CHAPTER ONE: BENEATH THE ROOTS
The Hollowwood didn't speak—it listened.
Its branches curled like fingers above Elira Thorn's head as she pushed deeper into the underbrush, the hem of her cloak catching on thorns that hadn't been there yesterday. She swore softly and tugged herself free, careful not to wake the nest of horned beetles that clung to a fallen log nearby.
It was nearly dusk. The light in the forest wasn't golden. It was bruised—blue and purple, bleeding into black—and it whispered of storms.
"Elin will be awake soon," she murmured to herself, brushing a smear of dirt from her cheek. "No tea. No fever root. Gods help me."
Her sister's cough had gotten worse. The forest was her last hope. She needed the root of a duskbloom—a plant that grew only where the sun hadn't touched in a decade—and the only place dark enough, dead enough, was here.
The old trees parted just enough to reveal a hollow in the earth. At its center, a crooked stone stood like a grave marker, half-swallowed by roots and moss. Elira froze.
She hadn't come this way before. She was sure of it. And yet…
Her feet moved before her mind caught up. Her hand brushed the stone, and something burned.
Not fire. Memory.
A flash—blood on a stone floor. A silver crest torn from a man's chest. Eyes wide with betrayal.
Elira yanked her hand away, heart pounding. "What in the gods'—"
She dropped to her knees. The roots beneath the stone had shifted. Something was buried there.
She dug with trembling fingers. First dirt. Then bone. Not human—too small, too clean. Then…
A piece of metal.
She pulled it free. Wiped the soil from its surface.
It was a badge. Cracked, worn. A hawk, wings outstretched, carved over a broken crown. The insignia of the king's champion.
Her throat closed.
"Kaelen Stride."
She hadn't meant to say his name aloud. It was forbidden. A traitor's name. A ghost the kingdom had buried a decade ago.
And yet, here it was.
Still warm.
A wind rose behind her. No leaves moved.
Elira turned.
The trees were listening.
By the time she reached her cottage, the forest had gone silent behind her. She didn't realize she was crying until she spilled the badge onto the table and saw the salt trails on her cheeks.
Elin lay in the bed near the hearth, breath ragged, cheeks flushed. She stirred and reached out.
"Elira… your hands. They're shaking."
"I found something," Elira said, voice low. "In the Hollowwood."
She didn't mention the dreams. Not yet.
That night, Elira didn't sleep.
She lay beside her sister with the badge clutched in her palm. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw him.
Not the traitor the kingdom painted him to be.
A man. Blood-soaked. Kneeling before a king who wouldn't meet his eyes.
His last words hadn't been a curse.
They were a question:
"Why?"
She woke with a gasp just before dawn. The badge had
burned a mark into her hand.
Outside, the crows were flying in circles—backwards.
CHAPTER TWO: THE ORACLE WARNING
The bell echoed long after it stopped ringing.
Elira sat at the edge of her bed, the badge still pulsing faintly beneath her pillow. Morning sunlight strained through the frost-lined window, but it brought no warmth.
Elin's breathing had steadied during the night. That should've brought relief.
It didn't.
Elira's mind kept circling back to the hollow. The armor. The blood that wasn't hers. The voice that called her name in a voice she somehow knew but couldn't place.
And the bell. That damned bell.
There hadn't been a functioning bell tower in Duskwatch for over ten years—not since the eclipse, not since the day Kaelen died. The rope had been cut, the structure condemned, the bell itself cracked in half and left to rot atop Blackmere Hold.
So what had she heard?
By noon, she stood at the foot of the Vale's only road not marked on maps.
It was barely a path—just a winding trail swallowed by mist and lined with stones older than any known record. Locals called it the Spinewalk. The brave called it cursed. Only the foolish walked it without reason.
And no one walked it looking for her.
Seeress Myrren Vale.
The Oracle of the Sundering.
Rumors said she'd died during the eclipse, heart struck down by the very prophecy she swore to protect. Others said she lived in the wilds still—old, mad, muttering to bones and wind.
Elira didn't care if she was mad.
She needed truth.
The path rose steeply as she climbed through the trees, boots slipping against slick rock and half-buried roots. A cold drizzle had started, soaking her hood. But she didn't stop. Her breath was sharp in her lungs. Her legs burned.
Somewhere between exhaustion and instinct, the trees opened.
And there she was.
