Chapter Six — The Grave-Cursed Hollow
642 Words
The air inside the Hollow was colder than the rest of the forest—unnaturally cold, like an invisible hand pressed against Elyria’s skin.
The trees here were dead, stripped of leaves, their branches twisting like skeletal fingers. A thick mist curled around her ankles as she walked, swallowing sound and light.
Raven stayed at her side, tense, every muscle taut.
“This place reeks of dark magic,” he muttered.
Elyria nodded. She felt it too. The Hollow was laced with old spells—binding, banishing, animating. Necromancy.
Footsteps crunched behind her.
She spun, witchfire flaring in her hands—
—but it was only the Alpha.
“You cannot help her,” he told Raven sternly. “If she fails, she was never meant for the prophecy.”
“And if she dies?” Raven snapped.
“Then she dies unproven.”
Raven growled, but Elyria stepped forward. “I can handle this.”
The Alpha gestured toward a ring of stones at the center of the Hollow. “Enter the circle. The trial will reveal itself.”
Elyria walked ahead. Every instinct told her to turn and run, but she ignored the fear clawing at her chest. Selene was out there. Every trial, every danger, was another step toward her.
When she stepped inside the stone circle, the mist thickened instantly. Raven and the Alpha vanished from her sight.
“Elyria,” a soft voice whispered.
Her breath froze.
That voice—
She spun around.
A girl stood on the edge of the mist, pale hair drifting like smoke, eyes glowing a soft silver. She looked about Elyria’s age. She looked… familiar.
Too familiar.
“Selene?” Elyria whispered.
The girl smiled sadly. “You came for me.”
Emotion surged through Elyria’s chest—hope, relief, desperation. She ran toward her—
—and the girl dissolved into ash.
“No!” Elyria gasped.
A low groan rose from the ground. Then another. And another.
Hands—pale, cracked, skeletal—burst through the earth at her feet.
The dead were waking.
Elyria stumbled back, witchfire sparking uncontrollably. Shadows swirled as bodies clawed their way out of shallow graves, empty eyes glowing faintly with necromancer magic.
Half-rotted.
Half-bound.
Wholly hungry.
“Elyria…” a voice rasped from one of them.
She froze.
The zombie wore a necklace—an old silver moon pendant. One she recognized.
Her mother’s pendant.
“Elyria… find… her…”
Her throat tightened. “You knew my mother?”
The zombie lunged.
Elyria blasted it backward with a burst of blue fire, tears burning her eyes.
More undead closed in. Too many to fight.
She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing her magic inward, remembering her aunt’s lessons:
Magic answers the heart first… then the mind.
She drew in a breath.
Her blood—vampire.
Her soul—witch.
Her purpose—Selene.
Elyria spread her arms.
A ring of brilliant blue fire erupted around her, searing outward like a shockwave. The zombies shrieked, collapsing into ash. The mist scattered. The stone circle softened beneath her feet.
Then everything fell silent.
“Elyria!” Raven shouted from somewhere outside the circle.
Her legs buckled, vision tilting. She sank to her knees as Raven rushed into the clearing, catching her before she hit the ground.
The Alpha stared at her, awe replacing his stoic expression. “You survived the Hollow.”
Elyria trembled. “I saw her. I saw my sister.”
Raven’s jaw tightened. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Elyria wiped her eyes. “And something else. Someone is controlling the dead. Someone searching for hybrids.”
Raven’s expression darkened. “A necromancer.”
The Alpha nodded grimly. “And not just any. He serves the Dark Coven.”
Elyria’s stomach dropped.
“Then that’s who has my sister,” she whispered.
- Writer
