The Whisper of Forgotten Vows

The night air was thick with dampness as Anna stood by the window, watching the moonlight fracture across the glass. Ethan lay on the couch behind her, his breathing steady but shallow. His face, illuminated by the faint glow, looked younger in sleep—less haunted.

But Anna knew better. The shadows never truly left him. They coiled beneath his skin, whispering secrets only he could hear.

And sometimes, when his lips moved in sleep, Anna recognized the words. Ancient. Familiar.

The language of her father's kind.

Her fingers brushed the cold windowpane. The reflection that stared back at her wasn't entirely her own tonight. Her dark eyes, usually sharp and clear, shimmered faintly with an amber hue—the mark of her lineage.

"He can never know," she reminded herself. The words were a mantra etched into her bones. "If he learns the truth, he dies."

The curse wasn't metaphorical. It was as real as the scars on her palms—gifts from her father's lessons in blood magic. Victoria had been clever, perhaps even more than Anna had anticipated. The woman hadn't just anchored herself to the Hollow King; she'd left behind a minefield of spells and curses designed to protect her secrets.

And this curse—the curse of memory—was the most vicious of them all.

If Ethan ever remembered Anna's true identity, his heart would simply stop. No dramatic convulsion. No agony. Just... silence.

Anna's jaw tightened.

She had to stop caring.

But when Ethan murmured her name in his sleep, voice soft, almost broken—the name from before, the name no one had spoken for centuries—her resolve shattered into fragile splinters.

The morning arrived reluctantly, dragging pale sunlight through the farmhouse windows. Ethan sat hunched at the kitchen table, stirring a cup of coffee he hadn't touched. His face was gaunt, eyes shadowed from another restless night.

Anna placed a notebook in front of him. "I think I've found something."

Ethan's gaze sharpened. "A way to stop her?"

Anna hesitated. "A way to... intercept her resurrection."

He arched a brow. "There's a difference?"

"The Hollow King isn't just a single entity," Anna explained, flipping open the notebook to a diagram she'd sketched overnight. It showed three concentric circles intersecting at a central point. "It's... a network. A hive consciousness built from fragments of other souls. Victoria attached herself to that network, but she can't fully return until the Hollow King's power stabilizes."

"And we destabilize it?"

Anna nodded. "If we fracture the Hollow King's mental lattice, Victoria's consciousness won't have a solid anchor. She'll be stuck in the void."

Ethan rubbed his jaw. "And how do we do that?"

"We find the core fracture point."

Ethan's eyes darkened. "The child."

Anna's heart skipped a beat. "Yes. The child."

The silence stretched. Ethan's fingers drummed against the table's edge.

"She's... different," he said finally. His voice was soft, but there was something almost reverent beneath the words. "When she looked at me... I felt like she knew me. Like she understood things I didn't even know about myself."

Anna forced a neutral expression. "The child is powerful. It's probably just residual psychic feedback from the ritual."

Ethan didn't look convinced. "No. It felt... familiar." His brows knit together. "Like I'd known her... before."

Anna's stomach dropped.

He's getting too close.

She cleared her throat. "We need to focus. The Hollow King's influence is spreading. If we don't act soon, Victoria won't need the child to cross back."

Ethan exhaled and nodded, but his eyes lingered on the sketch of the Hollow King's sigil.

That night, Anna sat beside Ethan's bed, watching him sleep. His brow creased as if locked in an invisible battle.

The dreams had been getting worse. His murmurs now held fragments of phrases she hadn't heard in centuries—words from their past life, from the nights they'd spent beneath twin moons, whispering promises neither of them had kept.

Anna brushed his hair back from his forehead. The warmth of his skin stirred something in her chest she thought she'd buried long ago.

But Ethan was changing. The bond with the Hollow King had left an imprint—not just in his body, but in his soul.

The shadows within him were no longer entirely foreign. They responded to him now, coiling when he grew anxious, stretching when he was calm.

He was becoming something new.

And part of her wondered if that was what Victoria had intended all along.

Anna's gaze shifted to the notebook on the nightstand. The phrase circled in dark ink stared back at her:

"Regnum Inanis. Corpus Mulieris. Mente Perpetua."

The empty kingdom. The woman's body. The eternal mind.

Anna's pulse quickened.

Victoria had never planned to return as a shadow. The Hollow King wasn't her tool—it was her womb. The child wasn't her heir. It was her vessel.

And Ethan...

Ethan was the door she'd left unlocked.

The next day, Anna didn't tell Ethan what she'd discovered.

Instead, she drove them into the city, following the coordinates she'd found etched in the margins of Elias's final notes.

The coordinates led them to a derelict chapel on the outskirts of the old district. The stained glass was shattered, the wooden pews rotting with neglect. At the altar stood a single figure: the pale-haired man from the Umbra Library.

He turned as they entered, lips curving into a faint smile.

"You found the coordinates," he said. "Good. I hoped you would."

Anna's grip on her knife tightened. "You didn't mention the child was a vessel for Victoria."

The man's eyes flicked toward Ethan. "I didn't want to speak too plainly... in front of the door."

Ethan stiffened. "I'm not a door."

The man's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Oh, but you are. You've been one since the moment she chose you." He gestured toward the altar. "Come. I'll show you what you're opening."

They approached the altar. Anna's breath caught as she saw the diagram carved into the stone—a replica of the Hollow King's sigil. But here, in the center, was not the child's face.

It was Ethan's.

The pale-haired man's voice softened. "The Hollow King isn't a child, Mr. Ward. It's a cycle. Every incarnation requires a host body for its power and a guide to shape it. The child is the shell. You're the key."

Ethan's eyes widened. "That's why she wanted me."

Anna's throat constricted.

The man nodded. "And that's why Anna needs you."

Ethan turned to Anna. "What the hell is he talking about?"

Anna opened her mouth, but no words came.

The man smiled. "Tell him, Anna. Tell him what you really want."

Ethan's gaze locked onto hers. "Anna?"

The curse burned in Anna's chest, searing through her ribs, threatening to crush her heart if she uttered the truth.

The truth:

That she hadn't come here to destroy the Hollow King.

She'd come to steal it