White Petals and Hollow Men

The manacles burned.

Kael's wrists were raw from where the saint-steel cuffs had bit into his skin. They hadn't even removed them when the prison cart finally stopped, dragging him into the vaulted stone chamber like a dog left to rot. Every inch of the chamber reeked of cold iron and old death. The walls pulsed faintly with frost sigils etched into sanctified rock—dying glyphs barely holding their breath.

But what caught his eye was the flower.

A single white bloodflower had grown through a hairline crack in the stone floor, impossibly alive in the heart of consecrated ground. Its petals gleamed, pristine, untouched by soot or ash. A chill settled in Kael's chest—not from the cold, but recognition.

"That one's been waiting for you."

The voice came from the shadows.

Kael turned his head.

There, slouched against the far wall, was a man shackled by rusted chains. His chest was hollow—literally. Where his heart should have been was an empty cavity, the ribs bent outward like the bars of a birdcage. Frost clung to his skin in long veins. His eyes were two shards of glass, cracked and colorless, and they reflected nothing.

The name arrived without invitation.

Kane.

It didn't echo. It didn't even register on Kael's tongue. The flower whispered it, and his soul simply obeyed.

One year before the crown.

The ruins of Kael's village stank of blood and ash. He was only a boy then, clutching his sister's bone locket like it could stitch her absence shut. The Saints had come during twilight and taken her for "blessing." He remembered the sound she made when they cut her—like a bell snapping in half.

The ground wept black sap where her blood had fallen.

All the flowers that grew from it were dark and twisted.

All but one.

A single white bloom rose from the wound in the earth, humming softly in a wind that didn't exist.

Kael reached for it—then paused.

A shadow moved.

Not a man. Not quite a beast. Something stretched between those two truths like a severed tendon. The thing stood barefoot, draped in torn robes and bound in living roots. Its ribs had grown through with bloodflower stems. Blossoms pulsed in its throat.

"They'll call you Hollow King," it whispered.

Then it knelt and pressed the bloom into Kael's palm.

"But the petals remember your real name."

The next moment, it was gone. No footprints. No breath.

Only the locket remained—cradling the flower.

"You met my corpse," Kane said, almost fondly.

A Scourge Knight kicked the bars.

"Quiet, Soulless."

Kael didn't move. His eyes never left Kane's.

Soulless.

That wasn't a nickname. It was a System designation.

Resurrected, but not re-aligned. Animated without sanction.

Kane grinned, teeth chipped and gray. "I died planting these flowers. Now they grow where kings are buried."

His voice lowered to a rasp. "You're next."

Kael's spine stiffened. He didn't want to ask—but he already knew.

Beyond the observation wall, sealed behind thick glyph-glass, something moved.

A bear.

But not the one from the forests. This one's fur had changed. Stitched through with long white roots, its muscle was taut with saint-blood and old rage. It paced slowly in its containment cell, massive claws dragging along the stone. And its eyes—

Its eyes reflected the Hollow Crown's shape.

Kael stared.

The bear stared back.

Kane exhaled.

And the frost sigils on the wall shattered like glass.

"Welcome to the garden, Hollow Seed."

They came at dawn.

No words. No weapons—just a needle.

A Saint jabbed it into Kael's neck. Liquid starlight. Mana suppressant. His limbs dulled instantly, and he collapsed, teeth clenched to keep from crying out.

Chains rattled.

They dragged him toward the prison's inner sanctum, toward the heart of Grithmar. Somewhere behind him, Kane remained seated, chains curling at his feet like lazy vines.

"Ask the warden why the flowers bloom upward here," Kane called softly.

Kael looked back once.

The bear slammed its paw against the glass. The wall didn't break. But the crack that spread from its impact was shaped unmistakably like a crown.

Then the doors groaned shut.

Darkness.