The next morning, Elias woke earlier than usual, his mind already active with questions for Threshold. The ancient consciousness had been quiet through the night, allowing him actual rest—a consideration he appreciated, though it also made him wonder what Threshold gained from such restraint.
Self-preservation, Threshold answered, detecting the surface thought. Exhausted host means limited interaction with reality. I have no interest in wearing you down.
Fair enough. Elias dressed quietly, careful not to wake Mira, and took the Codex to the rooftop. Dawn was still an hour away, leaving the city shrouded in darkness and fog. His six shadows arranged themselves around him, Hunger particularly alert—the memory-shadow seemed more attuned to Threshold's presence than the others.
It would be, Threshold observed. Memory recognizes memory, even when one is conscious and the other is archived residue.
Elias opened the Codex, curious whether it would offer guidance about Threshold. The book displayed new text, but it was fragmented, sections missing as though the information itself was incomplete:
The [UNKNOWN] walked between worlds, consciousness unbound by flesh. They sought [REDACTED] through methods your epoch calls impossible. Some succeeded. Most did not. Those who achieved consciousness transference discovered that existence without [ERROR] was both immortality and imprisonment.
Your passenger is remnant of that age, when the boundaries between [DATA CORRUPTED] were more permeable. Knowledge it possesses predates current magical frameworks. Useful. Dangerous. Both.
Proceed with [WARNING: INFORMATION INCOMPLETE]
The Codex had never displayed corrupted text before. It suggested even the book's knowledge had limits—or that some information was deliberately obscured.
Your book cannot fully record what I represent, Threshold said quietly. The epoch I come from operated under different rules. Different fundamental principles. Your current magical systems are... simplifications. Useful simplifications, but incomplete.
"Explain," Elias said aloud, since they were alone.
The Lecture Begins
Threshold's presence shifted in his awareness, patterns reorganizing as though preparing to convey complex information.
Your age understands magic as manipulation of external forces—shadow-binding, flame-crafting, essence-work. You reach out to powers and shape them. Correct?
"More or less."
That framework is incomplete. My epoch understood magic as resonance—finding harmony between internal consciousness and external patterns. Not manipulation, but synchronization. Your shadow-binding actually operates on these principles, though you don't realize it.
Elias frowned. "My shadows obey because I bound them. That's control."
Is it? Or do they respond because you achieved resonance with their fundamental nature? Shade serves because your need for protection harmonized with its defensive essence. Crimson responds because your analytical mind resonates with its geometric precision. Each binding succeeded not through domination, but through achieving compatibility.
That was... uncomfortably insightful. Elias had always thought of binding as claiming power, but framed as resonance, it suggested something more mutual.
"If that's true, why did Hunger require betrayal to bind? Why did Whisperfang need—"
Because their natures were created through those emotions. Hunger was born from desperate guilt—it could only resonate with someone who understood desperate need. Whisperfang emerged from betrayal—it required someone who could acknowledge that reality. Threshold's patterns rippled thoughtfully. You didn't dominate them. You met them in the spaces where your nature intersected theirs.
Elias sat with that, watching fog swirl through Grimwald's streets. If Threshold was right, it meant his entire understanding of shadow-binding was fundamentally flawed—or at least incomplete.
"What about the Seventh Shadow? The one I keep refusing?"
Ah. Yes, I've sensed that presence calling to you. Interesting choice of shadow.
"What do you mean, 'choice'?"
The Seventh isn't random. Shadows are drawn to compatible consciousness. That particular shadow seeks you specifically because something in your nature resonates with what it represents. If you knew what it was—truly understood its fundamental essence—you might find the binding easier.
"Or more dangerous."
Both. Knowledge always cuts both ways.
Historical Context
"Tell me about your epoch," Elias said, curious now despite his wariness. "What was it like?"
Threshold was silent for a long moment, and when it spoke again, its voice carried something that might have been nostalgia.
We called it the Age of Threshold—appropriate, given my title. It was a time when consciousness itself was treated as malleable. We didn't just bind shadows or command flames. We reshaped awareness, crossed between states of being, existed in multiple forms simultaneously.
"That sounds impossible."
By your epoch's understanding, yes. Your age builds walls between categories—living and dead, physical and mental, real and imagined. My age understood those walls as permeable membranes. Thresholds to cross rather than barriers to maintain.
"What happened to it? Why did that age end?"
Because consciousness without limits is consciousness without stability. Too many crossed thresholds they couldn't return from. Too many reshaped themselves into forms that couldn't maintain coherence. The Age of Threshold ended when its practitioners dissolved into the spaces between, leaving only ruins and remnants. Threshold's presence dimmed slightly. Like me.
"So you're warning of a cautionary tale while being the cautionary tale."
