The Threshold of Souls

There is no sky at the Threshold of Souls. Only a red glow rising from below, from a sea of molten rock that breathes like a sleeping beast, and a stone path that runs out into it toward a shrine no one ever built.

You open your eyes on that stone. You don’t remember closing them.

The flames in the braziers give off no heat. The air smells of ash, and of something older than ash. At the far end, beneath a throne of bone and wings, someone has been waiting for you for a very long time: a figure wrapped in a grey mantle, its face hidden behind a black fan embroidered in gold.

“Soon your soul will be mine…”

The voice comes from nowhere. It comes from everywhere.

“But first… choose how you wish to live your legend.”

It is the God of Death, and he is in no hurry. He has watched every hero of Midgard be born and die. He knows he will see you again. We always meet again, he will say later. But this time, for reasons he does not explain, he grants you something he grants no one: a path.

The first leads to Arsinoe, a distant continent that is silently crumbling. There you will wake as one among many, in a village by the sea, not yet knowing what you are. It is the long road. It is the only one that keeps certain secrets… and certain rewards for whoever walks it to the end.

The second leads to Trinity, the great city of Rune-Midgard. It is the familiar road: the sword, the monster, the reward. No one will tell you prophecies. No one will demand them of you.

“Take your time,” says Death, and for an instant he seems to smile behind the fan. “But don’t keep me waiting for an eternity.”

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This book follows the first of the two paths.