The Womb and the Blade

The forest trembled as Hazel stepped forward—neither running nor yielding. Her eyes shimmered with the ash and gold gifted by Ashborn's soul. The Hollow watched. The Mother loomed.

Silas gripped Evelyn's wrist tightly, his voice low and raw. "If she chooses the wrong side—"

"We won't let her," Evelyn whispered. But even she wasn't sure what "wrong" looked like anymore.

Hazel's voice cut through the tension like a blade:

"I know the words now."

The Mother tilted her head. "Then speak them, child. Bind me, if you dare. But know this—you are not outside me. You are born of me."

Hazel stepped into the circle of dead soil where nothing had grown since the Hollow first awakened. Her footsteps left blooms of blood-root in her wake.

She raised her hand.

Ashborn's final gift glowed in her veins—a pattern of knotted roots etched in light across her skin. And with that power, she began the ritual.

The Hollow screamed.

Not aloud—but through wind, through trees, through the rattling bones of every creature that had ever died within it. The Mother flinched—not in pain, but in memory.

Hazel's voice rose:

> "I call back what was taken.

I unwrite what was carved.

I do not seal your rage—

I bury your name."

The Mother staggered.

"No," she growled. "You cannot erase me."

Hazel's eyes blazed. "You're not being erased. You're being released."

For one second, the Mother faltered.

And that was all it took.

The earth beneath her split open, swallowing roots, bark, and screams alike. The ritual had not just bound her—it returned her to where she had once been loved. Not feared. Not feared. Not feared.

The Hollow exhaled.

The skies cleared.

A hush fell over Black Hollow so deep, the trees themselves bowed.

---

Hazel collapsed. Blood streamed from her nose, her ears. Evelyn caught her before she hit the ground.

Silas knelt beside them. "Is she…?"

Hazel blinked slowly. "She's gone. Not dead. Just... asleep."

Ashborn's voice echoed faintly in the wind.

> "You have broken the curse, but not the root."

"One day, all things return to the earth."

---

In the silence that followed, a single black seed rolled from Hazel's palm.

Unmarked. Quiet.

Waiting.