The first time Aelia saw the silver mark, she was tending to a dying bird.
Its wings were broken, twisted in a cruel curve that told her it would never fly again. She sat beneath the willow tree behind her cottage, whispering gentle apologies as she laid the creature in a bed of leaves and herbs.
"Fly in your next life," she whispered, placing a sprig of moonbloom over its tiny chest.
But when she looked up, the bird was not the only thing that had stopped breathing.
The entire village had fallen still — unnaturally still.
Children frozen mid-laugh. A merchant pausing mid-shout. Even the wind, which moments before had rustled her braid, now hung like dead weight in the air.
Aelia stood.
Her hands were damp with soil and blood, but her instincts screamed that this wasn't normal.
Then she saw it.
Walking down the village path was a figure cloaked in deep emerald, his robes trimmed with threads of silver that shimmered like frost in moonlight. His face was hidden beneath a hood, but wherever he stepped, the ground sighed. The villagers didn't move — not one blink, not one breath. As if time had bowed to him.
He stopped in front of her. She swallowed hard.
"You are Aelia, daughter of Mirelle?"
She straightened, heart thudding. "Yes."
The man reached into his cloak and brought out a piece of parchment, folded and sealed with wax that shimmered between silver and black.
"You have been chosen," he said, voice low and inhuman. "By decree of the Hollow Realm and His Majesty, the Eternal King Azrik Kael."
The name struck her like a bell.
The Hollow King. The name sung in lullabies and campfire warnings. The one who stole brides in the night, who ruled a kingdom beneath the mist.
She laughed, once. "That's a story for children."
The man didn't blink. "You leave at dawn."
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✧
They gave her no time to say goodbye.
By morning, the village returned to life — but Aelia had already vanished into the mist.
She rode in a carriage unlike anything she'd seen before. Its wheels hovered inches above the road, and the horses bore no hooves — their legs vanished into the fog beneath them. The sky remained dusky no matter the hour, and the air grew heavier the farther they went.
When she asked questions, no one answered.
When she screamed, the driver only said, "Silence, my lady. You're entering the Hollow Realm. Sound is not welcome here."
After what felt like days — or hours, or neither, time was strange in the mist — the trees parted.
And there it was.
The Palace of the Hollow King.
It looked carved from the bones of giants, stone so pale it shimmered like ivory. Towers spiraled into clouds that didn't move. A thousand windows, all dark. Ivy crawled over its walls like veins. There were no guards at the gate, no flags. No signs of life.
Just silence, and the steady thump of her heart.
They led her through the cold marble halls. Servants with hollow eyes bowed but did not speak. Every portrait on the wall stared at her — not with paint, but with real eyes trapped behind canvas.
And at the end of it all, she met him.
He stood alone in a throne room full of empty chairs.
Tall. Immovable. His eyes were the color of burnt silver, and they didn't flinch when they met hers.
His voice, when it came, was quiet and cold. "You are the one."
Aelia lifted her chin, defiant. "I didn't agree to this."
"I don't care."
The silence returned, pressing in.
Finally, he said, "You will be treated with dignity. You will not be harmed. But understand this — you are here because the realm demands it. Not because I desire you."
Something in his tone was heavier than ice. Older than the stones beneath her feet.
"I am not some offering," she snapped. "You can dress me in silk and call me bride, but I will not pretend to love a stranger."
His jaw ticked.
"You mistake me," he said. "I don't want your love."
Then he stepped forward, slow and silent, until he stood just before her. His presence was suffocating.
"I want your survival."
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