The peace of the Dust-Kingdom was a fragile glass ornament, shattered the moment
the name "Malakor" left Caelum's lips. The red sands of Orizon, which had begun
to sprout green shoots under the influence of Aidan's touch, suddenly went grey.
Not the grey of salt or ash, but the flat, lifeless grey of unprinted paper. The
obsidian monoliths that had stood as sentinels of the desert began to ripple and
stretch, their solid stone surfaces turning into gargantuan stacks of
leather-bound books that reached into a sky where the stars were being replaced
by lines of black, scrawling text.
The "Real" world was being folded.
I stood in the center of the silk tent, my hands gripping the edges of Aidan's
cradle. The "Graft" on my palm—the mark of my humanity—wasn't just glowing; it
was bleeding. A single drop of gold-red blood fell onto the silver wolf carving,
and as it hit the metal, the carving let out a high-pitched, harmonic scream.
