The night air reeked of burnt fur, wet earth, and something older—like rusted iron left in a tomb for centuries.
Darien moved like smoke through the goblin trenches.
His ash-hand was nearly gone now—just a faint gray shimmer around his bones. He had let the Unlight consume more of himself than he'd admitted. Every step sent cold fire through his veins. Every breath tasted of void.
But it worked.
The goblins didn't see him.
The orcs didn't smell him.
Even the stone-giants, their hollow eyes scanning the dark, looked through him as if he were already dead.
He followed the chanting.
Not words. Not songs.
A low, guttural drone that vibrated in the chest, rising from a massive pit at the center of the camp.
There, hundreds of goblins knelt in concentric circles, carving runes into the earth with jagged flint knives. Their blood mixed with black powder, forming channels that glowed violet.
At the pit's edge stood the First Hollow, arms raised, drawing power from below.
Darien crept closer, hiding behind a shattered siege engine.
Then he saw it.
Beneath the ritual circle, the ground wasn't just dirt—it was stone. Ancient, cracked, covered in elven script so old even Lira wouldn't recognize it.
And at its center, carved in the shape of a fallen star, was a name:
V A L E N T H I S
His blood turned to ice.
Valenthis.
The name of the first Warden of the Great Tree—a hero said to have vanished during the Age of Breaking, long before Aelarion.
According to legend, Valenthis sacrificed himself to seal away a primordial darkness.
But the truth… was worse.
As Darien watched, the First Hollow lowered its hands—and spoke in a voice that was both ancient and heartbreakingly familiar.
"I did not fall to darkness. I became its cage."
Memories flooded Darien—not his own, but echoes trapped in the stone.
He saw Valenthis standing on this very plain, facing a rift in the world—a tear where fear itself bled into reality.
Instead of sealing it with light, he did the unthinkable:
He stepped into the rift… and let it consume him from within, becoming a living prison.
For a thousand years, he held the Hollow at bay.
But time eroded even sacrifice.
The cage cracked.
The prisoner woke.
And the world forgot the guardian… remembering only the monster.
"They called me traitor," the Hollow whispered, touching the name on the stone. "But I was always loyal."
Darien's breath caught.
This wasn't an enemy.
It was the original protector—broken, forgotten, and now twisted by millennia of isolation.
And the goblins weren't summoning it.
They were trying to free it completely—so it could finish what it started: erase all light, and end fear forever.
Back in Lyothara, Lira felt it.
The breathing book pulsed violently in her lap.
New words bloomed—not in glyphs, but in clear elven script:
"The Hollow is Valenthis.
To wound him is to wound the first oath of our people.
To kill him is to break the last seal."
She ran to the Chamber of Roots.
"The ritual isn't to awaken something beneath the city," she gasped to the King. "It's to release Valenthis fully! If they succeed, the Deep Seal shatters—and whatever sleeps below… rises."
Aerion paled. "What sleeps below?"
Lira's voice trembled. "The thing Valenthis was holding back. The true First Fear."
Outside, the chanting grew louder.
And the ground beneath Lyothara began to tremble.
In the enemy camp, Darien made his choice.
He couldn't kill Valenthis.
But he couldn't let the ritual complete.
Slowly, painfully, he pulled the vial of golden sap from his pocket—the last drop still liquid, warm against his fading flesh.
He dripped it onto the ritual channel.
Where the pure sap touched the violet blood, the runes sizzled and died.
The chanting stopped.
The First Hollow turned.
Its star-dead eyes locked onto Darien.
"You…" it breathed. "You remember me."
Darien met its gaze, ash-hand trembling.
"I remember your sacrifice."
For a heartbeat, the Hollow's form softened—just a flicker of the elf it once was.
Then the goblins shrieked, sensing betrayal.
Arrows flew.
Darien ran—not toward the city, but deeper into the camp, drawing their fury away from the broken ritual site.
Behind him, the First Hollow did not give chase.
It simply knelt, placed a hand on the name Valenthis, and wept tears of black rain.
And far below, something older than fear stirred in its sleep.