The space between life and return, where a spirit drifts in Caedhriel's essence until it finds the roots of Tathann and follows them back to the world. Every Valenra who has died describes it a little differently, and none of them describes it willingly.
Death in Caedhraeth is not what it was before the Withering, and for the Aether-touched it is not an ending at all. A Valenra whose body fails drifts loose into the Aetherdrift, a shifting space of silver-blue light and luminous mist where fragments of mortal memory float past like falling leaves and the voices of older spirits move through languages the living have forgotten.
Through the drift hang the roots of Tathann, ribbons of golden-green light pulsing in slow time with the heartbeat of the First Willow. They are the way back. A spirit that follows them upward returns to its mortal form, carrying whatever it managed to keep of itself through the crossing, and leaving behind what it could not hold. Those who linger too long among the drifting memories find the essence they left in the world fading, which is why the returned advise the same thing in the same words: find the roots, and climb.
