The pit never forgot what happened that night.
Not the flames that burned without heat.
Not the whispers that silenced the crowd.
Not the boy who stood in blood, holding nothing, yet touched something no one dared to name.
After that, he wasn't "rat" anymore. Not "filth." Not "nameless."
They called him the Hollow One.
Some in fear. Some in awe.
Most in disgust.
He didn't care.
He stopped sleeping near the others. Stopped answering when called. The other pit slaves kept their distance. Even the guards watched him with wary eyes, hands never straying far from their weapons.
And every night, when the fires dimmed and the ash fell quiet, he would return to that same corner of the pit.
To the place where the bone still waited, buried beneath stone.
He didn't touch it again.
Not yet.
He knew enough now to be afraid of power that didn't speak in words.
Three days passed.
Then came the voice he never thought he'd hear again.
He was dragging a bucket of rotwater to clean the blood off the pit floor when someone whispered his name.
Not his real name, he didn't have one. Just the one Lira used.
"Little crow."
His hand froze.
He turned.
And there she was.
Lira.
Not dead. Not vanished.
Alive.
But changed.
She stood behind the iron gate that separated the pit from the upper corridors. Clean clothes. Shoes. A coat lined with velvet. A pale crystal embedded in a collar around her neck.
And eyes that didn't quite meet his.
"I found you," she said.
They let her in.
Guards stood by, curious but silent. A few even smirked.
The boy didn't speak. Couldn't.
She looked healthier. Stronger. Her voice didn't shake anymore.
But there was something wrong in her smile. Something… forced.
"I told them you were special,"she said. "That you survived the pit. They want to help you. Get you out. Give you a second chance."
He stared at her.
"They?" he asked softly.
She hesitated. "My… patron. He saw your fight. He thinks you have potential."
He didn't respond.
She stepped closer. Reached out, slowly. Her fingers brushed his hand.
Cold metal.
A ring.
But not just any ring. One carved with the symbol of the Warden, the same sigil burned into every slave collar.
He pulled back.
"What did they give you?" he asked.
Her lips trembled.
"Food. A bed. A name."
"Whose price?"
Her silence was answer enough.
That was when he understood.
She hadn't come to save him.
She'd come to recruit him.
To own him.
He stepped away.
Lira's voice cracked. "Please… I didn't want to. They said they'd"
"They always say."
He looked up.
And for the first time, his eyes were colder than the stone beneath his feet.
"You were the last piece of mercy I had," he whispered.
Tears welled in her eyes.
And yet, as she reached for him again, something whistled through the air
A bolt.
Shot from the shadows.
Straight into her back.
She jerked, stumbled, and fell into his arms.
The guards didn't move. They just watched.
He caught her, held her, stared at the blood spreading across her chest.
"I, I didn't know," she whispered. "I thought… I thought I could save you."
He didn't cry.
He didn't scream.
He just laid her down gently, brushed her hair from her face, and stood.
Then he turned to the guards.
"Who gave the order?" he asked.
They laughed.
"You're not a god, boy."
He said nothing.
Just walked back into the pit.
Back to the bone.
Back to the Divine Ladder.
And as the cold light bloomed once more beneath his skin, and his fingers closed around the ancient relic,
He gave his first offering.
Not blood.
Not soul.
But the last memory of Lira's voice.
"You may rise," the voice whispered.
"But you will never be whole again."