Myrren Vale sat on a stone chair carved directly from the mountain.
She looked like part of it—draped in robes of ash-grey and russet, her silver hair plaited down her back. Around her neck hung a cord strung with teeth—not animal, not human, but something stranger. Her eyes, pale as fog, met Elira's the moment she stepped into view.
"I've been waiting," Myrren said simply.
Elira froze.
"I didn't tell anyone I was coming."
"You didn't need to. I smelled it last night. The breath of the dead. The fire in the root."
She rose slowly, her bones cracking with the effort. "You touched it, didn't you?"
Elira hesitated. "The badge."
Myrren gave a single nod. "The mark of the Champion. Carried it home, didn't you? Felt the weight behind your dreams?"
Elira opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again.
"What is happening?" she whispered instead.
Myrren's expression softened. "Something the Vale tried to forget. Something it buried beneath stone and shame."
She gestured to a worn bench and sat across from Elira as if they were merely sharing tea, not unraveling ancient truths.
"When Kaelen died," Myrren said, "he wasn't alone."
Elira blinked. "The execution was public—"
"His body was public," Myrren interrupted. "His soul was taken elsewhere. Broken. Bound. You think the earth holds silence? It only waits."
She reached into her sleeve and pulled out a scroll wrapped in dark green silk. She laid it gently on the bench between them.
"This is the Sundering."
The scroll's seal was old wax, stamped with a crescent moon and an open eye.
"It says the one betrayed by oaths and blood will sleep beneath root and stone until the land calls him back. But it warns us—"
She leaned closer.
"If he returns in rage, the Vale will burn. If he returns in grief, it may yet rise."
Elira looked down at her hands. "Then we stop him from returning in rage."
Myrren laughed—dry, brittle.
"You think it's that simple?"
Elira felt her face flush. "I have to try. I found him—"
"He found you," Myrren said. "And that means you're woven into the weave. You are not a witness in this story, child. You are its tether."
Elira swallowed hard.
Myrren's voice grew quieter.
"Kaelen Stride was not a saint. He was not a monster. He was a man. That is why the gods listened when he died cursing the sky. And it is why he will rise not as he was—but as he chooses to be."
Elira rose slowly, her thoughts a storm.
"Where do I go now?"
"Back," Myrren said. "Back to the hollow. The ground is already breaking. He's remembering. Piece by piece."
She handed Elira the scroll.
"And when he speaks again, listen. Not with your ears—with your soul. If he sees only vengeance in you, you will lose him. And the Vale will lose everything."
Elira walked back in silence, the scroll tucked inside her cloak.
By the time she reached her home, the sky had turned the color of iron. Elin was asleep, sweat cooling on her brow. A strange, fleeting peace had settled over the cottage.
But Elira knew it wouldn't last.
She lit a candle and unwrapped the scroll.
The writing was ancient, symbols braided through each other like veins. But her eyes settled on one phrase at the very bottom—newer, fresher ink.
"He will come walking through fog, without breath or name. And the wind will whisper what the world forgot. His shadow will carry death
. His voice—truth. His heart—?"
CHAPTER THREE: WHAT WAKES IN THE DARK
The wind shifted as Elira crossed the Hollowwood's edge.
It wasn't the kind of wind that brushed past with a chill. This one moved slow, like something crawling over the ground—alive, searching, trying to remember.
She paused beneath a crooked oak. The same one she had passed three nights ago when she'd first touched the badge.
The same one she had never seen again on her way back.
The forest had changed.
It remembered her now.
The trees didn't just lean—they bent.
The mist clung heavier, clumping around her boots, rising up her legs like a warning. And still, she walked.
Her fingers brushed the inside of her cloak where the scroll Myrren had given her was tucked beside the badge.
It pulsed gently. Faint warmth. Like breath against skin.
Ahead, the clearing yawned open.
The earth had split.
The hollow where Kaelen's remains had been was no longer a grave.
The breastplate was gone.
The broken hilt—gone.
The gauntlet, the torn cloak, the scattered bones—all of it.
In its place, a trench ran jagged across the clearing like a wound torn from the roots outward, as if the forest had exhaled something it had buried too long.
And at the far end of the scar, where mist pooled darkest, someone stood.
Not moved. Not walked.
Stood.
Elira's breath caught in her throat.
