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The Hollow Gate pulsed like it was breathing.
Each ripple in its surface carried a whisper, not in words but in sensations—cold, hunger, inevitability.
Aria stood at the treeline, her breath frosting in the air, her pulse thundering in her ears. She could feel the pull of it in her bones, a magnetic drag toward the archway’s center. It wasn’t the same as the Hollow King’s voice—this was older, heavier, like the memory of something that had been waiting for her long before she was born.
Kael stepped in front of her, his massive frame blocking the sight of the Gate. “Stay behind me until I say otherwise.”
She didn’t answer. Her eyes stayed fixed on the shifting surface, watching as shadowy shapes passed beneath it—wolf-like silhouettes with too many eyes, too many teeth.
Rourke cam
