The light was everywhere.
Caelum was holding Lyra's hand and he couldn't see the walls, couldn't see the ceiling, couldn't see anything except her and the white surrounding them like they'd been lifted out of the world and placed somewhere else entirely.
He had been ready for it to hurt.
It didn't.
It was just enormous. The kind of enormous that makes you feel small and exactly the right size at the same time. Like the size you've always actually been, without anything covering it.
And then it started giving him things.
Not words. Not sounds. Just understanding. The way a dream puts knowledge inside you without ever explaining how. You go to sleep not knowing something and you wake with it sitting in your chest like it was always there.
He knew what the seal had been protecting. Not just that it had been split, or that people were afraid of it. He felt what the wholeness had been. Why people who knew about it kept it locked away.