He was tall. Broad-shouldered. Drenched in dirt and blood and old silence. His clothes—what remained of them—hung like torn flags. His bare feet sunk slightly in the wet earth.
He didn't look at her.
Didn't speak.
But she knew.
"Kaelen," she whispered.
The figure twitched slightly at the sound, like the name pulled at a frayed nerve.
She stepped forward. The air grew heavier with each pace, as though the forest itself resisted her presence now—not out of danger, but reverence.
He turned his head slowly.
And she saw his face.
Not like the vision. Not yet.
His features were half-obscured by grime, hair tangled and hanging over one eye. His lips were cracked. His skin was pale as moonlight, and streaked with soil and old blood.
But his eyes—
Gods.
They were not the eyes of a dead man.
They were wounded.
Feral.
Lost.
His mouth opened slightly. A sound escaped—more growl than word, like speech had forgotten how to form in him.
Elira stopped where she was.
"You remember me," she said gently, not sure why.
The silence hung like a blade.
Then he spoke.
Only one word.
"…Why?"
His voice was hoarse, jagged, like it had been dragged from his chest through fire.
Elira shook her head. "I don't know. I only found"
"No," he interrupted. Louder. Stronger. "Why… did they…?"
He stumbled forward a step. His legs shook. His hands trembled.
He was shivering, but not from cold.
From fury.
"Why did they take… my name?"
His hand clutched his chest—where the badge had once rested.
"I was loyal. I bled for him. I bled for all of them."
Elira's heart pounded. She stepped closer, hands raised, unsure if she was approaching a man or a storm.
"You were betrayed," she said softly. "By those closest to you."
His head lifted. His eyes met hers.
For a moment, she saw the man from the stories—the commander, the sword of the king, the oathbreaker turned martyr.
And then it was gone again, like smoke.
"I don't… remember… my own voice."
"You're still finding it," Elira said.
He looked down at his hands like they were strangers.
"Elira," he said, and this time it was not a question. It was a fact.
She blinked. "You know me?"
"No." He shook his head slowly. "But your name is carved… somewhere… in what's left of me."
He fell to his knees.
Not dramatically. Not broken.
Just tired.
Elira dropped beside him, ignoring the wet soil, the blood, the stench of death unburied.
She reached out carefully. Not to touch, not yet.
To be near.
"I'm not here to tell you what to do," she said. "I'm just here. If you want to burn the world, I'll walk beside you until you decide not to."
He didn't reply.
But he didn't move away.
And that was enough.
Night fell early in the Hollowwood.
Elira built a small fire with the kindling she kept in her satchel, shielded from the wet. Kaelen didn't speak again, but he sat beside the flame like it meant something.
His eyes watched the dancing sparks with a kind of aching reverence, as if he'd forgotten fire existed.
As if he once feared it.
Finally, when the stars began to pierce the black sky, he spoke again.
"I saw the king's face," he whispered. "The moment before the blade. He was crying."
Elira didn't speak.
"He let them take my head. But his eyes begged me not to hate him."
His fists clenched.
"I don't know… if I can forgive him."
"You don't have to," she said quietly.
Silence.
Then Kaelen turned to her.
"What is the Vale now?"
She answered truthfully.
"Afraid. Weak. Hollow."
He nodded once.
"I remember it standing tall."
"It forgot how."
His gaze returned to the fire.
"Then maybe it's time someone reminded it."
CHAPTER FOUR: ASH BENEATH OUR FOOT
The fire had died down to embers by morning, leaving only smoke curling low through the hollow. Elira didn't sleep—she'd tried, but every time her eyes closed, she saw his face again. Not Kaelen as he was now, kneeling quietly near the coals, but the version she had seen in dreams. Tall. Armored. Blood on his hands. Betrayal in his eyes.
The version history tried to erase.
She stirred the coals gently with a stick, her breath steaming in the morning air. Kaelen hadn't moved all night, save to shift his head slightly toward the sky just before dawn. Like he was listening to something she couldn't hear.
"Do you remember anything more?" she asked softly.
He didn't answer right away. Just lifted his eyes to hers.
"They carried me through a tunnel. Stone. Narrow. Cold."
Elira didn't move.
"I think… I think they dragged me through the old catacombs beneath Blackmere. I remember the sound. Water dripping on stone. I remember…" His brow furrowed. "A voice. One of the guards. He was crying."
