The night after the storm was unnaturally still.The Hollow’s streets glistened in the pale moonlight, washed clean by the rain yet haunted by the silence that followed. Even the usual creak of shutters and clatter of loose roof tiles seemed to have gone quiet, as if the whole city held its breath.Kael stood on the outer wall just before dawn, his cloak stirring faintly in the cool breeze that rolled off the northern hills. The moon hung low and bright, framed by ragged clouds that drifted like slow-moving ghosts.The boy stood a few paces away, rubbing his arms for warmth. “I hate this quiet,” he whispered. “It feels wrong.”Kael’s crimson eyes scanned the mist curling at the base of the hills. “The world grows quiet when it’s listening. That’s when you should listen back.”The boy tilted his head, trying to hear whatever Kael seemed to hear, but the night offered nothing but the distant rush of a swollen stream.The watchman on the nearby tower shifted uneasily. “No sign of movemen

By dusk, the fog had finally thinned, but the sky was no comfort. Clouds stained the horizon crimson, as though the setting sun had bled across the heavens. The Hollow’s walls, blackened by smoke and splattered with blood, loomed against the fiery light like the spine of some ancient beast guarding the city’s heart.Kael stood at the northern parapet, his cloak stiff with soot and ash. His crimson eyes reflected the scarlet sky as he watched the enemy camp come alive beyond the charred fields. Torches flared one after another, spreading like wildfire across the lines of tents.“They’re moving again,” Lira said beside him, pulling her gloves tighter. The dried blood on her sleeve crackled as she flexed her fingers. “No rest for the weary, I suppose.”The boy joined them, still limping slightly from a shallow cut he’d taken during the last fight. His face was drawn but his eyes burned with stubborn determination.“They didn’t come this far just to leave,” he said.Kael nodded slightly.

The dawn came sharp and cold, the kind that cut through armor and bone alike. Mist hung heavy over the fields, a ghostly shroud that dulled the horizon and muffled the sounds of the waking army beyond the walls.Kael stood upon the battlements of the western wall, cloak snapping in the biting wind. His crimson eyes scanned the hazy expanse. He could feel it—the tension, the quiet before a storm. The enemy wasn’t retreating; they were shifting. Preparing.Below him, the defenders of the Hollow moved with the uneasy rhythm of exhaustion. Armor clinked. Orders were barked. Fires burned low in iron braziers as the soldiers warmed their hands, their faces pale from sleeplessness. The night’s infiltration had left everyone raw.Lira climbed the stone steps to where Kael stood. Her hair was tied back, her blade freshly cleaned, her expression grim but steady.“Nothing from the scouts,” she said. “The field’s clear for now. But they’re too quiet.”Kael didn’t answer immediately. The mist was

The fires burned for three days before they finally began to die. What remained of the Hollow was a landscape of broken stone and soot. The air hung thick with smoke, the sky a dull gray bruise that never seemed to clear.Kael walked through the ruins of the western wall, his steps slow, deliberate. Every piece of shattered stone and burned timber told a story—of loss, of survival, of the price he’d chosen to pay. His armor was scorched, his cloak torn to ribbons, but his eyes still burned crimson beneath the soot.All around him, the people of the Hollow worked in silence. Soldiers stacked rubble into barricades, children carried buckets of water from the wells, and healers moved between the wounded who lay on makeshift beds. The smell of blood and smoke clung to everything.Lira found him standing where the great gate had once stood. The morning light caught in her hair, though her face was drawn and pale. “The fires are out in the lower quarter,” she said quietly. “We’ve started mo

The rain had not stopped by morning. It came down in steady sheets, washing the ashes from the streets and carrying them into the gutters like gray blood. The Hollow looked almost clean again, as if pretending that the fires, the screams, and the divine slaughter by the river had never happened.But Kael knew better. Cleansing was what the gods called it too.He stood in the throne room—a hall stripped of gold, cracked stone pillars holding up a ceiling that sagged under its own weight. The great banners of the old kings still hung limp and blackened along the walls. The place smelled of wet stone and burned silk.At the center of the hall knelt a man in chains. His robes had once been white and shining, stitched with threads of gold. Now they were little more than tatters, the divine insignia burned away. His head was bowed, his hair clinging to his face, his lips whispering prayers to gods who no longer listened.Kael’s steps echoed through the silence. “You are the one they call th