The void was not empty. It was full of teeth.
Elias stood on a plain of black glass, the same dreamscape he had visited before. But now the sky was a churning wound, and the ground cracked with green fire. The original stood across from him, his body wreathed in the First Mind's light, his eyes two burning coals. Between them, the Silence hung like a living shadow, its tendrils licking at the edges of both their minds.
"You feel it, don't you?" The original's voice was silk over broken glass. "The Silence wants to be whole. It wants to return to the source. But it needs a vessel strong enough to carry it there. You are weak, little copy. That's why I will take it from you."
Elias's jaw ached from clenching. The cold knot in his chest was a writhing serpent, torn between two masters. The