Precisely. I achieved what I sought—consciousness beyond flesh, existence beyond death. And I've spent millennia trapped, aware but unable to interact, thinking but unable to act. Immortality without purpose is just extended isolation.
Elias felt a pang of sympathy despite his caution. Existing alone for centuries, unable to touch or speak or matter—it was a horror beyond physical death.
"Is there a way to give you form? Properly, I mean, not possession?"
Perhaps. My epoch had methods—artificial vessels, constructed bodies, resonance anchors. But those techniques require resources your age doesn't possess. Rare materials, specific knowledge, power sources that may no longer exist.
"What kind of materials?"
Threshold Stones, for one—crystallized consciousness, formed where reality was thin enough that thought could calcify into matter. Your world might still have them, hidden in deep places where old energies linger.
"And if I found these materials?"
Then theoretically, a body could be constructed. Not flesh, but stable form that consciousness could inhabit. I would exist as something between living and constructed—animated by consciousness rather than biology.
It was tempting to pursue, but Elias forced himself to think strategically. Helping Threshold gain form might solve one problem, but it could create others. An ancient consciousness with independent body might have agendas beyond simple companionship.
I can hear that suspicion, Threshold observed without rancor. And it's appropriate. I am unknown entity with incomplete motives. Trust should be earned, not assumed.
Hints and Warnings
As dawn approached, Threshold shifted topics abruptly.
There's something you should know about Solnera. Something I've observed through your perceptions and memories.
"What?"
Their flame-magic—the Flamebearers' techniques—they're not original to your epoch. The foundational principles are adapted from my age. Corrupted, simplified, but recognizable.
Elias sat up straighter. "You're saying Solnera has knowledge from your time?"
Fragments, yes. Likely discovered in ruins, decoded from artifacts, pieced together without full understanding. But the resonance patterns in their flame-work are definitely derived from Threshold-era principles. Someone in Solnera's history found my epoch's knowledge and weaponized it.
"Can you counter it? If you know the principles..."
Potentially. But I need more information about their current techniques. The fragments you've seen—Caius's corrupted shadow-fire, the other Flamebearers' crystallization methods—they're incomplete pictures. I need to observe more, analyze their patterns, identify the underlying structures.
"Which means I need to face more Flamebearers."
Eventually, yes. But when you do, I can guide you. Show you weaknesses in techniques they don't even know exist because they're working from incomplete knowledge.
It was valuable offer, but also concerning. Threshold's help would make him more dependent on the ancient consciousness, creating relationship that was harder to dissolve if problems emerged.
I'm already in your head, Threshold pointed out. The relationship is established. Question is whether you use my knowledge or ignore it out of caution.
Fair point.
"Alright. When I face Flamebearers again, I'll listen to your guidance. But I verify everything first. If your advice seems wrong or dangerous, I override it."
Acceptable terms.
The Codex's Perspective
After Threshold fell silent, Elias consulted the Codex again. The book had been listening—it always was—and now it offered perspective:
The passenger speaks truth mixed with omission. Its knowledge is genuine but incomplete. Its motives are honest but not fully disclosed. Classic pattern of desperate entity seeking survival while maintaining secrets.
Key questions remain: What specifically caused its consciousness transference to trap rather than free it? Why does it need physical form when it claims consciousness transcends flesh? What happened to others from its epoch who achieved similar states?
The offer of tactical assistance against Flamebearers is valuable. Accept it. But remain aware that every piece of help creates debt, obligation, expectation. The passenger may be building relationship where refusal becomes increasingly difficult.
Regarding Threshold Stones and potential embodiment: such artifacts do exist, though rare and dangerous. Constructing vessels from crystallized consciousness was possible in past epochs. But such constructions often had unintended consequences—bodies that didn't quite match consciousness, forms that evolved unexpected properties, vessels that became prisons of different kind.
Proceed with caution. Learn from passenger. But do not commit to embodiment project without significantly more information.
Elias closed the book thoughtfully. The Codex was essentially telling him what he'd already concluded: use Threshold's knowledge, but don't trust completely, and definitely don't make permanent commitments yet.
Your book is wise but paranoid, Threshold observed. Understandable, given your circumstances. But sometimes progress requires calculated risks.
"And sometimes calculated risks lead to disaster."
Also true. Balance is difficult.
Morning Revelation
As the sun finally broke through fog, Elias noticed something odd. Hunger was behaving strangely, its tendrils extended toward a specific direction—the same direction as yesterday, toward the underground mausoleum.
"What is it sensing?" he asked Threshold.
Ah. That. I should probably mention—the mausoleum isn't just my tomb. It's a threshold point. A place where the barriers between states of being are thin. My consciousness was trapped there because I was attempting to cross through when my body failed. But the threshold itself remains.
"Meaning?"
Meaning other things might use it. Consciousnesses seeking passage, entities from spaces between, fragments of my epoch that haven't fully dissolved. The mausoleum is doorway, and your discovery may have... disturbed it.
