Chapter 11: What Lies Beneath

The worst truths are the ones you see too late.

Kael couldn't breathe.

Dain's grip was like ice, but it wasn't just cold. It was absence. A void pressing against his skin, gnawing at the edges of reality.

And in that moment—Kael saw.

It wasn't just Dain standing before him.

It was something else.

A presence woven through his body, its form shifting like a mirage, tendrils of darkness spiraling from within his very being. A vast, unknowable force hiding beneath his skin—something that had no face, no voice, only an endless, silent hunger.

Something ancient.

Something that should not exist.

Kael tried to wrench himself free, but Dain's grasp tightened—just enough for the void to creep deeper, just enough for him to feel its weight inside him.

And for the first time, Kael understood.

Dain was not just a man anymore.

He was a vessel.

A hollow thing, barely holding himself together beneath the pressure of the entity inside him.

And the Hollow King was not just using him—

It was becoming him.

"You See It Now, Don't You?"

Dain's voice was soft. Almost gentle.

His grip loosened, and Kael staggered back, gasping for breath, the cold still crawling through his veins. His vision blurred at the edges, the echoes of that presence lingering in his mind.

Lysara had drawn her blade, but she hadn't moved.

Kieran stood rigid, fists clenched, eyes locked onto Dain with a mix of wariness and something Kael couldn't quite name.

But it was Vaeloria who stepped forward.

"You let it inside you," she said.

Not a question. A statement.

Dain tilted his head slightly. "Did I?"

Her voice did not waver.

"You were supposed to die, weren't you?" she said. "After the rebellion. After they cast you out."

Kael clenched his jaw.

He had never let himself wonder about what had happened to Dain after his exile.

He had disappeared.

Rumors had spread—some said he had been executed in secret, others that he had vanished into the hollow lands beyond the empire's borders.

No one knew the truth.

No one had wanted to.

But now—Kael wasn't sure he wanted the answer.

Dain leaned back against his throne, his presence suffocating yet strangely calm.

"Would you believe me," he said, "if I told you I was given a choice?"

Kael frowned.

Vaeloria didn't flinch. "A choice?"

Dain's fingers tapped idly against the armrest of his throne. "To die as a man." His eyes—pale and endless—flicked toward Kael. "Or to become something greater."

Lysara exhaled sharply. "And what did you choose, Dain?"

Dain smiled.

And it was wrong.

Because it wasn't the smile of a man.

It was something else wearing his face.

"I chose to survive."

The Hollow Bargain

The room shifted.

The walls, the air itself, seemed to pulse—like the very space around them was breathing.

Dain exhaled, as if releasing something unseen. The weight of his presence lessened, just enough for Kael to steady himself.

And then—Dain did something none of them expected.

He stood.

He stepped forward, past his throne, toward them.

Not in anger. Not in threat.

But in offering.

"You came here looking for an answer," he said. "And now you have one."

Vaeloria's eyes narrowed. "And what answer is that?"

Dain's gaze swept over them—Kael, Lysara, Kieran, Vaeloria.

Then he sighed.

"That you're on the wrong side."

Silence.

Kael felt his heartbeat slam against his ribs.

"Everything you know about the Hollow is a lie," Dain continued. "You think it's corruption. Decay. A disease consuming the world."

His voice was so calm.

"But the truth is simpler."

He spread his arms, as if gesturing to the palace around them—to the ruins, to the Hollowborn in the shadows, to himself.

"The empire is the disease," he said. "The Hollow is the cure."

Kael's hands tightened into fists. "That's not—"

Dain cut him off with a look.

"You felt it, didn't you?"

Kael's breath caught.

Dain took a slow step forward.

"When I touched you," he murmured, "you saw something, didn't you?"

Kael couldn't answer.

Because he had.

He had seen past the veil.

Had glimpsed something beneath the Hollow.

And for a brief, impossible moment, he had felt the truth pressing against him, seeping into his very bones.

That the Hollow wasn't consuming the world.

It was changing it.

Dain's voice was almost gentle now.

"I am offering you a chance," he said.

A hollow throne behind him.

A broken empire before him.

A choice between past and future.

"Join me."

His gaze lingered on each of them.

On Vaeloria, the empress without a throne.

On Lysara, the outcast mage who had already seen the empire's lies.

On Kieran, the knight who had already lost himself to the Hollow once.

And finally—

On Kael.

Kael's blood ran cold.

He felt the weight of that gaze, the weight of everything behind it.

Because this wasn't just Dain speaking.

It was something else.

Something older. Something vast.

And he knew, in the depths of his soul, that if they said yes—

There would be no going back.

A Choice Must Be Made.

Kael inhaled sharply.

Then—Vaeloria spoke.

And her voice was steady as steel.

"We'll never kneel to you, Dain."

Dain's expression didn't flicker.

But the shadows around him did.

"Then you'll break before you bow."

The air shattered.

The throne room exploded into motion.

Darkness rushed toward them.

And the last thing Kael saw—

Was the Hollow itself reaching out.