Chapter 3 —The Hollow Vale
1500 Words
The night beyond Varethyn had no stars.
For the first time in her life, Eirena walked beneath a sky that gave nothing back. The wind that swept across the cliffs carried the scent of ash and something older the breath of the unbound wilds. It whispered in a tongue she half-remembered from childhood stories, a language from before the Crown claimed dominion over the heavens.
Behind her, Kael climbed the ridge, his boots crunching on frost-paled stone. He had wrapped his cloak tighter, mortal blood less forgiving of the realm’s cold. Still, he said nothing of discomfort. He simply watched the horizon where faint blue light pulsed the edge of the Hollow Vale.
Eirena glanced at him. “You don’t have to follow me further. Once we cross into the Vale, even the Queen’s reach fades. You could turn back.”
Kael snorted. “And go where? My world’s dying, your world’s bleeding, and somehow the two are tied together. I’ll take my chances with the girl trying to stop it.”
A small smile touched her lips. “You mortals mistake stubbornness for courage.”
“Maybe they’re the same thing,” he said.
They descended into the valley as dawn or what passed for it painted the horizon with dull violet. No sun rose here, only the slow brightening of mist that glowed from within. The ground was covered in brittle silver grass that cracked beneath their feet. The air shimmered faintly, as if light struggled to remember how to exist.
“This place feels… wrong,” Kael murmured.
“It’s older than wrong,” Eirena replied. “The Vale is where the first Crown-bearer fell. Her light poisoned the earth when she died. Nothing truly lives here now.”
“And that’s where you think we’ll find one of the fragments?”
She nodded. “The first thorn. The one she tore from her heart to forge the Crown’s seed.”
Kael frowned. “You said the Crown binds the realm. What happens if we start tearing it apart?”
Eirena looked toward the mist-veiled horizon. “We find out whether the world can survive without its chains.”
Hours passed as they followed a riverbed that no longer held water. Bones of old creatures some fae, some unknown jutted from the soil like pale spires. Each glowed faintly as they passed, reacting to the trace of Eirena’s magic.
At length, Kael broke the silence. “Back in the Hall of Reflection, when you used your power… it didn’t feel like your mother’s. Hers is cold. Yours felt alive.”
Eirena hesitated. “The Queen draws her strength from the Crown. But I was born after it began to fade. I think the light in me is… different. Unbound.”
“That why the Crown fears you?”
She glanced at him, eyes luminous in the half-light. “Perhaps. Or perhaps it simply hates what it can’t control.”
By mid-journey, the ground began to change. The brittle grass gave way to glass-like soil that reflected their shapes in broken fragments. Shadows moved beneath the surface faint outlines of wings, faces, whispers.
Kael crouched beside one shard, touching it with a gloved hand. “These reflections… they move when I don’t.”
“They’re echoes,” Eirena said. “The souls of those who tried to claim the thorn and failed. The Vale keeps their images so no one forgets.”
“Comforting.”
“Don’t stare too long,” she warned. “They remember what they were.”
He stood quickly. “I’ll take your word for it.”
As the mist thickened, a sound broke the stillness — a slow, dragging scrape like stone against stone. Kael’s hand went to his dagger. “Tell me that’s not another Sentinel.”
“Worse,” she whispered. “A Hollowed.”
From the fog ahead, a figure emerged tall, gaunt, and luminous from within. Its face was featureless save for hollow eye sockets spilling light. Its body was made of the same glassy soil, veins of pale energy pulsing through it.
Kael tensed. “What is it?”
“A guardian,” Eirena said. “Formed from the remnants of the first bearer’s power. It exists to protect the thorn.”
“Then we’ll have to get past it.”
Eirena shook her head. “No one gets past a Hollowed. You either outwit it… or you die.”
The creature lifted its head, light spilling across the ground. The reflections beneath their feet flared, and from them rose ghostly shapes dozens of spectral forms, each carrying blades of shimmering mist.
Kael cursed. “Guess talking’s off the table.”
Eirena’s hands blazed with white fire. “Stay behind me.”
“No chance.” He drew his dagger, the faint star-fire from their battle with the Sentinels still lingering along its edge.
The Hollowed moved. Not fast inevitable. Each step shook the ground. The echoes lunged first, phantoms slicing through air and stone alike. Eirena swept her arm in an arc, unleashing a wave of light that scattered half of them. The rest closed in, blades striking her barrier and splintering like glass.
Kael darted to her side, slashing through one ghostly form. His blade met resistance not physical, but something colder. The phantom screamed, a sound that rattled his bones, and dissolved.
“Nice trick,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Keep your focus!” she warned.
Another wave of echoes surged. One passed through Kael’s shoulder, searing him with icy pain. He staggered, teeth clenched. Eirena caught him before he fell, pressing her glowing palm to the wound. Warmth spread through him not healing, exactly, but restoration.
He met her eyes. “That’s twice you’ve saved me.”
“Don’t make me regret it.”
Together they turned back toward the Hollowed. It was closer now, arms unfolding into long, bladed limbs. The light within its chest pulsed like a heart.
“The thorn is inside it,” Eirena realized. “It carries the fragment within its core.”
“Then we carve it out.”
“Easier said then”
The creature struck. Eirena threw up a barrier, but the impact shattered it like crystal. The force sent both of them sprawling. Kael rolled to his feet first, lunging forward, dagger raised. He plunged it into the Hollowed’s arm sparks exploded, the blade humming with borrowed power.
The creature howled, but did not fall. Its other arm swept across, sending Kael flying into a broken pillar.
“Kael!”
He groaned, dazed but alive. The dagger still blazed in his hand.
Eirena rose, fury igniting her veins. She lifted both hands, calling the light that had always frightened her the untamed radiance that refused the Crown’s order. It surged through her body, turning her eyes pure white.
“By the light unbound,” she whispered, “let the stars remember me.”
The ground split. Pillars of energy erupted from the soil, wrapping around the Hollowed. For a moment it resisted then the light found the fracture Kael’s dagger had made. The creature convulsed, light pouring from every crack until it burst apart in a shower of fragments.
When the radiance faded, only silence remained. In the center of the crater lay a shard of pure starlight, the size of a heart, thorns of crystal curling around it.
Eirena approached slowly. “The first thorn,” she breathed.
Kael limped beside her, blood on his sleeve. “That thing was protecting this?”
She knelt, hovering her hand above the fragment. “It’s still alive.”
The thorn pulsed once then sent a flare of light into her chest. Eirena gasped, clutching her heart. For an instant, visions flooded her mind: a thousand stars collapsing, the Queen standing over them, the Crown burning like a sun.
Kael caught her before she fell. “Eirena!”
She blinked, breath ragged. “I saw… everything. The Crown isn’t whole. My mother forged it from five thorns one for each dying star she claimed. This is the first.”
“And the others?”
“Hidden across both realms. If we gather them, we can unravel her power.”
Kael studied the glowing shard. “Then we’re officially thieves of heaven.”
Eirena gave a weak laugh. “A fitting title.”
He helped her to her feet. The thorn hovered obediently beside her, orbiting like a captured moon.
“We should move,” he said. “That thing’s death probably echoed through half the realm.”
She nodded, but her gaze lingered on the crater. “It felt like the thorn recognized me. As if it wanted to be found.”
“Maybe it remembers whose blood forged it.”
“Or maybe it knows what I intend to do.”
They made camp at the edge of the Vale beneath a hollowed arch of stone that glowed faintly blue. Kael built a fire.
- Writer
