The Deep Readers

The Far College's radical wing — scholars who dose themselves so deeply on Old Work power that they begin, slowly and willingly, to come apart like it did.

Every Reader is taught the line you do not cross; the Deep Readers cross it on purpose. They argue that you cannot truly understand what broke Vallen until you let the same crack open a little in yourself, and they have the half-translucent, faintly trembling look of people proving it — riven, in miniature, the way the King of Aelvyrenn is riven entire. Taras Mournwright is sliding toward them one obsessive night at a time. The College tolerates them because their findings are extraordinary and dreads them because their findings tend to outlive the finder.