Cosmology

The Cosmos

Seven hundred and seventy-seven Realms. Forty-two survive.

Seven Hundred and Seventy-Seven

Seven hundred and seventy-seven Realms before the Sundering. Each one a different answer to the question of what life could become if given enough time and care. Each one anchored by an Architect pair, holding the tension between Maker-force and Unmaker-force in the configuration that lets a cosmos remain a cosmos.

Forty-two Realms survive. The lights of the others can be watched extinguishing in the Memory Mosaic, in sequence, each one a Realm and everything a Realm contained. The watching has the character of a sound that started before you arrived and will continue after you leave.

The Architects

Maker-force generates, holds, restores. Unmaker-force dissolves, reduces, returns. A Realm at perfect balance is alive. A Realm that loses one of its forces dies, and the dying is not quiet. Architect pairs are the cosmos's load-bearing physics. They are not gods. They are builders who cannot put down what they are building.

The Sacred Laws

Five laws written into the architecture of the cosmos before individual Realms existed. Not commandments from above. Physics.

  1. Architects may not form bonds of Forged Love. The bond between them is structural, not personal.

  2. Architects may not abdicate their commission. A Realm without its pair collapses.

  3. The Celestial hierarchy may not intervene in a functioning Realm.

  4. The Soul Economy may not be altered by individual action.

  5. Forged Love, if discovered, will be severed. The consequences are the Architects' own.

The Scar Cathedral

The Cathedral was not built. It grew, the way grief-structures grow, from the energy of the severed bond. Its arches echo the angle the forests of the Seventh Realm learned in their long bend toward light. Its vaulted ceilings repeat the curve of the amber sky in the last good age. Its translucent walls flicker with images of Realms that no longer exist. It is alive. It is responding.

The Surviving Realms

Cosmographic map of the surviving Realms, with notations for Realms referenced in the novel and those already fallen
The cosmography of the surviving Realms. Some of these are mentioned in the novel. Some are waiting for later volumes. Some have already fallen and are rendered here as memory.

Enter the Cosmos

The first three chapters are available to read now. No account required.

Read the Sample Read on Kindle