Elira let the silence stretch before saying, "The stories say you stood until the last second. That you didn't beg. Didn't even blink."
Kaelen looked down at his hands.
"I was shaking," he whispered. "Not from fear. From rage. And I remember the king couldn't look at me."
Elira nodded slowly. "Myrren said your soul was sealed. Not just killed."
Kaelen's jaw tightened. "Because they feared what I knew."
He looked at the dirt beside the fire, then closed his hand into a fist.
"There was a scroll. I remember now. Before the war in the North… I intercepted a letter. Someone inside the court—someone close to the king—was making deals with Emvaria."
Elira straightened. "That's treason."
"I brought it back to the capital. I gave it to General Vael myself." He exhaled sharply. "He said he would handle it quietly. That the king didn't need more unrest."
"And then two months later," Elira said quietly, "you were accused of plotting a coup."
Kaelen nodded once.
"They used the scroll. Changed the seal. Claimed it was from me."
The firelight danced in his eyes.
"I was executed for revealing a traitor."
They broke camp just after midday.
Elira led him along the quiet trails out of the Hollowwood—avoiding roads, favoring streams and stone paths over soil that might betray their tracks. Kaelen said little. Occasionally, he would stop, as if hearing something beneath the wind—some echo of his former life.
At one point, they came across a withered field of lilies, long since choked by frost. Kaelen stood at the edge of it, silent, staring at a crumbling stone marker half-buried in vines.
"Elira," he said quietly, "I remember this place."
She turned to him, but didn't speak.
"I buried my horse here. During the famine. We were feeding soldiers, and there wasn't enough. I let them butcher her so the men wouldn't starve."
He knelt beside the stone.
"She had a name," he said. "Ash."
Elira watched him run his fingers across the rough carving. No tears. Just a quiet, aching grief.
"Even that," he said, "they erased."
By the time they reached the first ridge overlooking Duskwatch, the sun was beginning to fall, turning the mist golden. From here, the spires of Blackmere Hold could be seen in the distance, rising like teeth from the cliffs of Mount Veymoor.
Kaelen stood at the edge of the hill, arms crossed.
"It looks smaller than I remember."
"Everything does," Elira replied, "when you're no longer chained to it."
He didn't smile, but something flickered in his eyes.
Then: hooves.
Elira grabbed Kaelen's arm and pulled him into the brush. He went willingly, still moving with the silence of a trained soldier.
From the trail below, two riders passed—scouts in the king's colors. Both carried crossbows. One wore a cloak embroidered with the symbol of the royal guard.
"…they say the Hollowwood's cursed again," one of them muttered as they passed. "Birds flying backward. Fog that chokes your voice. My uncle swore he saw a man standing in the old grove. Tall. Eyes like fire."
"Superstitious nonsense," the other scoffed. "You really think the dead walk?"
"No. But if he does, I hope he remembers who put the noose around his neck."
Their voices faded into the trees.
Kaelen didn't move until they were long gone.
"They'll come looking now," he said. "They know something's wrong."
Elira looked up at him. "Then we don't wait."
That night, back in the safety of her cottage, Elira lit every candle she owned.
Kaelen sat in silence at the table. Elin was asleep again, breathing steadier, her color slowly returning. Whether it was Elira's treatments or the strange shift in the air since Kaelen awoke, she didn't know. She was afraid to hope.
On the table, the scroll of the Sundering sat open.
Kaelen read the words slowly, fingers brushing the faded ink.
"His shadow will carry death.
His voice—truth.
His heart—?"
He looked up at Elira.
"What do you see in me?"
Elira didn't answer right away.
Then, finally:
"I see someone who was broken, but not gone. Someone who doesn't know what they want yet. But they'll choose."
Kaelen studied her.
"You don't fear me."
"I do," she said honestly. "But I fear what will happen without you more."
A beat passed.
Then Kaelen leaned back in the chair.
"Then we find the one who forged the scroll
," he said. "We find Vael. We find Alaric."
"And then?"
Kaelen's voice was low.
"Then we make them speak the truth. Or choke on it."
CHAPTER FIVE: THE TRAITOR'S WELCOME
They reached the village by nightfall.
Elira had hoped to wait until morning—let Kaelen rest, let her gather supplies. But the look in his eyes said otherwise. He needed to move. The stillness was beginning to close in on him like a cage.
So they moved.