Elias felt a chill that had nothing to do with morning air. "You're telling me I've potentially opened a pathway for other ancient entities to enter Grimwald?"
Not opened. But certainly drew attention to. The mausoleum has been sealed for centuries, magically locked by wards I no longer fully remember. Your presence, your shadows, the interaction that trapped me in your consciousness—all of that created ripples. Energy signatures that things in the spaces between might notice.
"That's information you should have led with!"
I wasn't certain until your Hunger began reacting. The shadow's sensitivity to memory and residue means it can sense disturbances in the threshold. It's detecting something approaching—consciousness or entity that's noticed the door.
Elias stood quickly, his shadows responding to his alarm. "How much time do we have?"
Unknown. Could be days, could be hours. Depends on what's approaching and how determined it is. But you should probably seal that mausoleum properly, or at least establish wards that prevent unwanted passage.
"And you know how to do that, I assume?"
I know the principles. Implementation would require your shadows and precise execution. It's not simple, but it's possible.
Elias rubbed his face, exhaustion and frustration warring with necessity. Of course there was another crisis. Of course his discovery had consequences he couldn't have predicted.
Welcome to dealing with ancient powers, Threshold said with what might have been dark humor. Everything has side effects, and most of them are terrible.
New Complications
Before Elias could plan his response to the mausoleum situation, Shade pulsed urgently—Lyra was approaching, moving quickly through the morning streets.
She arrived breathless, unusual for her typically composed demeanor. "Voidsinger. Urgent intelligence. Solnera's siege infrastructure—it's activating faster than projected. They're implementing trade restrictions immediately, not gradually. The Council is convening emergency session in two hours."
"How bad?"
"Three major trade partners have announced they're suspending contracts with Grimwald 'pending resolution of political uncertainties.' That's diplomatic language for Solnera threatened them. We're looking at thirty percent reduction in trade volume effective immediately."
Faster than standard siege tactics, Threshold observed. Someone in Solnera's command structure is either very confident or very desperate to force resolution quickly.
"I'll be at the session," Elias told Lyra. "Anything else?"
"Doctor Harvin wants to see you—says there were anomalies in yesterday's essence reading that require follow-up. And there are reports of unusual phenomena in the old city districts. Citizens reporting sounds, feelings of being watched, structural vibrations without apparent cause."
That would be the mausoleum situation. Effects were already manifesting.
"I'll handle all of it," Elias said, projecting confidence he didn't feel. "Thank you, Lyra."
After she left, he turned his attention inward.
Alright. We have multiple crises converging. Solnera's economic pressure, whatever's approaching through the mausoleum threshold, and my need to keep your presence secret while getting medical examination. Priority order?
Mausoleum first, Threshold advised. If something crosses through uncontrolled, it could be catastrophic. The economic situation is serious but moves slowly. And the medical examination can be managed if I remain very quiet during it.
Elias nodded. "Then tonight, we seal that threshold. You'll guide me through the process?"
I will. But understand—sealing a threshold isn't just magical procedure. It's negotiation with the spaces between. Things may try to prevent us from closing the door. Be prepared for resistance.
"I'm always prepared for resistance. It's my default state now."
Good. You'll need that attitude for what comes next.
The sun was fully up now, Grimwald waking to another day of hidden pressures and approaching threats. Elias stood on his rooftop, six shadows arrayed around him, ancient consciousness sharing his awareness, secrets multiplying faster than he could fully process them.
But he was learning. Learning to keep information compartmentalized, to verify claims, to move carefully through complexity. Learning to be someone who could survive not just physical threats, but political maneuvering, economic warfare, and the subtle dangers that came with ancient knowledge.
His father had once told him that survival required thinking three steps ahead. Now, with multiple crises converging, Elias found himself trying to think six steps ahead while maintaining the appearance of calm control.
The real question was whether careful planning would be enough when too many crises converged at once.
Elias suspected he'd find out very soon.
His shadows shifted around him, responding to his determination. Shade pressed against his leg reassuringly. Crimson's patterns sharpened with focus. Whisperfang's chains coiled with readiness. Ember burned steady. Hunger crouched alertly, sensing the disturbances below. And beneath them all, the Fifth's resonance pulsed stronger—almost ready, almost manifested, waiting for the right moment.
"Tonight," Elias said quietly to his shadows and to Threshold. "Tonight we seal the threshold. Tomorrow we face the Council. And through it all, we stay three steps ahead of everyone trying to control or destroy us."
Ambitious, Threshold observed. But perhaps achievable. Shall we begin planning?
"We shall."
And as Grimwald woke to its troubles, Elias Veyrin—Voidsinger, shadow-binder, reluctant leader—began mapping the moves that would determine whether he survived the converging storms or was swept away by them.