Aelira didn’t speak.
She couldn’t.
Not because of fear—she felt none—but because the name echoed too violently inside her skull.
The Devoured.
Cain’s grip on his blade didn’t waver, but his voice had lost its usual edge. “They’re dead. They should be dead.”
The obsidian-skinned woman straightened, grin unfading. “Most things worth fearing should be.”
The others fanned out behind her—twenty, maybe more. Men and women shaped like shadows, armored in fragments of history and myth. Every step they took bled silence. Not absence of sound, but a stillness that felt like the breath before a scream.
Aelira’s voice finally returned, low and sharp. “Why are you here?”
The woman tilted her head. “You woke us.”
“I didn’t call you.”
“You didn’t have to.” Her amber eyes narrowed. “The Hollow d
