There was no light around.
Not in the traditional sense.
Only a presence that glowed behind the eyes, soft and colorless—like perception itself had peeled open and was feeding on understanding far older than memory.
Elias did not stand on ground.
He existed inside a sphere of warped space, deep beneath the core of the Maze. A space that should not have been, and yet pulsed as if it had always existed—before the stone, before the school, before the world had drawn maps of itself.
He was inside of a pocket dimension. A place where very people had accessed and even fewer had survived.
The Heart of the Maze.
And he was not alone.
Three beings sat lotus style before him.
They did not move. Not in any way that resembled humans or mages or lifeforms as the world knew them.
They simply were.
Their forms bent the space around them.
