Can be used as a synonym for Death, but often refers specifically to how all mages after extended magic use are torn asunder by their pent up accumulated mana. Imagine someone experiencing sudden a sudden Wild Magic surge that literally causes their bodies to go nuclear and endanger people around them.
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Magic is easy. Blissfully easy. Changing the fabric of reality is nothing but a handwave. The only limit of your power is your imagination. So naturally, the Tearing is difficult. Mages live for a long time, often exceeding 200, but the last 50 years are the hardest ones a human could ever wish to face.
The more magic you open yourself up for and the more spells you perform, the more the link between *the source of magic* and *you* widens. The mana goes from a drizzle to a steady river to a crushing waterfall; and at the end of it, you can't empty yourself fast enough because the cup is simply instantly refilled.
No person can hold that much raw possibility within oneself, and the symptoms soon reveal themselves. The hot core within you burns away the colour of your skin, turning it transparent. Your hair bleaches into driftwood-white and the gel of your eyes become a colourless, see-through matter. The only thing left to be seen, clear as day if it goes so far, is your bones and your veins; not to mention the pulsating, growing and glowing tumor in your chest. Flakes of light continuously leak from it, traveling up and down your skin - forming constellations of burning pain.
You can barely move, your joints hurt, and you’re always on fire. You can't dare a stray thought, because every impulse has the trembling magical potential to perform it.
And it always ends the same way. Finally, the nectar that you once thought so sweet overcomes you and in a desperate attempt to release it, your emotions swell, and you explode into some last, horrifying act of matter-altering magic - designed, often, not only to take your life but also those around you in what can only be described as atom crashing into atom: nuclear.
The Silentium Medicae strives to avoid this, admitting people to their chambers at the first sign of the Tearing on any mage. They lock them inside a secure seal, until the inevitable happens. They tend to them, hoping to ease the passing into something quiet, rather than loud and terrifying.