The wind had changed.
Seraphina felt it before she heard the low groan that rolled through the stones of the Hollow like a warning. She stood at the edge of the circle, arms wrapped around herself, the moonlight barely touching her skin. The air was colder tonight. Heavier. As if the ground was holding its breath.
Behind her, the Hollow stretched open, roots like ribs of some ancient beast. And beneath it, something had stirred.
Lucien hadn't returned since morning.
Not in the physical sense. But something of him had come back, something raw and rattled. He'd walked through the threshold of the Hollow with blood on his palms and a mark carved into his shoulder. A mark that hadn't been there before.
Riven was the first to notice.
"Who did this to you?" he asked, voice low and guarded.
Lucien didn't answer. He merely met Seraphina's gaze, and she saw it. The flicker of fear. Not for himself. For her.
That scared her more than anything else.
Hours passed. Seraphina hadn't moved from the circle. She couldn't. Something inside her warned her not to step out. The sigils Lucien had carved earlier still shimmered faintly in the dirt, forming a protective boundary between her and whatever pulsed below the Hollow's roots.
"Ilyra's presence is growing," Riven said, quietly, from her side. "The veil between what is and what was… is thinning."
Seraphina's voice came out hollow. "And Lucien?"
"He's not the same. Whatever found him, whatever marked him, it knew what it was doing."
She looked over her shoulder toward the cave mouth where Lucien had retreated. The scar on his shoulder had burned red like ember when she touched it. Not a wound. A sigil. An invitation.
"Why didn't he tell me?"
"Because he's afraid," Riven said gently. "And because this… this is bigger than he wants to admit."
Lucien didn't sleep.
He sat near the back wall of the cave, the mark still searing on his shoulder. When Seraphina stepped inside, his breath caught, but he didn't look at her.
"You're in pain," she said.
He gave a rough laugh. "That's not new."
"Lucien…"
"You shouldn't have come in here."
She ignored him and knelt in front of him. "Don't shut me out. Not now."
His eyes were shadows, silver ringed with red. "Do you know what's beneath this place?"
She shook her head.
He leaned forward, voice gravel. "A prison. A tomb. A door. I don't even know anymore."
"You went down there."
"I had to. The protections were weakening. Something was clawing upward, and I thought… if I could see it, if I could understand it, I could stop it."
He looked down at the mark.
"But I wasn't the only one watching."
Riven's boots echoed faintly as he walked the upper ridge of the Hollow. He'd sent a message earlier, to the Circle of the Old Flame. If the darkness rising beneath them was what he feared… they would come. But whether they'd help or destroy, he couldn't say.
He knelt near a cluster of scorched moss, fingers brushing the blackened earth.
The pattern was familiar.
A spiral. The same symbol Ilyra once wore around her throat, the sigil of return.
He straightened slowly, heart pounding. "She's not trying to break through."
He looked down at the Hollow's roots, twisting in tortured geometry.
"She's already here."
Seraphina woke to a voice.
It wasn't Lucien's. Or Riven's.
It was hers.
"Don't forget who you were."
She jolted upright, breath caught in her throat. Her hands were glowing again. Dim blue threads flickering along her skin.
"I'm not her," she whispered.
But the voice was already fading.
She turned to find Lucien watching her from the cave entrance.
"You heard her again," he said.
Seraphina nodded. "How do you know?"
"Because she spoke to me too."
He stepped toward her. The mark on his shoulder flared, and for a moment, she saw a shape flicker behind him, wings made of smoke, a crown of twisted bone.
"Ilyra's not trying to destroy you," he said.
"She's trying to be you."
At the bottom of the Hollow, something cracked.
Riven felt it before the sound reached the air. A shift. Like stone scraping against itself in protest. He dropped to one knee, touching the earth again.
Warm.
No burning.
And beneath that… a pulse.
Like a heartbeat.
He stood quickly and ran for the cave.
"Lucien! Seraphina! Something's wrong"
The words barely left his mouth when the ground split.
Roots twisted, stones shattered. A scream tore up from the earth, not human, not animal, other.
Lucien grabbed Seraphina and pulled her to him as the cave roof buckled.
"Hold on!"
The world went black.
They landed hard.
Dust choked Seraphina's lungs as she opened her eyes, blinking through the haze. Lucien was above her, shielding her body with his own. His breath came fast and ragged.
"Are you hurt?" he asked.
She shook her head, throat raw. "No. You?"
He didn't answer. He was staring at something behind her.
She turned slowly.
They were no longer in the cave.
This chamber was older, massive. The walls hummed with glyphs that pulsed in time with her heartbeat. At the far end was a stone altar. And lying atop it,
A body.
A woman.
Her hair was silver as ash. Her skin glowed faintly, even in death.
Riven's voice came from somewhere behind them. "That's not just a corpse."
Lucien stepped forward. "It's what's left of Ilyra's first vessel."
Seraphina approached the altar slowly. She couldn't look away. The woman's face… was almost identical to hers.
"Is this who I was?" she whispered.
"No," Lucien said from behind. "This is who she was."
"And I'm her again?"
"You were born with her soul. Or maybe just a sliver of it. Whatever ritual they used… it anchored her to your bloodline. To your name."
Seraphina's hands trembled. "Why?"
Riven answered. "Because she was betrayed. Burned. Sealed beneath the Hollow by those she trusted. And now…"
He pointed to the mark on Lucien's shoulder.
"She's using you both to finish what she started."
Lucien stumbled back from the altar.
"No. That's not, she said she wanted justice."
"She wants a body," Riven snapped. "And she's almost taken hers back."
Seraphina stared at her reflection in the woman's still face.
"She's not me."
"No," Lucien said. "But she will be. Unless we stop it."
A cold wind surged through the chamber.
The corpse's eyes opened.