Sasha’s Pov
The mountain watched us descend.
It didn’t whisper or roar, but I felt its gaze in the stillness, heavy, knowing, the kind of silence that settles after something ancient has been disturbed.
The scroll inside my cloak pressed against my ribs like a second heartbeat, silent, steady, final. Not heavy from weight, but from what it held.
Because today, I was ready to end it.
The wind drifted in slow curls down the slope, carrying the scent of old ash, moss, and something colder, emptier. Every tree seemed to lean inward. Every path beneath our boots felt shadowed, as if the Hollow King had bled into the forest’s roots.
He was near.
His presence clung to every breath, every movement. Not loud. Not sudden. Just watching, like hunger behind a closed door.
Alex walked beside me
