Book One – Chapter 14

The male remained still. Midnight’s essence reached for his, yet there was no contact between them. As with the fiator, she simply passed through him, her presence slipping into and through his essence without touching. This phenomenon continued to startle her. He was there, undeniably present, and so was she — yet they existed on separate planes, divided by the immutable boundaries of dimension. He was a material being, tethered to the world of the living, a creature of flesh, warmth, and breath. She, by contrast, was nothing. They shared the same space, yet their coexistence was one of proximity but never touch. Even under Teharun’s veil, with her senses sharpened to their utmost, Midnight failed to bridge the chasm between herself and the Material Dimension. She could not reproduce what she had experienced with the beast wizard’s essence.

The avian remained oblivious to her, his essence unperturbed, while hers churned with frustration. The sharpness of her failure struck her deeply; the dissonance between what she could perceive and what she could affect; the stark contrast between how she had bested a predator as mighty as the shadebeast in a battle for life and death, and now found herself repeatedly exhausted by the most meagre of prey.

Midnight withdrew, her essence pulling back from the avian as she coiled herself into a more compact form. Her movement became measured and purposeful, as she resumed her journey along the Snowtrail. Even amidst the immense clarity T̰́̇ͦ̀è̸̷̸̬̤̗̊_̸̵̰̦̗̒͜ȟ̗̍ͤa̶͉͉͍̭̰̅̀̈͜ͅȓ̶̶̛̦͇͙̟̈̿͒ͮ͑̋̚͡u̟͖͔̖̙͙͆̄̿ͩͧ̃̽̓̈̌̀͟͞n afforded her, this overwhelming sensory precision, she felt no closer to the answers she sought.

She did, however, quickly get closer to the Albweiss Mountain Guild. It took her another twenty minutes after T̰́̇ͦ̀è̸̷̸̬̤̗̊_̸̵̰̦̗̒͜ȟ̗̍ͤa̶͉͉͍̭̰̅̀̈͜ͅȓ̶̶̛̦͇͙̟̈̿͒ͮ͑̋̚͡u̟͖͔̖̙͙͆̄̿ͩͧ̃̽̓̈̌̀͟͞n receded. As the first traces of daylight began to stir far off in the east, the guild came into reach.