Chapter 2: The Hollowborn
Kael had seen death before, but nothing like this.
The creature lunged.
Kael barely twisted out of the way before its clawed fingers scraped across the wall where his head had been. Sparks flew from the stone, the impact deep enough to leave jagged lines in the rock. Too fast. Too strong.
His instincts screamed at him to run.
He bolted.
The alley twisted into the ruins of an old temple district, its broken arches silhouetted against the storm-choked sky. Behind him, the Hollowborn followed, moving with unnatural grace, its armor fused to its skin like molten silver.
Kael chanced a glance over his shoulder—a mistake.
The thing was closer.
Its hollow eyes locked onto his, black voids swirling with a sickly trace of dying starlight. For a brief, impossible moment, Kael swore he heard something—a whisper, distant and fragmented, like a voice calling from the edge of a dream.
Not human.
Not alive.
A shadow darted overhead—a second Hollowborn, moving across the rooftops.
Kael cursed. They hunted in packs.
His boots pounded against the uneven cobblestones as he veered right, diving through a crumbling archway into what had once been a shrine to the Celestials. Time had reduced it to little more than a skeleton of shattered pillars, the once-grand statue of a star-crowned deity now lying in pieces.
A dead god's temple. Fitting.
Kael threw himself behind one of the fallen pillars, pressing his back against the cold stone. He willed his breathing to slow. He had seconds.
The first Hollowborn stepped into the temple ruins.
Kael's pulse thundered in his ears. The thing moved deliberately, its head tilting, as if listening to something Kael couldn't hear. The Hollow King's voice? A memory of what it had once been?
It took another step.
Kael's hand slid toward the hilt of his knife. Not much use against something like this, but if he had to go down, he'd do it fighting.
Then—a whistle cut through the air.
The Hollowborn jerked its head up just as a shadow dropped from the rafters above.
Steel flashed.
A blade, crackling with starfire, plunged into the creature's exposed neck. The Hollowborn let out a horrible, gurgling sound—not a scream, not even pain, just a distant echo of something long forgotten.
Kael barely had time to register what happened before his rescuer—a woman, clad in dark, travel-worn robes—ripped her blade free, kicking the creature's body aside. The Hollowborn twitched once before its form began to dissolve, turning into dark embers that scattered on the wind.
The second Hollowborn snarled from the rooftop. The woman didn't hesitate—she raised a gloved hand, murmuring a word Kael didn't recognize. A pulse of shimmering energy rippled outward.
The second Hollowborn vanished.
Not killed. Banished.
Kael finally exhaled.
The woman turned to face him. Her features were sharp, her dark hair tied back in a loose braid, her eyes burning with raw celestial magic.
Not just any warrior.
A mage.
She studied him, then spoke. "You're lucky I was nearby."
Kael forced a smirk, though his legs still felt like sand beneath him. "Yeah? Who the hell are you?"
The woman sheathed her blade. "Lysara Veyne."
Kael's stomach dropped.
That name. He knew it. Everyone knew it.
The heretic mage. The one who had defied the Astral Council. The one who had been hunted for discovering secrets she wasn't meant to know.
He should have run. Should have stayed far away.
Instead, he heard himself ask, "What the hell were those things?"
Lysara's gaze darkened. "Hollowborn." She knelt by the remains of the first one, running her fingers through the fading embers.
Kael hesitated. "...What does that mean?"
She looked up. "It means Prince Dain has already started his war."