Chapter Twenty-One: The Hollow Path

The sun hung low behind the clouds, casting no warmth, no color—only a dull, heavy light that madethe world seem like it had already ended.

Torian stood at the threshold of the Hollow Path.

Before him stretched a long, narrow valley, its ground scorched black, its stone ridges curled and

cracked like they'd been twisted by a titan's fist. No plants grew. No water flowed. And the flame

within his chest, steady and vibrant for days now, flickered.

Not from exhaustion.

From resistance.

Skarn stood beside him, tail low, muscles tense. The air was thick with something more than heat—

something that felt like grief stretched into shape.

"This is where he walked," Torian murmured.

Skarn's ears pinned.

A single path carved into the stone led forward—just wide enough for one man, lined with gouges

that ran like claw marks through volcanic glass. The spiral on Torian's hand pulsed softly. For the

first time, the ember inside him felt… uncertain.

Torian didn't hesitate.

They stepped forward together.

⸻

The deeper they walked, the more wrong the world became.

It started with the silence.

Not absence of sound—a silence that pressed inward, like pressure on the ears and soul. Their

footsteps echoed as if the land had swallowed time. The sky above remained colorless, the clouds

unmoving, the wind still.

After an hour, Skarn stopped.His claws scraped the stone, testing its consistency.

It flaked away—not as dust, but ash that bled flame.

Torian knelt and touched the ground. The spiral on his hand recoiled.

"What is this place?" he whispered.

Then came the visions.

Not sights. Not illusions.

Feelings.

Torian took another step and was suddenly there—a boy again, running through fire, his father

screaming in the distance, his mother's hands covered in blood.

He blinked—and it was gone.

He looked at Skarn.

The beast hadn't moved.

The spiral glowed faintly again.

He took another step.

Now the air whispered.

"You let them die."

Torian froze.

"You were too slow. Too weak."

He spun around—no one behind him.The voice came from inside.

Not the ember.

Something older.

He pressed forward.

The path narrowed. Shadows deepened. At the edge of his hearing, he began to catch sounds: steel

clashing, screams, flame roars—all distorted, muffled, like memories dragged through water.

And then he saw himself.

Just ahead.

Kneeling.

Crying.

Holding his father's sword in trembling hands.

Torian stopped walking.

The figure looked up.

And wore his face.

The double's eyes were empty. The spiral on its hand was cracked, bleeding black fire.

"Why pretend?" it asked. "You're not worthy. You never were."

Torian drew his sword.

"You're not me."

"I'm what's left when they all die. When Skarn is ash. When Karnis falls. When the

world remembers you as a mistake."Torian's blade trembled.

Skarn moved beside him—but couldn't enter the illusion. He snarled and paced, unable

to break the boundary.

"Even the ember knows," the echo said. "That's why it won't give you everything."

Torian lowered his blade.

Not in surrender.

In understanding.

"You're not a lie," he said. "You're the part of me that's afraid."

He stepped forward.

The echo lunged—but its flame passed through him like smoke.

Torian walked into it.

And it burned away.

⸻

The next hour passed in silence.

Not forced.

Not suffocating.

Just… quiet.

The worst had not been battle. The worst had been doubt.

And he had survived it.

The spiral on his hand pulsed warm again.Skarn relaxed, though his eyes remained sharp.

They continued down the narrowing path.

⸻

At the very end of the Hollow Path, the valley opened into a ring of jagged obsidian. At

its center lay a flat stone slab.

Burned into its face: a spiral.

Not like Torian's.

This one was ragged, open-ended, broken halfway through. It spiraled outward into

fangs—no center, no purpose. A mark of hunger, not balance.

Malvorn's mark.

Torian stepped toward it.

His spiral burned—not in pain, but in revulsion.

"This is where he changed," Torian said.

He knelt beside the stone.

Skarn growled low. Not at a threat.

At what the ground remembered.

Torian placed his hand beside the mark.

"Not yet," he whispered. "But soon."

The spiral in his palm answered.

Warm.Ready.

And somewhere, far beyond the mountains, in the black halls of a throne carved from scorched will

—

Malvorn turned his head.

And smiled.