The ruins groaned again, louder this time, as though the very stones remembered the fall of their kingdom.
Sigils flared beneath the heirs' feet, brighter and brighter until the cracked streets of Veltharion were flooded with pale blue light. The orbs each shadow carried pulsed in answer, recording silently, their glow too steady for comfort.
Saphine shielded her eyes against the growing brilliance. "What's happening—?"
Her words cut off as the ground split beneath them.
The ruined city seemed to ripple like water disturbed by a stone. The heirs cried out, scattering as the very world fractured. For one breath, all of them stood in the same ruin. For the next — they were torn apart.
Eris's hand caught Saphine's wrist in the chaos. His grip was iron, his expression sharp, but not even his strength could hold the Hollow's will at bay. The light split like glass, shattering into three spiraling paths that devoured heir and shadow alike.
And then the silence came.
Saphine's Group
When the light cleared, Saphine staggered forward, clutching her chest. The air here was… different. Hotter. Thicker, as if smoke clung to every breath.
Eris stood beside her, hand still on her wrist, steadying her until she regained her footing. Behind them came two figures — Seloria Verradine, calm even in this madness, her shadow Cyrinth at her side, and Lyssandra Kaelith, whose wide eyes darted around, her shadow little more than a silent flicker at her back.
But the ruin around them was no longer silent.
The sky boiled crimson. Ash fell in waves like snow. Towers burned with hungry fire, collapsing one after the other in screams of stone. The streets ran with the sound of chaos — people fleeing, voices shouting, the desperate clang of steel against steel.
This was Veltharion. Not as ruin. Not memory. Veltharion in its final hours.
Saphine froze, her chest tight. "…We're in the past?"
Seloria's lips pressed into a thin line. "No. Not the past. A reflection. The Hollow bends truth. We are forced to walk the moment of this kingdom's death."
Lyssandra's face was pale as she clutched her arms. "Why would it show us this? Why here?"
Before anyone could answer, Eris finally spoke. His voice was quiet, but it cut cleanly through the chaos.
"Because the Hollow feeds on endings."
Saphine turned to him, searching his face. He wasn't just guessing. He knew. His Grand Gaze was seeing threads none of them could.
"You've seen this before," she whispered.
His eyes flicked to her, unreadable. "…In fragments." Then he looked away, back toward the burning city. "Stay close."
Without another word, he started forward, weaving through panicked villagers rushing past them — people who didn't seem to see the heirs at all, as though they were phantoms haunting the collapse.
Seloria followed, ever composed, while Lyssandra clung closer to Saphine.
And as the towers fell and fire ate the horizon, Saphine could not stop her hands from trembling.
Aerin's Group
Far away — or perhaps in another fold of the same world — Aerin and Meline emerged with their shadows. But the Veltharion they stood in was alive. Vibrant. Whole.
The sky was clear blue, the towers unbroken, the streets bustling with merchants and noble carriages. Children laughed in the squares. The smell of bread and spice filled the air.
Aerin blinked, stunned. "…This is—"
"Veltharion before the ruin," Meline finished softly. Her twin blades twitched in her hands. She didn't lower them. "The Hollow has split us. Shown us fragments."
Aerin clenched his spear. He could feel it — this wasn't dreamlike. This was real. Somehow, the Hollow was not showing illusions, but realities long buried.
And that thought chilled him more than the ruin itself.
The Remaining Heirs
The others — Torin, Kael, Selene, and their shadows — found themselves still in the broken ruin as it had been when they first arrived. Silent. Empty. Dead.
But as they gathered themselves, the silence grew heavy. And from the cracks in the stone, faint blue figures began to rise — not echoes, but fragments of the dead. Soldiers of Veltharion, eyeless and translucent, dragging broken weapons as they slowly turned their heads toward the heirs.
The third group had been left in the graveyard of Veltharion itself.
Back to Saphine
The heat grew worse with each step. Screams echoed down the streets. In the distance, an explosion tore through the spires, showering burning stone like meteors.
Saphine forced herself to move, even as her legs shook. Her hand brushed the orb hanging from Eris's cloak. It pulsed faintly, recording it all, an eternal witness.
She glanced at him. "Eris… if this isn't the past, then what is it?"
For a moment, she thought he wouldn't answer. Then his lips curved in the faintest, humorless smile.
"You're expecting me to say 'illusion.'"
"…Yes."
His eyes glimmered faintly, unnerving. "It's worse. These aren't illusions, Saphine. They are remnants. The Hollow does not invent. It takes. This is Veltharion's death carved into the marrow of the world — and now it forces us to walk it."
The ground shook violently as another spire toppled. Seloria narrowed her eyes, clutching her cloak tighter. "Then we are being judged not by how we fight… but by how we survive history itself."
Lyssandra whimpered, covering her ears as more screams rang out. But Saphine — despite her terror — felt something stir in her chest. Her Echo, still faint and distant, shifted as though the Hollow's wound pressed against it.
The Fragment she carried pulsed.
And for one breath, she thought she heard a whisper.
A beautiful life yet to be written…
Her skin went cold.
Before she could dwell on it, Eris's hand settled on her shoulder. "Don't get lost."
When she met his eyes, she saw it again — that calm, that unreadable certainty that he knew more than he ever said.
But this time, she noticed something else. For the first time since entering the Hollow, he looked… troubled.