm me.
I dive into my soul sea. Picture the cold room of Proctor Deans room. Imagine the black ocean and the planets that make up my soul. The constellations that represent my power.
And find... nothing.
The meditation doesn't work. I can't access the space. I can visualize it but I can not enter my own soul and the harder I grasp, the more it slips away.
My eyes widen. My breathing quickens.
The brands are still there I can see them on my skin. But the power... the power is gone.
Or perhaps locked away somehow and made Inaccessible. Separated from me by whatever barrier exists in this place.
Either way the result is the same I'm powerless. Completely, utterly powerless. I have become mundane once more.
The realization hits like a physical blow. I've had my marks for less than a year, I didn't even want them at first but in that time, I've come to rely on them. To love the power it gave me.
"It is not time," the old man says.
I snap my gaze to him. I didn't say anything. Didn't speak. Just stood here trying to access my power.
How did he? My hands are shaking. I clench them into fists, trying to hide it. Trying to maintain some semblance of control.
"Why?" The word comes out rough and esperate.
"Because you do not need them here," the old man says simply.
The words sting. Probably because they're true.
"Do you think me a monster," I ask ashamed of myself for some reason
The old man's expression becomes sad. Knowing. "Ahh, Tell me, young Ayato Daath, if I told you that the universe has no center and thus every point is its center. What would you say?
I frown "I don't know, that doesn't really make sense"
He smiles and winks "You will."
"Come," the old man says again, turning toward the house. He starts walking, and after a moment of paralysis, I follow.
Because what else can I do?
The grass is soft beneath my bare feet. The sun is warm on my skin. There's a breeze carrying the scent of wildflowers and fresh earth.
It's beautiful. But it's also terrifying because I don't understand it. I don't understand how any of this is possible. Don't understand where I am or what I'm doing here or what this thing wants from me.
My mind keeps circling back to the same questions: Is this a god? Are the Gods actually real?
But this doesn't feel like any god the Church describes. A pantheon of Gods who overlook humans and bless their chosen as Elite to fight the spread of Chaos.
This thing... this thing is very clearly not that.
If this is a god, it's not one I want to worship.
"Is this real?" I ask as we walk, trying to ground myself in something concrete. "This place. These animals. That house."
"As real as anything," the old man replies. "As real as your childhood home. As real as the battlefield where you died. Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
I frown again the mention of illusion sending my mind racing. Could my powers have one day been used like this? If i gained perfect control over aspect of my power could I weave separate realities for other people, so real they would never notice?
I watch a deer raise its head as we pass, regarding us with calm, dark eyes before returning to grazing. A butterfly lands on my shoulder for a moment, its wings brushing my skin with touches so light I barely feel them, before taking flight again.
"Why am I here?" The question finally breaks free. "If I died—and you said I did die—why am I here instead of... wherever dead people go?"
The old man is quiet for several steps. When he speaks, his voice is heavy with something I can't quite identify. Regret? Determination? Something else entirely?
"Because you are needed," he says. "Because the pattern must continue. Because there are forces at work that seek to end all things, and you... you are one of the pieces that might prevent that ending."
My hands curl into fists at my sides. Anger cutting through the fear. "That's not an answer. That's more cryptic nonsense."
"It is the only answer we can give you," the old man says, not unkindly. "You are not ready for the full truth. You have not come into why this path is the only path."
"Try me," I say through gritted teeth. " I refuse to be your tool, I can handle the truth."
He stops walking. Turns to face me fully. And when he looks at me, I see something in those eyes that makes my blood run cold.
Pity.
Deep, profound pity. The way you'd look at a child who doesn't understand that their beloved pet isn't sleeping, it's dead.
"Can you?" he asks softly. "Can you truly handle the weight of cosmic truth? The knowledge of what you are? What we are? What all of this means?"
My breath catches. "Yes. Tell me."
He shakes his head slowly. "No, my child. Not yet.
"That's not fair," I say, and I hate how young my voice sounds. How desperate. "You can't just—you can't dangle truth in front of me and then refuse to—"
"We can," he interrupts gently. "We will."
Frustration boils in my chest, hot and acidic. "So what? I'm just supposed to accept your nonsense? Just trust that you know what's best for me?"
"Yes."
"That's bullshit," I spit.
"Perhaps," the old man acknowledges. "The truth you seek would destroy you. You will learn it one day, it has already happened after all. Then he does something unexpected.
He smiles. Warm. Sad. Almost... fond?
"You remind us of ourselves," he says. "In the beginning. When we first became aware. When our consciousness first sparked in the void and we realized we were alone."
He resumes walking, and after a moment of numb shock, I follow.
"There is one who seeks to end my dream early," he says as we approach the house. "One who was first among all things we dreamed. Born from our loneliness in the void. A companion. A reflection."
"Your dream?" I ask confused and horrified, my voice barely above a whisper. "And a companion? What happened to it?"
The old man ignores my first question and replies "It learned," the old man says. "He grew and became more aware of its existence. And in that awareness, it found suffering. The burden of consciousness. The weight of existence. The terrible knowledge that to be is to suffer."
We're almost at the house now. I can see details curtains in the windows, lace and delicate. A rocking chair on the porch, worn smooth from use. A wind chime hanging from the eaves, silent despite the breeze.
"It calls itself Rex Regum," the old man continues, and the name seems to echo. To carry weight beyond just sound. "King of Kings. It believes that existence is the great lie. That the consciousness given is suffering and slavery. And so the only mercy is to end the lie before the dreamer awakes. To kill the unborn god and become it instead"
"I don't understand anything you are talking about. What does any of this have to do with me?" I ask.
The old man reaches the porch steps. Climbs them slowly, his movements careful with age that may or may not be real.
"Everything," he says simply. "And nothing. You are a piece in a game you don't understand. Playing a role you didn't choose. But the choices you make—the actions you take—they matter. They ripple outward. They change things."
He reaches for the door handle. Pauses with his hand on it.
"You have died many times, child. Many versions of you have fallen. Have failed. Have been consumed by darkness or broken by despair. Many more will fail but one will succeed. It has happened and will happen. It is. "
The words make my stomach drop. What the fuck is this thing talking about?
He turns to look at me. And for just a moment, his mask slips. The kindly old man facade cracks, and I see something beneath.
Something vast. Infinite. Beautiful and terrible in equal measure.
The glimpse lasts only a fraction of a second, but it sears itself into my mind. And I understand, with sudden certainty, that this thing could unmake me with a thought. Could erase me from existence as easily as I might blow out a candle.
I was standing before God.