They crossed the river at dusk.
The war path behind them, the storm ahead.
But this chapter of Aelira’s journey didn’t begin with blades or blood.
It began with silence.
They had entered the Hollow Lands—an ancient stretch of forest where time folded, and the trees whispered names long forgotten. The air here was different. Older. Wiser. As if the land remembered her… even when she didn’t remember herself.
Astren stayed close, but his presence was quieter now. Protective, not possessive. The fire between them hadn’t faded—it had deepened, cooled into something more dangerous.
More real.
⸻
Three days into the Hollow Lands, Aelira found the temple.
Overgrown and buried beneath moss and stone, it pulsed with the same power that hummed in her veins. She stepped through the crumbling a
