Rowan's POV:
The Hollow was too quiet.
Not peaceful — wrong. Like the forest was holding its breath, waiting for something to split open. I felt it before I heard it, a tremor in the air that crawled up my spine.
Then the Moon cried.
A single drop of light fell from the sky, humming like a heartbeat. It hit the ground with a soft, ringing sound — like glass sinking into water — and the world shuddered.
Light spilled across the moss, swirling, shaping, breathing.
I watched, frozen, as the Moon's tear folded inward and formed a body. Bones first. Then skin. Then hair, damp and soft like he'd been pulled from a dream.
A boy.
A boy made of moonlight.
He lay there trembling, chest rising in tiny, uncertain breaths. He looked impossibly new — untouched, unhurt, unprepared.
I swallowed. "You've got to be kidding me."
His eyes fluttered open.
Silver. Soft. Innocent.
And the moment they opened—
The Hollow reacted.
The wind stilled. The shadows bowed. Moonlight trembled like it recognized him.
Then the ground beneath us lit up — ancient runes igniting in a circle around the boy, glowing brighter and brighter until the air hummed with power.
A whisper slid through the trees, old as the Hollow itself:
"When the Oracle opens his eyes, the Hollow will choose its guardians."
I stumbled back. "Oracle? What— no. No, no, no. I am not dealing with whatever that means."
The boy blinked up at me, confused and soft. "Hi… are you my beginning?"
My heart did something stupid.
Before I could answer, the magic surged outward — a pulse of pure, gentle warmth that rolled across the entire realm.
And far away, five strangers felt it.
A mage dropped his staff mid‑spell.
A trickster froze mid‑laugh, wind dying around him.
A forest guardian stopped mid‑step, vines tightening around his wrist.
A prince with folded wings inhaled sharply, eyes glowing.
A scholar in a shadowed library lifted his head, breath catching.
A warmth bloomed in each of their chests — unfamiliar, disarming, impossible to ignore.
Not desire. Not seduction. Something deeper.
A soft, pure magic slipped into the cracks of their curses and soothed the parts of them they thought were beyond saving.
They didn't know who he was.
They didn't know why they felt this way.
They only knew they had to find him.
The boy tried to sit up, wobbling like a newborn fawn. I caught him before he fell.
He clung to my sleeve, wide‑eyed and overwhelmed. "It's… loud," he whispered. "Everything is loud."
"Yeah," I muttered, helping him to his feet. "Welcome to the Hollow. Try not to die."
When he stepped out of the glowing circle, the forest reacted again — but not like before.
The moment his foot touched the moss, the Hollow shifted.
Roots curled toward him like curious fingers. The air shimmered, rippling with ancient recognition. A low hum rose from the earth — not threatening, not welcoming, simply… aware.
The Hollow didn't embrace him.
It remembered him.
I stared at him, my pulse doing something stupid in my throat. The Hollow remembering him was one thing — the Hollow remembered a lot of things it later tried to eat — but the way I reacted?
That was new.
Something in me tightened, sharp and protective, like a hand closing around my ribs. I didn't know him. I didn't know what he was. But the sight of him standing there — small, trembling, looking at the world like it might swallow him whole — made something in me lurch forward.
Why did I feel like I needed to shield him?
Why did I feel like I'd been waiting for him?
And why, in all the cursed realms, did he say my name like he'd always known it?
I opened my mouth to ask him again, to demand answers he probably didn't have—
He didn't understand any of it.
He didn't know he was the Oracle.
He didn't know he was the Moon's tear.
He didn't know five guardians were already on their way.
He only knew one thing.
He pressed closer to me, trembling. "Rowan…?"
He didn't know my name. I hadn't told him.
But he said it like he'd always known it.
Why does he know my name?
A low vibration rippled through the moss beneath us — subtle at first, then stronger, like something massive was waking up under the roots. The boy stiffened, fingers tightening in my sleeve. The air shifted, colder, heavier, wrong.
The Hollow wasn't watching anymore.
It was hunting.
And whatever it was hunting… it had found us.