They entered the Forgotten Hollow by dusk, when the light was weakest and the air thick with silence.
No birds sang here. No insects stirred. Even the wind moved quietly, as if afraid to wake something sleeping beneath the roots.
Nareus hesitated at the forest's edge. "This place eats names," he warned. "Memories don't survive long inside."
Kael clenched the hilt of his dagger. "Then we don't speak unless we must. Hold on to what you are."
The moment they stepped between the trees, the world shifted.
Branches closed like fingers. Shadows lengthened.
Selene muttered, "Feels like walking into a dream someone else is trying to forget."
Elira lit a charmstone, but its glow bent away from the bark. The forest didn't reflect light—it drank it.
After an hour, the trail behind them vanished.
Kael's thoughts began to scatter. Faces he had known flickered in and out of reach—his brother's voice, his mother's song, his name—
Kael?
He gritted his teeth. "Hold the mark," he whispered. "It's all we have."
The cursed symbol on his forearm flared faintly—its heat anchoring him.
One by one, the others faltered.
Selene staggered, clutching her head. "My blade—it's gone—no, I had it—"
Elira dropped to her knees, whispering names. None were hers.
Even Nareus bled from the nose, staring at his hands as if they were foreign.
Kael drew them close. Pressed his dagger to the earth.
"Hear me," he growled to the trees. "You will not take us."
The forest shivered.
A voice, thin as cobwebs, replied:
"Then give us something instead."
Kael rose. "Show yourself."
And it did.
From between the roots slithered a figure draped in bark and rot, its face veiled in moss.
"The cost to pass is memory," it whispered. "One true moment… forever forgotten."
Kael's jaw tightened.
Elira reached up, trembling. "I'll do it. I'll give it something. I remember the day my mother sang to me before the fire. I'll give it that."
Kael stopped her.
"No." He stepped forward.
"Take mine."
The forest paused. Then, it drank.
A surge of pain raced through him—and then something was gone.
He couldn't remember what. Only that there was an empty space where once, something warm had lived.
The forest parted.
They passed.
But none of them smiled again that night.
---
End of Chapter 23
The Hollow lets them pass—but every step forward demands a piece of who they are. The throne does not kill swiftly. It erodes. Piece by piece. Memory by memory.