They did not speak for hours after crossing the threshold. The Forgotten Hollow had taken its price, and in its place it left silence… and eyes.
They began to notice them at dusk.
Slits of gold in the dark, motionless. Always just far enough to question.
"Are they wolves?" Elira whispered.
Selene shook her head. "Wolves blink."
Nareus stared into the trees. His voice low, hollow. "They're not beasts. They're watchers. The Hollow's… sentinels."
Kael kept walking, jaw tight. He still felt the hollow space inside him, like a missing tooth in the soul. He couldn't recall the memory he'd given—but its absence gnawed at him.
"We don't stop until the trees thin," he said.
But the path twisted back on itself, leading them again and again to the same blackened stump marked with old carvings—sigils in a dead tongue.
"We're trapped," Selene said grimly. "It's testing us."
Then the whispers began.
At first like wind through the leaves. Then… words.
"Kael..."
"You will sit the throne..."
"She will die to place you there..."
Kael spun toward the voice—but found only trees.
Elira clutched her head. "They're in my mind—telling me I was never real, that I was made from someone else's broken promise—"
Selene stood rigid, sword shaking.
"I saw myself on the throne... not Kael. I wore the crown..."
Kael raised the cursed dagger. The mark on his arm surged with fire—real this time.
"Enough!" he roared. "You will not divide us!"
The watchers blinked as one.
The Hollow screamed.
From the earth rose creatures shaped like twisted roots and half-formed faces—the Hollowborn, born of stolen memory and forgotten pain.
Kael charged forward. The dagger glowed with dark fire. Selene at his flank, Elira casting light to cut shadow, and Nareus behind them—chanting words Kael couldn't understand.
They fought like those with nothing left to lose.
One by one, the Hollowborn fell.
The whispers broke.
And the watchers… blinked. Then vanished.
As the final Hollowborn turned to ash, a stone gate appeared ahead—etched with moon sigils and ancient runes.
The forest was behind them.
But the throne was closer now.
And it was waking.
---
End of Chapter 24
The Hollow was not meant to stop them—but to break them. And still, they walk. But something has noticed Kael's defiance… and it is no longer content to watch.