There is no magic in the mortal world, only Rifts: “snow marks” from a four-dimensional world that devour obsession and breed loneliness.
Jiang Mang was once a ferryman, then became the only Xuanwu, but willingly shed his divinity and fell into the mortal world. He is immortal, yet can feel pain and die. His memories are broken, and only one obsession remains: to find “the end.” The Rifts can awaken his senses, but they feed on his memories.
In the north, at Raven Ridge, a young raven’s mother died in a Rift, and his obsession became trapped inside it. He can see the fading shadows of the dead, and the torment has brought him to the brink of collapse. Jiang Mang makes a deal with him: “I’ll help you find your mother. You’ll take me to the deepest part of the Rift.”
They travel south together and discover that the Church is experimenting with the Rifts. The clues lead to an ancient book marked with “∞”: Jiang Mang’s own sign. At last, in a temple on a sea cape, Jiang Mang touches the body of the “previous Xuanwu” and realizes that everything is a cycle: falling, forgetting, wandering, returning to Siberia to become a ferryman again, over and over. He has never escaped the framework. He is the framework itself.
The raven, meanwhile, begins to forget in the temple, where time has frozen. He remains forever a boy, returning to the Rift at Raven Ridge and waiting day after day for someone he no longer remembers. Each time Jiang Mang comes through the snow and says, “I’ll help you find your mother,” they travel together for a while, then part. Their memories fade, and everything resets.
The snow keeps falling, with no end in sight.
