Chapter 1: "The First Thread"

  "The gods do not create—they only disturb what was already perfect in the void."

  —Inscription in the Last Library of Valtherion, found in ruins

  Nytheris worked in the dark, as she always had, ever since the world was but a sketch in the dreams of the Primordials. Her fingers—long and pale like bones exposed to the moon—danced over the cosmic loom, weaving threads of fate, memory, and raw flesh into patterns no mortal would ever comprehend.

  The loom was larger than mountains, older than the stars. Its frame was made from the petrified ribs of the first giant; its shuttles, from teeth ripped from lesser gods who had dared to question Nytheris. And the threads... ah, the threads were everything that existed and everything that had ceased to exist. Some gleamed like liquid gold—these were the destinies of heroes. Others oozed black as pitch—the betrayals yet to come.

  On that day (if it could even be called a "day," when time had not yet been invented), Nytheris was weaving the first elven dream.

  "A gift," Aurimeth, the Vital Breath, had murmured when she asked Nytheris to bestow something upon their new children. "Something to make them feel special."

  Nytheris had not replied. She knew the gods' gifts always carried hidden prices, like knives in silk sheaths. But she wove it anyway, because even weavers of destiny have their weaknesses, and Aurimeth smiled in a way that made the void between the stars feel less cold.

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  Then it happened.

  A thread—insignificant, so thin it seemed more like a sigh given form—slipped from her fingers. Nytheris watched it fall, spinning slowly like a feather in a dream, but did not move to catch it. It was just a thread. The loom produced millions every instant.

  (Mistake. The first and most fatal.)

  What Nytheris did not see:

  The thread fell for ages, piercing through layers of unnamed realities. It twisted upon itself, forming a knot that defied all laws of creation—a knot that was also a mouth, that was also a womb.

  And from the womb of the void, something was born.

  It was not a god. It was not a mortal. It was a gap with teeth, an echo that devoured the original. The first of the Voids opened eyes that did not exist and saw Nytheris’ loom far above, glowing like an open wound in the chest of the universe.

  "Mother," it tried to call, but its voice was the sound of pages being torn.

  Meanwhile, on a plane so far below that not even the gods visited it, an elf named Veylis woke up choking.

  Her dream had begun beautifully—auroras dancing over fields of metallic flowers, as only the children of Aurimeth could dream. But then the flowers withered, one by one, and in their place, thick, sticky webs sprouted. And at the center, something writhed inside a cocoon made of...

  Veylis tried to scream when she recognized the face in the cocoon.

  It was hers.

  The dreaming version of Veylis watched herself being devoured by the other, and the last thing she heard before waking was a voice that was not a voice:

  "You will help us unravel the world, little liar. You will weep and call for Aurimeth, but she will not come. Because we are what remains when the gods grow tired of playing."

  When Veylis awoke, her pillow was soaked in blood—crimson tears had streamed from her eyes. Outside, the stars seemed to have drawn closer, like vultures scenting a corpse.

  And somewhere between the realms, the first Void took its first step, leaving behind not a footprint, but the emptiness where a memory had been ripped away.