The world had folded in on itself.

Draven came to in silence—a kind that felt alive, thick with a pulse that was not his own. The air shimmered like glass on the verge of cracking. When he lifted his head, the ground beneath him rippled as if made of mercury, and the horizon bled light from unseen wounds.

He was back in the Vale—or something wearing its skin.

The mountains were reversed, peaks plunging into the heavens like inverted spears. The stars burned below his feet instead of ...