Chapter Eighteen
For a while, all I could think about was my pale face staring back at me from my own grave.
I tried to wrench my thoughts away from it—the worms threading through the crevices of my skin, the cracked blue lips, the colour drained from my eyes until they looked dull and stark, yet stretched wide as if the last thing they saw had shocked them to their core.
I knew it wasn’t me—It couldn’t be me.
I was here, walking through this forest, manoeuvring through the underbrush, feeling the rough bark scrape my fingertips. Every ridge and groove reminded me that I was alive. I hadn’t been lying in a sullen grave in the middle of a dark Hollow with a dagger carved into my chest.
And yet… I can’t shake the feeling that a piece of me did die there, swallowed by the dirt and grime, and that part would come back to haunt me.
The Hollow is smart—far more than a knot of trees and mud.
It’s clever. Calculated. It knew me. It knew I would be the one to dig my own grave while my friends watched, gasping for breath as its vines tightened around their ribs.
It crafted me perfectly: every freckle, every strand of hair.
It knew my dreams. It knew the mountain.
It knew about the bruises on my neck from him.
I should have died that day. I thought I would.
I had already made my peace with it moments before the explosion, when all I saw was him, and the indigo corona around his eyes—the unnatural surge of light and dark that ripped through the air, shuddering glass and marble, and bone, and flesh. The General. Miss Worthington. Charlie.
The memory clings like a film across my tongue, a taste so foul that no amount of food or brushing can wash it away.
Seeing myself dead in the mud brought it all back. I always imagined that, when I died, I’d find peace. But there was no peace in those eyes. No rest. They were sunken and wild—a canvas of trauma, panic, and hurt, as if they hadn’t slept even when the heart beneath them still beat.
And I knew those eyes. I see them in my reflection every morning—red, sore, tarnished by nightmares.
Was this truly how it was going to end?
The forest thickens around us again, the trees crowding in too tightly, as if the woods themselves have decided to squeeze the life out of us.
We fall into a single-file line along a narrow trail, each breath feeling borrowed.
Ryder leads, carving a path through the brambles before they can curl around us like hungry mouths.
Sweat slicks his skin, catching on the edges of his jaw each time he swings, and his lips are drawn into a hard, unbroken line.
I can tell he is stewing on something, that a thought is desperately trying to work its way to the surface and manifest on his tongue.
Whether it’s my nightmares, the trial, or the memory he sacrificed…
I can’t tell. Maybe it’s all of them tangled together, and he’s trying to choose which truth will cause the least damage when he finally speaks it.
Though we both know any one of them would leave a considerable dent in the air.
The awning is a thick blanket again, casting us in shade, and a chill hangs in the air. Possibly a foreboding of the upcoming trial. If the first one could craft my bones and skin. Only the Gods know what is waiting for me.
“How did you know… that the answer was in the grave?” Nala whispers as if the forest itself could hear her.
“Honestly, it was just a lucky guess.” And it was.
I had thought that it may have been the answer, but that’s all it was…
a thought. I hadn’t known for sure, and that’s what scared me the most. The truth is, it could’ve been anything in this forest. A woodland of a million different roots, a thousand different problems with a thousand different answers. “I just got lucky.”
“Well, let’s just hope that luck stays with you. I only just got the vine taste out of my mouth.” River laughs, and I know he meant to lighten the mood, but it only makes my shoulders heavier. I flash him a small smile and pick up my pace, aligning with Ryder at the front of the group.
A subtle whisper escapes Nala’s mouth to River behind me. “You don’t have to try and make a joke out of everything, River,” she mutters, and though I don’t turn around to look at them, I know he is shrugging his shoulders.
“You okay?” Ryder asks me, destroying the brambles in his wake. I guess he’s finally speaking.
I nod my head even though I am not, and he knows it. None of us are.
“Do you need any help?” I ask, and he smirks, the veins in his hands pulsing with the heavy beat of his heart.
“You just want to hold the sword, don’t you?” his smirk lengthens as he slows the blade.
“I was thinking more of a distraction… but now that you mention it.” I eye up the sword, its blade glistening even in the dull of the shade.
“Knock yourself out.” Ryder passes it to me with a kind of careless grace, as if the steel were nothing more than a ribbon caught on his fingers.
My hands hesitate just before touching the smooth handle, but Ryder gives me a look of encouragement. The moment it rests in my grip, every carved ridge and indent seems to dance beneath my fingertips.
From that first contact, I know it’s different—like nothing I’ve ever felt. And suddenly, the weight of the legends of Salem heavy.
It feels unnaturally weightless, as if it were made just for me.
