The question hung in the air between them, and for a moment, no one spoke.
Joy looked at Raya, and her expression shifted into something more guarded. She folded her hands in her lap and was quiet for several seconds.
"Anima," Joy said finally.
Raya nodded. "We worship her in Verdant Vale. I have prayed to her since I was a child. But if what you say about the Sixth Myric is true, then..." She paused and wet her lips. "Could she have existed before this Myric? Before all of this?"
Joy picked up her glass of water from the small holder beside her seat, took a sip, and set it back down before answering. "I do not know much about her origins, truthfully. What I have read, what I have heard... it is incomprehensible in many ways." She looked out the window at the passing trees for a moment, then turned back. "But I can tell you what the books say."
"Please," Raya said, leaning forward slightly.
"According to the records I have studied, Anima is from the Seventh Myric," Joy said, her voice soft but certain. "Not the Sixth."
Raya's brow furrowed. "Not the Sixth? But if the Sixth Myric lasted one hundred and eighty thousand years, surely—"
"All knowledge of Her points to the Seventh," Joy said. "The books do not record how she became a deity. That knowledge, if it ever existed, has been lost or hidden." She paused and smoothed a fold in her skirt. "What they do record is that she is the one who birthed all of the rules and laws in Verdant Vale."
Alucent listened in silence, his fingers resting on the head of his cane.
"The rules and laws," Raya repeated slowly. "You mean the Threadweave? The structure of Runeforce itself?"
Joy nodded once. "Yes, all of it. The framework that governs how Runeforce flows, how inscriptions bind, how the Weaves interact with the world." She picked up her glass again and took another small sip. "All of it traces back to her."
Raya was quiet for a moment, her eyes moving as she absorbed this. Then she asked, "But if she is from this Myric, then surely there must be more records. More histories. The temples must have documented something about her origins."
"Her history is shrouded in mystery," Joy said, and her voice dropped lower, almost to a whisper. "And it is not for lack of trying."
Alucent noticed the change in her tone immediately. He looked at Joy's face and saw that the gentle smile had faded entirely.
"What do you mean?" Raya asked.
Joy set her glass down and folded her hands more tightly in her lap. She was quiet for a moment, and when she spoke again, her voice was barely above a murmur. "Anyone who has tried to dig deeper into knowing her... anyone who has pushed past the surface records and sought the truth beneath..." She paused. "They become corrupted."
The word settled over the cart like a weight.
"What! Corrupted?" Raya said. Her voice had lost its eagerness.
Joy nodded slowly. "Mad. Their minds break first, and then their bodies follow. Their flesh twists and turns into something monstrous." She spoke the words softly, almost gently, as if describing something sad but distant. "Maggots spew from their skin. They become creatures that must be put down."
Alucent saw Raya's throat move as she swallowed. A thin sheen of sweat had appeared on her forehead, and her hands had tightened on her knees.
"The corruption varies," Joy continued, her voice still low. "It depends on how deep the researcher went. How much they uncovered. But no one knows exactly what triggers it." She looked at Raya with steady blue eyes. "No one knows how much is too much. All they know is that certain misfortune falls upon those who seek."
Raya wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and asked, "And no one has ever... survived? Learned anything and come back whole?"
"No one," Joy said. "Because of this, no one has dared to be brave enough to continue such research." She tilted her head slightly. "And that, in itself, proves that she is truly incomprehensible. At least to mortals."
The cart rolled on, and the trees outside the window passed in silence.
Gryan had not spoken throughout the exchange. He sat with his arms crossed over his chest, his jaw tight. After a long moment, he let out a breath through his nose and muttered, "Glad I've never been one to waste my time on histories."
Alucent glanced at him. The mechanic's face was carefully neutral, but there was something behind his eyes that looked almost like relief.
Grateful, Alucent thought. He's grateful he's never had the curiosity to dig into such things.
Raya, on the other hand, looked shaken. The sweat on her forehead had not dried, and she was staring at her hands in her lap as if she had never seen them before.
Alucent looked out the window and let the silence settle around him.
Why such a heavy consequence? he thought. These people simply wanted to know more about their God. The God they worship. The God they pray to every day. And for that, they are driven mad? Their flesh turns to maggots?
He turned the question over in his mind, watching the trees pass.
Is it that she knows others might use such knowledge to do harm? Is that why she punishes them? Or is she simply incomprehensible to mortals, and the attempt to understand her is itself the transgression?
He thought about it for a moment longer, then shook his head slightly.
No. That's not quite right either. Deities like her aren't meant to be understood by mortals. That much is clear. But this is not like Earth.
On Earth, people debated whether gods existed at all. There was no proof, no evidence, just faith and argument. Philosophers wrote treatises. Scientists demanded data. And in the end, no one could say for certain one way or another.
But here...
Here, there was proof everywhere. Magic existed. Currency was tied to Runeforce. The moon had changed color and fractured the economy overnight. He had seen Shadebinders phase through solid walls. He had felt the Journal speak directly into his mind. He had used his own blood to inscribe glyphs that bent reality.
These were not matters of faith. They were matters of fact.
If the Deities exist, he thought, and they clearly do, then she cannot be entirely incomprehensible. Not truly. Not to everyone.
He thought about the Threadweave. About the cap and limit at Thread 4. About the Realm of Deity that lay beyond.
If I could break the cap... If I could reach Thread 5, or whatever lies beyond... my mental capacity would be far greater than it is now. The things that are incomprehensible to normal mortals should not apply to someone at that level. The mind of a Goldscribe is already sharper than an ordinary person's. What would the mind of something beyond Goldscribe be like?
But then another thought followed, colder and more uncertain.
But what if the cap is real? What if there is no Thread 5? What if the ceiling exists precisely because mortals are not meant to go further?
He had no answer for that.
The cart continued to roll along the road, and the trees outside grew thicker again as they moved further from Tiamont Lake. The light was fading now, the orange of sunset deepening toward purple, and shadows stretched long across the forest floor.
No one spoke.
Raya sat with her hands still tight on her knees, her face pale beneath the fading light. Gryan stared out the window with his arms crossed, his expression closed. Joy had folded her hands in her lap again and was looking at nothing in particular, her expression calm but distant.
Alucent looked at each of them in turn.
The silence stretched on.
And then the cart lurched violently to the side.
Alucent's shoulder slammed into the wall, and he heard Joy let out a sharp breath as she was thrown against him. Gryan grabbed the edge of his seat to steady himself, and Raya's hand went immediately to her Weaveblade.
The horses screamed.
The cart shook again, harder this time, and something struck the undercarriage with a force that made the entire vehicle tilt onto two wheels before crashing back down.