Embers of the Forgotten

The Hollow Grove didn't die.

It waited.

Though the tree split down its middle, bleeding sap like molten starlight, the ground didn't stop whispering. The air was still thick with unspoken warnings, and even as the wind began to move again — rustling leaves like tired sighs — Caleb knew better than to believe they were safe.

He crouched beside Ash, who stirred faintly in his arms. The boy's skin was no longer marked with glowing sigils, but bruises patterned his arms and neck like claw marks. Lena sat nearby, dazed, the broken Voidglass blade held tightly in her lap.

She hadn't said a word since the tree cracked.

Caleb reached for her shoulder. "Lena—"

"Don't," she whispered. "It's still here. It didn't leave. It just… changed."

Her voice was hollow.

Like the name.

⸻

They moved quickly, though every instinct told Caleb to burn the Grove to the ground. But the last time fire touched something this old, it almost consumed the mountain. This place was anchored to the world's oldest rot — tearing it out too fast might rip everything around it apart.

Still, Caleb marked the area.

He placed silver stakes in a rough perimeter, laced with salt-dust and moonwater. Old wards. Not enough to destroy, but enough to contain.

Lena and Ash didn't speak during the walk back. The boy held her hand, though. Tightly.

When they reached Blackridge's border, the first sign of danger came not from the woods—

—but from the smoke above the Pack House.

⸻

Blackridge was under siege.

Not by flames, but voices.

Hundreds of them — howling, chanting, screaming ancient battle-hymns from a time before records. Crestmoore wolves stood at the ridgeline, dressed in bone-plated armor, some with hollowed-out masks shaped like wolf skulls.

At their front stood a man with silver hair braided with bloodstone beads.

Lord Raith Crestmoore.

Caleb's blood turned to ice. He'd seen sketches. Paintings. But the man was more than that — tall, lean, his skin paler than snow, and eyes like blue fire. He radiated deathless power.

"I've come for the boy," he called, voice echoing through the valley.

"And I've come to tell you to go to hell," Caleb replied.

Raith smiled thinly. "That's what the last Alpha said. Before the Hollow made a cradle of his skull."

⸻

They met at the circle-stone — the traditional ground of parley between packs.

Caleb stood with Ronan and Bex flanking him. Elias watched from the shadows, preparing old magic. Lena refused to stay behind. She stood with Ash, arms crossed, power simmering beneath her skin like a live wire.

Raith looked them over with casual disdain. "You're younger than I expected."

"You're older than you should be," Caleb replied. "We burned your name out of our histories for a reason."

Raith's smile never faltered. "Because truth offends the weak."

He turned to Ash. "Child. You carry something that belongs to us."

Ash didn't flinch. "I carry something that belongs to no one."

For the first time, Raith's smile cracked.

⸻

Raith's voice turned cold. "That boy was made by Crestmoore hands. Our seers sacrificed generations to bind the Hollow's power into a lineage we could wield. You've disrupted that legacy."

"Good," Lena said, stepping forward. "It was a legacy of slavery."

Raith's eyes darkened. "The Hollow is a tool. What we do with it—"

"—is infect the world," Elias cut in. "You don't want to bind the Hollow. You want to become it."

Raith didn't deny it.

"Balance requires sacrifice. The Hollow is the counterweight. Without it, your lands will suffer."

"You've mistaken conquest for balance," Caleb growled. "Leave. Now."

Raith's eyes glinted. "Or what?"

Caleb's voice dropped.

"Or I bury you next to your ancestors."

⸻

The parley dissolved.

Raith raised one hand and shadows surged around him — forming into four figures cloaked in ash and bone. The Crestmoore Wraithguard.

Ronan drew twin silver axes. Bex unleashed a howl that shattered nearby stone. Lena reached for Ash's hand — and together, their auras lit the clearing like dawn.

The Hollow stirred — not as a curse, but a presence.

And this time, it was listening.

⸻

The battle began without warning.

Wolves launched from both sides — some fully shifted, others in half-form. Crestmoore magic surged across the field, twisting earth and air into weapons. Blackridge held the line, but just barely.

Caleb moved like lightning — claws slashing, fangs gleaming, his power pulsing with Alpha force. But Raith wasn't fighting yet.

He watched.

Measured.

Waiting for something.

⸻

Then, it happened.

Ash was struck.

A spear — carved from the same wood as the Hollow Tree — pierced his side. Lena screamed, catching him before he fell. Blood soaked her hands, black at the edges.

The ground split.

From the crack rose a new tree — smaller than the first, but alive. Pulsing. Rooted in blood.

Raith stepped forward.

"There," he whispered. "The second seed."

Lena turned, fury blazing in her eyes. "You did this—"

"I fulfilled it," Raith said. "Now the Hollow will bloom again, under my command."

He stepped toward the sapling.

Caleb moved to stop him — but the Wraithguard surrounded them, buying Raith time.

And then—

Ash stood up.

⸻

Blood poured from the wound, but Ash's eyes were pure white now — and not just Hollow-light.

He spoke in a voice that was not his.

"The Alpha broke the sky once. He can do it again."

Raith froze.

"That prophecy—"

"Was never yours," Ash said. "It was ours. And you were never the heir."

The sapling pulsed once, then withered — dying in a flash of gray fire.

Ash collapsed again, breathing hard.

Lena caught him.

"I'm fine," he murmured. "But he isn't."

They looked to Raith.

His body trembled.

And then split open.

⸻

Not in blood.

In shadow.

From within Raith's form, something older erupted — taller, skeletal, shaped like a wolf but with too many eyes and a mouth that opened sideways.

The Hollow's First Mouth.

"The vessel failed," it hissed. "So I consume."

It lunged.

And Caleb, Alpha of Blackridge, met it head-on.

⸻

The final battle wasn't clean.

It wasn't noble.

It was savage.

Caleb shifted mid-air, slamming into the creature with enough force to knock trees down. Elias unleashed runes that tore sky from ground. Lena channeled her connection to Ash, forging threads of gold magic that sliced the creature's limbs.

But it didn't die.

Because the Hollow couldn't be killed.

It could only be silenced.

⸻

So Ash did the unthinkable.

He reached into his own chest — into the place where the Hollow