The Hollow answered in whispers.
Lyra stood at the edge of the woods beyond the Bloodveil keep, where the veil between the living world and the old magics thinned like breath in frost. The forest here didn't belong to the present. The trees were wrong—tall, brittle things with bark like scorched bone. They didn't sway in the wind. They breathed. The roots twisted like skeletal hands gripping the dirt, and the mist never lifted.
Still, her mark pulsed. Not with warmth. Not with longing.
But with warning.
She closed her eyes, pressing a palm to her collarbone. The skin beneath her fingers was warm—not in the way a lover's touch might kindle, but in the way a brand burns into flesh long after the iron has cooled.
"If it's not fate... then what are you?" she whispered to the bond.
It throbbed in answer, the ache flaring like something startled awake.
Cain found her there, just before the sun broke over the horizon. She felt him before she saw him—his presence heavy, the pull of the bond thick in the air. He didn't speak. Just stepped beside her and stood, shoulder brushing hers, his gaze fixed on the unmoving forest.
"You always come here," he said quietly.
She nodded. "The bond... it pulls. Here, more than anywhere."
He didn't answer.
"Why didn't you tell me about the Hollow?" she asked at last.
Cain was silent for a long time. Then, "Because I was raised to fear it. To pretend our ancestors didn't barter with gods older than the Moon."
"And what did they do, Cain?"
He turned to face her, and his golden eyes—usually unreadable—were filled with something raw.
"They created bonds," he said. "Not through love. Not through the Moon Goddess. But through sacrifice. Through... blood."
Her stomach twisted.
"Blood magic."
He nodded once.
"When I first touched your skin," he said, voice low, "I felt something I didn't understand. It wasn't fate. It was hunger. It felt like the bond chose you. Not for me. Not for love. But for balance."
She turned sharply to him. "Balance?"
Cain looked away. "There must always be a bound wolf in Bloodveil. One who anchors the Hollow's curse. When I performed the rite, I thought it was to end the wars. To gain strength. But... the Hollow took your death. And in return, it gave me you."
The cold hit her then, sharper than any blade.
"So I was the price," she said flatly.
"Yes."
"And you accepted it."
"I didn't know it would be you."
"That doesn't make it better, Cain."
His silence was answer enough.
Later that day, Lyra descended alone into the war chamber. The keep above buzzed with tension—Kael still lingered like a poison not yet swallowed, and Cain had disappeared into a silence she didn't have the strength to follow.
The old archives were buried beneath the chamber, sealed in vaults lined with salt and old bones. She pried open the iron doors with her bare hands. Dust greeted her like an old curse. The air was dry and close, thick with the weight of centuries.
By candlelight, she read. Scrolls scrawled in languages she half-recognized. In the oldest scripts, she found what she had feared.
"To awaken the Hollow's mercy, one must offer the soul of a bound one. If no soul is taken... the Hollow chooses."
Her hands trembled. She turned the page.
There—etched in ink so dark it looked like dried blood—was her mark.
Not a mate mark.
Not the sacred bond of the Moon Goddess.
A seal.
A cage.
For something ancient.
For something broken.
For something still hungry.
She stumbled back from the scroll, breath catching in her throat. Her knees hit stone.
They didn't just take me.
They locked something in me.
Cain found her again that night.
He knocked once before entering her chamber.
He wasn't wearing his armor. No weapons. Just a black tunic, sleeves rolled, hands bare. In one palm, he held a vial of glowing silver liquid.
Lyra didn't speak. She only stared.
"What's that?"
"A truth serum," he said. "From the Hollow's well. If we drink it together, it will show us the origin of the bond."
She raised a brow. "You trust me to see your memories?"
His throat bobbed. "I'm terrified."
She hesitated.
Then stepped forward.
"Good."
She took the vial from him. Their fingers brushed. The mark on her chest pulsed once, sharply.
"Then let's both be afraid," she whispered.
They sat across from each other on the floor. The candlelight flickered between them.
Lyra uncorked the vial and took a sip. The liquid burned like moonfire, sliding down her throat with a hiss.
Cain followed.
The world tilted.
Her body jerked back as a scream tore through her skull. But it wasn't hers.
It was his.
She was falling.
Through blood.
Through Cain's memories.
Through the truth.
She saw him as a boy—eighteen, kneeling in a circle of stones, a knife in one hand, a scroll in the other. The words he spoke were ancient. Forbidden. And they echoed into the dark like thunder.
The Hollow heard him.
And it answered.
A light flared—not white, but violet. A burst of flame. And somewhere in the distance, a scream.
Her scream.
Lyra saw herself. That night. Broken. Dying.
The bond didn't reach for her.
She summoned it.
In that last breath. That final cry. She had screamed for vengeance.
And the Hollow had answered.
The bond wasn't Cain's.
It wasn't Kael's.
It was hers.
And it had taken root in fire.
Lyra woke with a gasp, body arching from the floor.
Cain was beside her, sweat on his brow, breathing hard.
She looked at him.
He looked at her.
"You didn't do this," she whispered.
He nodded, voice rough. "You did."
Tears welled in her eyes, unbidden.
"The mark lied," she said.
Cain reached for her hand, hesitant. "No. The mark just told a different truth."
She didn't pull away.
The Hollow hadn't cursed her.
It had answered her.
And now... they both had to live with the cost.