Darkness swallowed me. Not the absence of light, but something deeper, something alive. It coiled through my veins, sank into my bones, and for a moment—one breathless, shuddering moment—I wasn’t Elias anymore. I was something else. Something vast. Something ancient.
I saw—
No, I remembered.
The Hollow was never a place. It was never just ruins, never just whispers. It was a prison. A graveyard. A thing waiting to be reborn.
And I was its vessel.
The realization slammed into me like a breaking tide. My body trembled, barely my own. I could feel Lena’s hands on me, distant and desperate, but she felt small. Mortal.
I wasn’t.
Not anymore.
A voice—her voice—cut through the storm. “Come back.”
Lena.
I latched onto her voice, clawing my way toward it. But the fire inside me roared, fi
