THE LUNA HE THREW AWAY

The Hollow’s Teeth

You never really understand what fear is until you hear someone you love scream your name in the dark and there’s nothing but trees between you and the sound.

The Hollow ate the torchlight. I was running. Kael was just ahead of me, Cass behind, cursing as she tripped on roots. Jax’s scream was already fading. It was replaced by a sickening silence that made the hair on my arms stand up. I didn’t think; I just pushed, the Sovereign fire in me burning like a fever. It was the oldest magic of our kind- bright, wild, hungry. It was alive under my skin and never quite under control. Sometimes it felt like hope. Sometimes, like the edge of panic- hot and reckless, alive with possibility if I could just keep it from spilling out. All heat, all hunger, and too much power for one body to hold. My legs didn’t want to work. I made them.

“Jax!” I shouted. “Jax, answer me!”

No reply. Just the snap of a branch, a ragged breath, the echo of something big moving too fast for any human.

Kael was hunting-mode now, every line of his body ready to kill. “Stay behind me,” he snapped.

I ignored him. “If you slow down, I’ll use you for bait.”

He almost grinned. Almost. “That’s the Lira I know.”

We crashed through the brush, thorns tearing at my arms, the magic inside me growing sharper, more urgent. I could feel Jax- his panic, his hope, the wild, desperate thud of his heart. I followed the pull.

We found him in a clearing, cornered by three of Marek’s creatures, Exile-wolves, but wrong. Their eyes glowed silver, but their skin was streaked with black, as if something had burned the old magic through them. Everyone said Exile-wolves were once a pack, twisted when the Hollow itself cast them out. Long ago, they chose loyalty to the wrong Sovereign, or broke the one law the Old Growth could not forgive, and the Hollow marked them, stripping away every bond, every memory of home. But now, it was Marek who called them back from the brink, using forbidden rites to stitch rage where mercy used to live, turning them into something more weapon than wolf. Word in the camps was that Marek was building his own pack from the ruined and the erased, twisting loyalty into something hungry and loyal only to him. Some said he wanted more than revenge, he wanted to remake the Hollow in his own image, or force the Sovereign back to the old ways, no matter how many lives he had to break in the process. Or maybe the woods punished them for crimes nobody remembered. They were beautiful and terrible and not quite real.

Jax was on the ground, blood on his forehead, a pan in one hand, a stick in the other. He looked up, saw me, and managed a crooked, bloody grin. “About time.”

One of the creatures lunged.

It never reached him. Kael was faster, a blur of teeth and fury, his wolf half almost breaking through. He slammed into the thing, sending it spinning into the brush. Cass moved like a knife, taking the second one’s legs out from under it. I faced the third.

It was young. Too young. Its eyes met mine, and for a split second, I saw the person underneath- the lost, the erased, the one who’d never been given a name.

I hesitated.

It lunged.

I didn’t use the flood. I used the current. I reached out, willed it to STOP.

It froze, mid-leap, body shaking with the effort of resisting me. Its mouth opened, but the sound was broken, like static. I felt its pain, its hunger, its memory, the way the Old Growth had hollowed it out, left it nothing but rage and instinct. For a second, I almost let go.

“Lira!” Kael shouted. “Now!”

I pushed, not with anger but with will. The creature dropped, panting, eyes dull.

Cass killed the one she’d downed. Kael stood over the one he’d battered, knife raised.

“Wait,” I said. My voice sounded strange, older.

He hesitated, knife trembling. “They’re not wolves, Lira. They’re not anything.”

“They’re survivors,” I said. “Like us.”

He stepped back, breathing hard.

Jax groaned. “If you two are done being noble, can someone get me on my feet?”

Cass helped him up, muttering curses. I knelt beside the young Exile-wolf and pressed my palm to its forehead. Its fur was coarse and ragged, cold with fear. For a heartbeat, it flinched away. I closed my eyes and breathed, letting myself feel everything- the ache in its body, the hollow hunger in its bones, the way its hope flickered like a dying ember. It was afraid, but also reaching, aching for something that barely lived in memory. I tried to speak across the void and tried to find the thread that bound us all: Sovereign to lost, pack to packless. I called up memories of my own losses, my own exile, the ache of not belonging anywhere. For a second, it felt like we were the same- two souls marked by the Hollow, surviving on the edge of mercy. I felt something catch, like a line snagging a root.

It looked at me, and its eyes cleared, just for a heartbeat.

Thank you, it mouthed.

Then it pushed itself upright, turned, and ran into the trees.

Kael watched it go, jaw tight. “You’re going to regret that.”

“Probably,” I said. “But not today.”

The clearing was a mess: blood, broken sticks, and the smell of fear. Jax leaned on Cass, his complexion pale.

“What the hell were those things?” he asked.

Cass shook her head. “Exile magic. Old Growth gone wrong. Marek’s making an army out of the erased.”

Kael wiped blood from his lip. “We need Fen. Now.”

I nodded. “We find Fen. We find Marek. We end this.”

Jax coughed, wincing. “You know, I liked it better when the worst thing I had to fight was a burnt casserole.”

I hugged him, hard and fast. “You’re not dying today, Jax.”

“Not planning on it, Sovereign.”

The Hollow felt smaller, meaner, hungrier. I knew we’d only survived by luck. Next time, luck wouldn’t be enough.

As we limped back toward camp, Kael caught my arm.

“You hesitated,” he said, in a low voice.

I pulled free. “I saw myself in it. Sue me.”

He grabbed my wrist-not hard, just enough that I had to look at him. “Don’t let that get you killed.”

I stared at him, something raw and ugly rising in my throat. “I’m not afraid of dying. I’m afraid of losing myself.”

His jaw worked. He let go.

“We’ll keep you anchored,” he said, and for once, I believed him.

The Hollow creaked, the trees murmuring secrets I wasn’t ready to hear.

We made it back to camp. Cass patched Jax up. Kael stood watch. I sat by the dying fire, staring at Fen’s note.

Found something. You’re going to want to see this.

I was tired of waiting. I wanted answers.