She made us wait three days, and I understood, watching her from a careful distance during that time, that the waiting itself was part of what she needed to decide. Trust built quickly rarely held under real pressure, and Rennika had spent eight years learning that lesson the hard way."She's watching all of us," Ashen said, on the second evening, the two of us keeping an unofficial watch over the township while the others rested. "Not just you. She wants to see how the whole group behaves when nobody's specifically performing for her benefit.""Smart," I said."Survival usually is," Ashen said. "I did the same thing, the day you pulled my cell out of that Rift collapse. Watched how everyone treated each other once the adrenaline wore off, before I let myself believe the pitch you gave me on the street."---She found me alone on the third morning, sitting near the shoreline where the township's fishing boats sat pulled up against the tide, and something in her posture had shifted fro

Marrow's smile didn't waver at my answer. If anything, it deepened, the particular satisfaction of a man who'd expected resistance and found it exactly where he wanted it."Good," he said. "I'd have been disappointed if the boy carrying Corvain's remains had no fight left in him at all.""He's not a boy," Vael said, blade fully drawn now, cold fury threading through her voice in a way I hadn't heard since the bridge. "And you're not the first person to underestimate exactly what he's capable of."*[BLOOD SENSE ACTIVE.]**[SCANNING HOSTILE PARTY…]**[MARROW KESSEN: THREAT CLASS EXCEEDS STANDARD SCALE. FRAGMENT-BONDED.]**[SIX SUBORDINATES: 6th–7th ORDER, KNIGHT-TRAINED.]**[WARNING: FRAGMENT RESONANCE MAY DESTABILIZE VESSEL STABILITY DURING PROLONGED ENGAGEMENT.]*The warning settled cold in my chest. Whatever piece of Corvain Marrow carried, fighting near it risked pulling at the fragments I'd already recovered, three centuries of fear and hunger calling to itself across the battlefie

The transfer took longer than the previous three, three centuries of resistance finally unwinding rather than surrendering all at once, and I felt Corvain's presence in the blade working through something delicate and painstaking, patience meeting patience across a gap neither of them had expected to close.*[FRAGMENT REUNION SEQUENCE INITIATED.]**[VOLUNTARY TRANSFER — RESISTANCE DIMINISHING.]**[CORVAIN FRAGMENT COUNT: 4 OF 9 RECOVERED.]*Marrow's chained body sagged the moment it completed, the same total release I'd watched Aldric experience, except deeper, older, three centuries of purpose collapsing into something that looked, for a long moment, almost like death before his ragged breathing confirmed otherwise."How do you feel," Maren asked, already crossing to check on him despite everything he'd threatened us with only days earlier."Empty," Marrow said, voice hoarse. "Not in the way I feared. Not erased. Just. Quiet, for the first time since before the Sundering had a name."

I sat with that dread for a long while after the war room emptied, Nozarashi across my knees, feeling Corvain's fear still humming faintly through the steel."He's genuinely afraid," I said, when Maren found me there near midnight. "Not cautious. Afraid. I've never felt that from him before, not even talking about what he became after the Sundering.""Then we treat it seriously," Maren said, sitting beside me the way she always did. "Whatever this Hollow is, if it terrifies the thing that used to be an entire ancient power in its own right, I don't think bravado is going to be the answer.""No," I agreed. "I think the answer is exactly what's gotten us this far. Preparation. People. Everyone at this table doing their part instead of me trying to carry it alone."---We spent the following week building toward exactly that, every resource the Table had gathered finally converging on a single purpose.Yara worked with Sera and Ezren's old notes, cross-referencing everything the disclosu

I didn't have time to weigh the wisdom of it. The Hollow writhed against my grip, its formless mass straining toward the fragments I carried, and Corvain's presence pulsed urgently through the blade, insistent."Everyone pull back," I called, my voice cutting through the chaos of the yard. "Give me space. Don't attack unless it turns on someone directly.""Draven, that's—" Corren started."Trust me," I said, and felt him hesitate, then obey, pulling Ashen's cell back a step, Vael following more slowly, blade still raised, ready.I loosened my grip on the Hollow's shifting mass, not releasing it entirely, but easing the pressure, the same way you'd loosen a hand around something cornered and afraid instead of simply desperate."I know what you are," I said, my voice steadier than I felt. "Something born from a moment nobody wanted, with nothing to anchor you and nowhere to belong. Three centuries of hunger because nobody ever once asked what you actually needed instead of just what you