The dawn came heavy with silence.
The heirs and their shadows gathered once more in the obsidian hall, the vast chamber thrumming with an ancient weight. The sigil beneath their feet pulsed brighter than before, spirals of silver light unfurling in patterns too complex to follow.
Saphine stood still, her hands tightening at her sides. She could feel her heart hammering, but Eris's steady presence beside her was like a silent anchor. He had said little since last night, but she knew — from the way his eyes seemed to never blink — that he was watching everything.
The eleven heirs formed their circle. Shadows stood behind them, silent, loyal, waiting.
And then Valari Ka'tarel appeared once more, gliding to the center of the chamber like a figure carved of marble and living light.
Their voice, soft and measured, carried across the stone like the toll of a deep bell.
"The Resonant Hollow is not merely a place. It is a wound in reality, a space where echoes bleed into form. To step into it is to step into a truth your minds will not accept."
The words pressed down on the heirs like a hand upon their chests.
Valari lifted a hand, and at once, eleven small orbs of faintly glowing glass shimmered into existence, each floating toward a shadow. They pulsed softly, like captured hearts.
"These will record you," Valari said. "Every act, every moment of resonance, every failure. Not for judgment of your houses, but for yourselves. The Hollow bends truth, but the orbs do not lie. Your houses will see your echoes as you wield them."
One by one, the shadows reached out, accepting the orbs. The moment Eris's fingers brushed his, the glass pulsed with a faint ripple of cold blue light, as if recognizing him. He studied it briefly before tucking it into his cloak, saying nothing.
Saphine shivered. Something about his orb felt… heavier.
Valari raised their arms.
The great sigil at the chamber's center blazed, the spirals twisting faster, burning with white-silver brilliance. The air warped, bending as though reality itself was being folded. A low hum filled the chamber, like the vibration of a thousand invisible strings.
And then it happened.
The sigil opened.
Light roared upward, not blinding, but endless — a tunnel of fractured stars, whispers of countless voices spilling into the hall. The air trembled with the sound of echoes murmuring, pleading, laughing, weeping. The heirs felt it in their bones: the Hollow was not simply a place. It was alive.
"Step forward," Valari intoned. "And be received."
One by one, the heirs obeyed.
Aerin went first, his stride firm, Meline shadowing him with steel stillness. Seloria Verradine followed with Cyrinth, her elegance unbroken even as her brother Kael sneered and muttered something under his breath. Torin Draemir strode in with a wide grin, Orrik's massive frame following behind like a silent wall.
The others stepped in, each vanishing into the spiraling light.
Saphine swallowed hard.
Eris adjusted his glasses, then glanced at her. "Don't hesitate. The Hollow feeds on hesitation."
She blinked up at him. "…How do you know that?"
His expression didn't change. "I see it."
Before she could ask, he stepped forward, and she was forced to follow.
The moment they crossed the threshold, the world shattered.
The silver light swallowed them whole. Saphine gasped as her body twisted, her sense of direction dissolving into a whirl of impossible images: rivers flowing upward into black skies, forests made of glass, ruins singing like choirs. The voices of echoes pressed against her ears, too many, too loud, whispering fragments of lives not hers.
And then — silence.
Her feet struck solid ground.
She staggered forward, breath catching — and froze.
They stood in the heart of a ruined kingdom.
The air was heavy with the scent of ash and dust. Crumbling towers jutted like broken bones against a gray sky, their spires collapsed into rubble. Streets stretched wide and empty, cracked and overgrown with blackened roots. Statues lay shattered, faces eroded into blank stone.
But it wasn't just any ruin.
Saphine knew these towers. She had seen them in her history lessons, in paintings preserved in House Kaelith's archives. This was Veltharion, the lost kingdom, destroyed centuries ago in her world. Its fall had been written in blood and fire — a kingdom scoured so completely that nothing remained but ashes on history's tongue.
Yet here it stood, silent and broken, as though time had dragged it back from the grave.
"…An illusion?" Aerin's voice came from nearby, strained. His eyes darted across the ruins, spear in hand. "The Hollow must be mocking us."
Meline's gaze was sharp, her blades half drawn. "Illusions do not smell of ash."
Seloria Verradine stepped forward, her calm mask unbroken, though her hand lingered near her shadow. "Regardless of what this is, it has been chosen as our trial."
Torin Draemir let out a whistle. "If this is an illusion, it's a damned good one. I can almost taste the death on the air." He grinned. "I like it."
But Eris's voice cut through them all, low and measured.
"This isn't an illusion."
All eyes turned to him.
He adjusted his glasses, gaze scanning the ruins with unreadable calm. "Illusions fracture if you press too hard. This… is whole. The Hollow does not conjure lies. It drags truths forgotten. This is Veltharion. Not as it was. As it still is."
A chill swept through Saphine. She stared at him, her heart tight. He said it with such certainty, as though he had seen this before.
"…What do you mean, 'as it still is'?" she asked quietly.
Eris didn't answer. He only turned his eyes toward the tallest ruined spire, its shadow stretching long across the shattered city. His fingers brushed the orb hidden in his cloak.
The others shifted uneasily, mutters rising, but before they could press him further, the ground beneath their feet shuddered.
The ruins groaned like a living thing.
From the cracks in the stone, faint lights began to flicker — echo sigils, glowing faint blue, spreading like veins across the ruins. The Hollow was awakening.
The trial had begun.