WHEN Orion opened his eyes, the world was still dark.
He didn’t remember much after the fall, but he remembered plunging into the Rift during the day and coming out the other side of it swallowed by darkness that behaved like night without belonging to it. It wasn’t the gentle dim that comes before sleep, the honest quiet of a world exhaling. This darkness pressed close, deliberate, as if it had a will. It sat on his chest and cooled his breath. It covered the room like a veil drawn by a careful hand.
Shadowvale, he thought, with a shiver that felt older than today. A place stripped of its Hallow and replaced by Shadow. A place named in whispers. A place Hallowmere pretended wasn’t real and feared just the same.