The road into Greyfen, the outer settlement just two miles from Blackmere Hold, was quiet. No traders. No carts. Just shuttered windows and smoke drifting from hearths behind locked doors.
Kaelen pulled his hood lower. His old cloak was too thin for this kind of night, and too familiar. Anyone who remembered the Champion might see what they weren't meant to.
"This place used to sing at dusk," he murmured. "Children running. Black bread on the fire."
"That was before the war," Elira said. "Before you were… gone."
He didn't answer.
They entered the village square cautiously.
It was smaller than Elira remembered—just a ring of low buildings around an old well, the stonework chipped from decades of neglect. A crooked tavern leaned against the wind, its sign hanging loose by a rusted nail.
Only one window glowed with light.
The Wayfarer's Hearth.
Kaelen hesitated at the threshold. "You sure about this?"
"No," Elira said. "But if we're going to find allies—or enemies—we need to be seen."
He nodded once.
She pushed open the door.
The Hearth was nearly empty. Just four patrons sat scattered across the room—two hunched over mugs at a corner table, another half-asleep near the fire, and a man polishing glasses behind the bar.
The innkeeper looked up—and froze.
Elira felt the shift. It was small. A slight stiffening of his jaw. A flicker of recognition that passed too fast.
Kaelen stood behind her, quiet, still, but present.
"I need a room," Elira said. "And hot food, if it's left."
The innkeeper nodded slowly. "Got stew. One room upstairs. Small, but clean."
He handed her a key. "Name?"
"Thorne," she said. "Lena Thorne."
The lie slid easily. She hadn't used her real name in a village this close to Blackmere in years.
The innkeeper's eyes shifted to Kaelen. "Your brother?"
Kaelen met his gaze, then said nothing.
Elira nodded. "Doesn't talk much."
The stew was too salty. The bread stale. But it was warm.
Kaelen sat by the fire, eyes fixed on the flames.
Something about it—how he stared—unnerved her. Not fear. Not even longing.
It was like he was trying to remember what it meant.
"How long do we stay?" he asked.
"Long enough to find out who still remembers the truth," she said. "Or who's willing to lie to keep it buried."
Kaelen's voice dropped. "Someone in this village knew. Someone helped them rewrite the story."
She didn't argue.
Behind them, the door opened.
The same two men who'd been drinking in the corner stood.
One walked out.
The other didn't.
He stood by the fire now, arms crossed.
"You don't remember me," he said.
Kaelen looked up slowly.
The man had a crooked nose and an old scar across his chin. Soldier's eyes. Farmer's hands. Familiar.
"Rolan," Kaelen said.
The man's eyes narrowed. "So you do remember."
"I remember you ran dispatch during the Northern campaign. Light-footed. Always carried too many knives."
Rolan grunted. "Still do."
Silence stretched between them.
"Why are you here, Kaelen?" Rolan asked finally. "You were dead."
Kaelen looked him straight in the eye.
"I still am."
They spoke upstairs, in the cramped room lit only by a single candle.
Elira sat near the window, listening as Kaelen and Rolan exchanged clipped, careful words.
Rolan had once admired Kaelen. That much was clear. But now, he was cautious. Like a man standing too close to a fire he once built.
"They say you betrayed the king," Rolan said. "That you planned to seize the throne with Emvarian support."
"They lied."
"I know."
Kaelen's head lifted.
Rolan sighed. "I knew the letter wasn't yours. But you vanished before anyone could question it. Vael made sure of that."
"And you stayed quiet."
"I had no choice."
Kaelen rose. "There's always a choice."
Rolan didn't flinch. "Maybe. But I had a daughter. And a wife who would've disappeared in the night if I'd spoken up."
The air turned cold.
"I'm not proud," Rolan said. "But I'm still alive."
Kaelen stared at him.
"Then help me do something with what's left of that life."
They planned through the night.
Rolan would pass word to old soldiers—those who still remembered Kaelen as he was, not as he'd been branded.
There weren't many left in Greyfen. Most had scattered. Some had sworn loyalty to Vael. A few had vanished entirely.
But there were names.
And names were seeds.
By dawn, Rolan was gone.
And Elira, watching Kaelen stretch his hands before the fire again, realized some
thing had changed.
Not in him.
Around him.
The wind outside had stopped.
And somewhere in the distance—
Blackmere's bell tower let out a single, cracked note.