The moment Mirabelle touched the Territory Core, something seized her mind.
It felt as though an invisible force had caught hold of her consciousness and pulled.
She gasped. Everything she could see blurred.
The lake beneath her feet.
The ancient trees.
The glowing moss.
The countless tiny lights scattered through the shadows.
All of it stretched into indistinct streaks, rushing past her so quickly that Mirabelle couldn't tell whether she was moving through the world or the world was being pulled away from her.
Then —
The forest was gone.
Mirabelle stood somewhere else.
Her breath caught.
There were no trees.
No lake.
No earth beneath her feet that she could actually see.
There were no walls, no ceiling, no horizon. Nothing that should have allowed her mind to understand the dimensions of the place around her.
And yet she didn't feel as though she were standing in an empty void.
