Chapter 15: Hollow of Dusk
The Hollow wasn't a place--it was a wound upon the world.
A place where the gods buried their sins and locked them away behind walls of bone and ancient magic. Where the winds spoke in tongues long forgotten, and the earth itself bled ichor.
Kaelen had inherited the stories as a child-stories meant to scare restless children and drunken soldiers. At the gaze into the gaping mouth of that abyss, the stories sounded shamefully lightweight.
The entrance was signified by monstrous remains, bones larger than ten men, rib cages creating a jagged opening into the blackness.
There was a flicker of trepidation amongst the group. Men who had glared into horrors across a hundred different battles now held their blades in tighter grips.
Anethra stood forward. "That place remembers betrayal-every death, every oath broken, every love forsaken. It will test you."
Lyra's fingers grazed Kaelen's.
"Good," she muttered. "Let it test us."
And with no more words spoken, Kaelen led them into the darkness.
Underneath the Earth
The Hollow consumed sound.
Even the clank of armor, even the soft footfalls, gone. It felt as if the world above had come to an end. All that remained was Anethra's staff; its liquid white light travelled only as far as ash-slick walls of ancient blood.
With each step further below, it became colder.
Things moved in one's peripheral vision. Shadows that did not belong.
They passed through caverns lined with shattered thrones, rusted blades, and warped and twisted crowns, the remains of gods who once attempted to reign.
And then they reached the first Guardian.
It was no living thing.
A being of bone and skeletal flesh, twice the size of any man. With eyes of flame green, and hands with jagged hooks. The stench of decay was thick.
"I will not let you pass," it said, a voice like a thousand voices overlapped.
Kaelen stepped forward. "We don't have time for this."
It lunged.
The fight was intense. The creature's claws struck like lightning, slicing steel. Screams filled the air. Magic burst forth. Lyra wove under the creature's claws, her twin blades a flashing whirl.
Kaelen met the creature's charge, his sword a strike of ash and fire.
It would only fall when Anethra shoved her staff into its chest, a moment that exploded in a cloud of ghostlight that shredded the creature's body.
They did not stop.
There were still more waiting.
The Echoing Halls
They fought through rooms of living shadow, of beasts born from ancient betrayals. Wraiths that spoke in the voice of lovers lost. Monsters, shaped from vows never kept.
Each room stole something from them.
Darren was wounded, bearing two wounds.
A mage called Coren was dragged screaming into a pit.
Anethra's pallor deepened; her strength drained with every step.
But they did not stop.
At the heart of the Hollow, they found a chamber of mirrors.
Each held a version of them: crooked, broken, monstrous.
Kaelen saw himself as a tyrant with a crown of bones, Lyra's severed head in his grip.
Lyra recoiled from a reflective traitor, wearing Aeris's sigil, Kaelen's heart chained around her neck.
"This is the Hollow," Anethra gasped. "It shows what you may become."
And one by one, they shattered the mirrors.
And one by one, pieces of themselves were left in the pieces that remained.
The Shard of Origin
The last chamber was a cathedral of stone and fire.
At the center was the Shard, on an altar of obsidian, a spear of crystal that pulsed with ancient power, and the air hummed between them.
Kaelen instinctively reached for it.
But before they could grab it, the chamber shook.
A figure stepped from the shadows.
Aeris.
No longer a whisper, no longer a passing danger.
He was tall, pale as moonlight, with thin eyes covered in fathomless voids.
"You believe you can sever me?" he said with a sneer.
They formed a line.
Lyra at Kaelen's side.
Darren, bloodied but standing firm.
Anethra, leaning heavily on her staff.
"We are done being your pawns," Kaelen spat.
Aeris raised a hand.
And the walls screamed.
The Last Stand
What came next was utter chaos.
Aeris was not just a god. He moved like a storm, with any piece of movement creating clouds of flame and shadow. Men died silently. Darren was sent into the wall with a snap.
Lyra fought like a wild woman in the face of death. Blood and tears mixed. Each strike was for the fallen and what they could no longer reclaim.
Anethra cast spell after spell until her voice stopped.
Kaelen got to the Shard.
Aeris turned to him. "You would trade your soul to save her?"
Kaelen didn't even pause.
"I would trade the world."
He plunged the Shard into Aeris' chest.
The god shrieked, a screech that fractured the very sky.
Light erupted out of the Hollow.
Earth ruptured.
And Kaelen's final thought was of Lyra's hand in his
When the Light Faded
Kaelen found himself on burnt ground.
The Hollow was gone.
Aeris was gone.
The world lay fractured as a whole, but the tether was gone.
Lyra was there, kneeling next to him.
"You dumb bastard," she said softly.
He smiled, a mouthful of blood. "Still here."
Darren was limping over. "You broke it."
Anethra's body lay still; her duty was to see to completion.
They were the last.
And even though the war was not over, the harshest part of it had passed.
Kaelen turned toward the horizon.
"I made a promise," he said.
"To whom?" Darren asked.
Kaelen met Lyra's gaze. "To her."