Even though my powers are nonexistent in the Hollow, I can hear the faint hum of the metal, as if an electric current runs through it. The pulse vibrates through my bones and travels up my body. Even my eyes feel like they’re shaking, ebbing with a strange, ethereal flow.
I open my mouth to speak, but suddenly, no words fit the magnitude of what I am feeling. Ryder notices my loss of words and chuckles.
“It suits you.” He scratches his eyebrow, then gestures to the thick brush ahead. “Care to do the honours?”
“Stand back,” I warn, raising my eyebrows slightly.
“Oh, she means business,” Ryder says, admiration flickering in his eyes as they dance over my appearance. How he can still look at me like that when I’m a complete mess, I don’t know. Mud and dirt stain my clothes, and my hair is a full-on disaster.
“Don’t have to tell me twice—I’ve seen what she can do with a knife,” River laughs again, and I can’t help my eyes from glaring at him. “Don’t mind me, I’ll just be over here.” He lifts his hands in surrender, backing up a few steps, urging a small smile out of me.
I let out a long breath, feeling the subtle rage beneath my skin, then hack at the brush in strong, steady swipes. The steel slices through the twigs as if they were butter. My pace quickens, and with every strike, my pent-up anger pours out. Fast. Sharp. Relentless.
The Trial… Hack.
The Hollow… Hack.
The serum… Hack.
The mountain… Hack.
“Remind me not to piss you off,” Ryder mutters, acknowledging the violence in my swings.
Oriah… Hack.
But then the brambles twist in my vision, and suddenly the blade I see is the knife sinking into my chest. I freeze, breath hitching. My first instinct is to squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head to scatter the image.
Deep breaths.
It’s not real.
My eyes drift open.
And it’s gone.
The brush is just a brush again, the sword just a sword, but the echo of that memory still trembles at the edges of my mind. Ryder’s concerned eyes burn into the side of my head, but I don’t look at him.
“Maybe I should take this,” he says gently, easing the sword from my grip with careful, deliberate hands. It takes a moment for my thoughts to catch up to his actions, but when they do, I brush my hands against my leggings, trying to diffuse the sweat on my palms.
“I-I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.” Tears prickle in my eyes, but I blink them away.
“Don’t apologise.” Ryder lifts my chin slowly. “You don’t need to do that, not when you’re talking to me.”
I bite my lip to stop them from trembling. The pressures of the world are consuming me.
He sighs, a blink of hurt flashing beneath his hard exterior.
“Hell, I’m the one who should be apologising. We’re here because of me. You’re having nightmares because of me. If I hadn’t led you to that fucking mountain…”
“No,” I shake my head. “I wanted to come… You couldn’t have stopped me.”
“Well, I should’ve… I should’ve done whatever I could to make you stay, even if it meant having to live with you hating me.”
The sounds of the Hollow go silent, as if the forest is holding its breath, and the tears start to flow out of me.
“…It would have been better than this.” He looks around the Hollow, as if mapping out its layout.
“This is why I didn’t tell you about the dreams.”
“Nightmares, Asha, say it how they are.” He turns to face me, shadows swirling in his eyes. “You dream of me, that day, don’t you?… My hands around your neck.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“Why does everyone keep saying that!” Ryder’s shout cracks through the air, the force of it making me jump and sending birds scattering from the trees.
The calm facade he’d been holding onto is gone. His cheeks flush with a silent, simmering rage; there’s that thought he was stewing on.
“Whoa,” River intercepts, wedging himself between Ryder and me. Tears cloud my vision. Ryder’s eyes stick on mine, his face softening before locking on River.
“I’m not going to hurt her,” Ryder says, rolling his eyes, his hands hugging the back of his neck.
“I know… I just think we all need a second to calm down.” River says, his breath slow and controlled. Nala catches my eye with a sympathetic glance.
“River, it’s fine.” I gently push at his arm, urging him to move, but he doesn’t budge.
“How can it be fine, Asha… tell me how it can be fine?” Ryder holds his head in his hands.
“We’ll find the gem and then—
“And then what? The gem may cure me, but it won’t erase the memories carved in your mind…Do you know how it feels, knowing that there is nothing I can ever do to fix it… No matter what I do, you will always see me as the person who tried to kill you.”
“That’s not true.” I shake my head, ignoring River’s stiff posture as I reach for Ryder’s arm. He jerks away from my touch, clutching his head as a sharp grunt pushes through his teeth as if he’s in pain.
“Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
He stumbles backwards and drops onto a raised patch of the forest path.
And when he finally looks up at me—
His eyes flash a vivid, impossible purple.