Ash and Oaths

Ashren

The scroll trembled in his hands.

It was bound in human skin—older than the Queen, older than language itself. Blood runes pulsed along its surface like a heartbeat, alive and hungry. The ritual within was forbidden even by the oldest gods.

Because it didn't just bind the Hollow.

It chained it to the soul of the caster.

And tore away everything else.

Ashren stared at the words. They seemed to watch him back.

Liora entered the sanctum in silence. "That's not a spell," she said softly. "It's a sentence."

Ashren looked at her, eyes hollow. "I know."

"You don't have to—"

"I do."

She didn't argue. Just nodded once. "Then I'll be the one to cut the binding circle."

---

The Hollowborn

It didn't sleep. It didn't need to.

In the ruins of Caelmere, it fed.

Not on flesh—but on memory.

It walked through the minds of the dead, peeling apart dreams and history, learning what the Queen never could.

Ashren had bled for power.

The Hollowborn had always been power.

And it remembered him now.

"You were meant to die screaming," it hissed into the wind. "Now I'll make the world your echo."

---

Selene

They carved the runes into the stone floor of the old cathedral: circles within circles, ancient glyphs steeped in sacrificial blood. It took two dozen seers and half of Selene's strength to keep the structure from collapsing under the weight of the magic.

She watched her son stand at the center of it all.

"Once this begins," she said, "there's no undoing it."

Ashren smiled faintly. "There never was."

She placed a hand on his heart.

"I've already lost you once."

"You didn't," he whispered. "You just had to share me… with a god."

---

The Ritual Begins

As the final sigil burned into the floor, the air collapsed inward. Shadows shrieked. Blood turned to smoke.

And the Hollowborn turned its head.

Miles away, it felt the pull.

"You summon me to chain me?" it thundered.

"No," Ashren whispered, as his soul began to fracture. "I summon you to end us both."

The Hollowborn began to walk faster.

And the world held its breath.