The Crownless Curse

Chapter 4: Blood in the Hollow

The wind shifted. Kael stopped in his tracks, every muscle tightening. A scent hung in the air, metallic and old, like rusted chains. He turned his head slowly toward the dense patch of trees rising along the slope. Something was watching.

He stepped forward, keeping low, his boots soundless against the pine needles. The forest here felt different, like it had been holding its breath for centuries. The deeper he moved into it, the more the silence wrapped around him like a noose.

Then he saw it.

A clearing, no larger than a peasant's hut, ringed with stones blackened by age. In the center stood a tree unlike the others. Twisted. Pale. Leafless. Its bark peeled like scabbed skin, and its roots curled out like claws. Beneath it, a patch of earth darker than the rest. Freshly turned.

Kael crouched beside it. The ground was damp and warm. Someone had dug here. Recently. He pressed his fingers into the soil, and the warmth sank into his bones like a whisper from something buried.

A crow screeched above. He spun, sword out in a blink, but there was nothing. Just the wind and the uneasy cry of the bird.

"Looking for ghosts?" a voice said.

Kael whirled around.

A man stood behind him, tall and draped in a patchwork cloak. His eyes gleamed gold beneath the hood, and a jagged scar ran down the side of his jaw like a crack in stone.

"You followed me," Kael said, rising.

The man smiled. "You reek of dead kings. It was not hard."

Kael's grip on his sword tightened. "Who are you?"

The man stepped forward, ignoring the weapon. "A friend, if you have the sense to listen. An enemy, if you keep that blade up much longer."

Kael studied him. He looked like a vagrant, yet he moved with grace and carried himself like a soldier. The air around him shimmered faintly, like heat off a forge.

"Talk," Kael said.

"The earth you touched. That grave. It is not for the dead."

Kael’s brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

The man lowered his hood. His skin was ashen, not from sickness but from something older. He had eyes that looked like they had seen empires fall. "It is a mouth. Not a grave. And someone is trying to feed it."

Kael stepped back, revolted. "What are you talking about?"

"You have seen the Hollow spreading, have you not? The black veins in the trees. The rot in the rivers. This forest was the first to suffer. This... place you stand on is a wound in the land. And someone has started carving it open again."

Kael stared at the tree. It seemed to pulse now, ever so slightly, like a heart beneath the soil. "Why?"

"Because the dead king is stirring," the man whispered.

A cold gust swept the clearing. Kael looked up at the sky. Clouds twisted like smoke, unnatural.

"You are part of this," the man said. "I do not know how. But the blood you carry ties you to the Hollow. And it will not stop until it swallows every kingdom on this cursed continent."

Kael turned toward him, anger sparking. "Then tell me how to stop it."

The man raised his hands. "You do not stop a curse, boy. You survive it."

Kael lunged forward and grabbed him by the collar. "You followed me across half the forest to say that? I do not have time for riddles."

The man didn't flinch. "Then make time. Or die like the rest."

Kael released him. "If you're not going to help, stay out of my way."

The man rubbed his neck where Kael had gripped it. "The witch in the ruined chapel. She knows more than she lets on. But she will not speak to you unless you carry something old. Something touched by the Hollow."

Kael looked down at his hand. The ring. He had almost forgotten it. It was colder now, the stone in its center darker than before.

"That will do," the man said, nodding toward it. "But be careful. That ring is more than a relic. It remembers things. And memories are dangerous."

Kael turned away, marching back toward the direction of the chapel.

"You said the dead king is stirring," he called over his shoulder. "Does he have a name?"

The man’s voice followed him through the trees. "He once did. But the Hollow has many names now. And none of them will save you."

The chapel stood crooked on a cliff overlooking the river bend. Once a holy place, now a graveyard of stones. As Kael stepped through the broken archway, a low voice met him from within.

"You smell like secrets," the witch said.

She stood by what remained of the altar, her robes layered in colorless tatters. Her hair was silver, but her face was ageless. She did not look up when he approached.

"I need answers," Kael said.

She laughed without humor. "And I need a kingdom. We do not always get what we want."

Kael pulled off the ring and tossed it onto the altar. "He said you would speak if I brought something touched by the Hollow."

She turned slowly. Her eyes locked on the ring. A flicker of recognition passed across her face. Then she reached out and touched it.

For a moment, everything shifted.

The air went cold. The shadows deepened. Kael blinked, and suddenly the chapel was whole again, filled with light and song. Then it was gone.

"You should not carry this," she said, voice trembling. "This belonged to the last heir of the Hollowed Throne. His line was thought dead."

"I do not care whose it was," Kael said. "I need to know what this curse is. Why it follows me."

She studied him now with new eyes. "Because you are not what you think you are. You are not just a soldier or a wanderer. You are a piece of something broken. A sliver of a forgotten war."

Kael’s fists clenched. "Enough riddles. What is the Hollow?"

She walked past him, brushing her fingers along the ruined walls. "It is hunger. Born from betrayal. When kings steal what gods have buried, the land remembers. The Hollow is the memory of that theft, and it grows."

Kael stepped closer. "And what does it want with me?"

Her gaze hardened. "It wants you to return. To claim the throne it lost. Or to die trying."

He stared at her, feeling the weight of the ring in his pocket once more. "I do not want a throne."

"You think that matters?" she said. "Blood calls to blood. And yours screams like a war drum."

That night, Kael could not sleep.

The fire crackled beside him, but the warmth did not reach. He kept his sword close, eyes on the treeline, thoughts burning.

The Hollow was not just rot. It was history. It was family. And somehow, it was his.

He took the ring out again. It glinted in the firelight. For the first time, he slipped it on.

The world tilted.

A thousand voices whispered at once. A battlefield. A crown. A promise.

Kael gasped and yanked it off, his breath ragged. But the memory remained, etched behind his eyes.

He looked up at the stars. Somewhere beyond the forest, beyond the cities and broken thrones, there was truth.

And Kael was going to find it.