Chapter Twenty-One
The wind threads through the trees, carrying the last flecks of dust from the vanished cottage. No one speaks. No one even moves. It’s as if all of us are waiting for someone else to breathe first, because the moment we do, something fragile might break.
Ryder finally draws in a slow, uneven breath and helps me to my feet, his hand hovering near my waist like he’s ready to catch me if I so much as sway.
River rises as well, shoulders stiff, eyes still flicking to Ryder and then away, a subtle jealousy behind his eyes.
Nala brushes dirt off my clothes with fussing hands that can’t quite hide how shaken she still is.
“You’re hurt.” Ryder traces my cheek with his thumb, and I flinch slightly beneath his touch.
“I’m fine,” I say, wiping the blood from my lip with the back of my hand. “We should keep moving, the Hollow isn’t just going to stop cos we need a minute.” Ryder’s brows knit tighter in concern.
“What did you see in there?” His voice is low, quiet, almost ashamed, and I know he already knows.
I tense, the memory of his fear flickering in front of me: his knees in the dirt, blood on his hands, my lifeless eyes staring back at him.
My silence stretches too long.
River shifts beside me, “Maybe don’t make her relive it all right away.”
Ryder shoots him a look sharp enough to cut, but he doesn’t snap back. He waits, tension coiled through his shoulders.
“I saw what you’re afraid of,” I finally say. “That’s all.”
River is looking at me with more than concern—something deeper, something raw—and I have to drag my eyes away before they can meet his. It’s a look I’ve seen a hundred times before, always pretending I hadn’t, always telling myself I was imagining it.
But now… now that I’ve seen his fear made flesh, now that I know the truth he never meant for me to witness, I can’t look at him without something in my chest sinking, heavy and aching.
I swallow hard, forcing words past the knot in my throat.
“Can we please just get out of this place?”
My voice cracks on the last word, a bittersweet statement—I want so badly to get out of this place and leave the fears behind, but I know that somewhere buried in the fog, another trial is waiting.
Watching.
Patient.
Hungry.
***
The flames crackle as they eat up the dry twigs and leaves, casting us in a buttery glow.
The smoke rises, desperate to escape the canopy but lingers just before the leaves, unable to get past its thick patchwork.
It hangs there like a low ceiling, a constant reminder that even the air is caged in this place.
Nala shifts beside me, coughing once, her breath hitching on the smoke.
We’ve been rationing what little food we have left—nibbling at stale bread like starved mice, pretending the tiny bites stretch further than they do.
Day two is slipping away into darkness, which means we have three days left.
Three days to survive. Three days to find a way out.
Psy never told us the exact number of trials we would face here in the Hollow, but I’m hoping that it stops at two.
A cold breeze threads itself through the trees, howling low and mournfully, as if the Hollow itself is laughing at me. Even the fire seems to join in, sparks dancing like tiny mocking eyes
“You saw Charlie, didn’t you?” Nala’s voice is soft, but it lands like a stone in my stomach. In the firelight, her eyes glow crimson—brighter than usual, reflecting something I know is pain.
I grab her hand instantly. “Yes,” I whisper. “I did.”
A stiff smile tugs at my lips, but she only nods, accepting it with more grace than I deserve.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” she murmurs, brushing away a single tear with the back of her hand. The gesture is small, almost timid—so unlike her usual strength that it twists something inside me.
I was sorry too—sorry that I hadn’t realised the extent of her suffering.
It’s as if the Hollow took the worst parts of ourselves and made them transparent for anyone to see.
Rivers’ eyes keep finding mine, like ships lost at sea, searching for a lighthouse in the distance or a shore to break.
But I force my eyes away, afraid that the part of him made transparent could shatter like glass.
That I’ll break something I cannot put back together.
It took us longer than it should have to find a place to settle for the night.
The forest seemed determined to keep shifting around us, every clearing too exposed, every thicket too tight, every tree watching us with the same silent malice the Hollow has worn since we arrived.
By the time we finally chose a spot, my legs were threatening to give out.
The cottage stole more from me than breath and clarity—it stole the steadiness from my body.
Hours later, my legs still feel empty, as if something inside them was scooped out and not fully returned.
Every step since then has been a quiet negotiation between weakness and will.
Even now, sitting by the fire, the tremor hasn’t stopped.
It shivers through me in slow, unreliable waves.
I keep flexing my toes inside my boots, trying to ground myself in something other than the memory of that place.
But the phantom pull of the cottage still clings to me—the sensation of being dragged, of the door sealing shut, of the world shrinking down to four fears and a man I’ve tried so hard to forget.
The others pretend not to notice my shaking knees.
Ryder keeps glancing at me when he thinks I’m not looking.
River keeps looking even when I am.
Nala stays close enough that our shoulders brush, like she’s anchoring me without saying a word.
But the tremor doesn’t stop.
It’s as if part of me is still inside that house, still facing The General, still fighting a shadow that knows every weakness I possess.
And the Hollow… the Hollow feels it.
I swear it breathes a little deeper every time my hands start to shake.
“How much further do you think… until we’re out of this place?
” Nala’s eyes draw up to the awning as if she could see through to the blanket of stars above.
And I know she wants as badly to get out of this place as I do…
to breathe in anything other than damp, moist air.
To feel the warmth of the sun drip through our bodies. Maybe then my legs would stop shaking.
“I don’t know,” I admit, rubbing my thumb along the frayed edge of my sleeve. “But we must be over halfway by now.”
I cling to the thought, hoping it’s true—hoping desperately—because I can’t imagine forcing my body through another two days in this place.
The Hollow drains you in ways that don’t feel physical until suddenly everything aches at once.
Even breathing feels like wading through something thick and stale.
I thought I understood where we were in the forest. I’d been tracking the direction of the wind, the bend of certain trees, the slope of the ground.
But the cottage… that thing ruined everything.
It didn’t merely shift through the forest—it warped it.
Paths that should’ve led away looped back on themselves.
Clearings appeared where they hadn’t existed moments before.
The sense of direction I’d always trusted—my internal compass—now feels twisted and deceived, bent out of shape until it’s barely recognisable.
“Why don’t you ask the walking encyclopedia over there?” River glares at Ryder, who is sharpening his sword on a rock with a dangerous look in his eye.
“Watch it.” He spits, the darkness seemingly revolving around him.
“Gods, you two are ridiculous.” Nala looks between all of us with an expression that screams If I have to mediate one more emotional crisis, I will fling myself into this fire.
“Not me, just him.” River pokes the fire physically and metaphorically.
The flames rage in Ryder’s eyes, but he refuses to bite and continues sharpening his sword.
“Why can’t you both just get along? The Hollow is kicking our asses enough, without you two taking chunks out of each other.
” Nala’s voice barely makes it over the crackling fire but reaches River nonetheless.
I sink into the hardwood of the log deeper.
I know the pain that River carries, the wrench between them both.
His fear. Those eyes find mine again, ships sailing too close to the rocks. I drag my eyes away.
“Well, if we play our cards right, we’ll make it out of here, and you two will never have to see each other again.
” A silence follows my words, a subtle hurt in River’s eyes, now steering far away from mine.
The rhythmic scrape of Ryder’s sword against the flat stone fills the air between us, steady and relentless—as if no edge could ever be sharp enough for whatever waits ahead.
“I don’t know what scares me more,” Nala murmurs, holding her hands over the fire as though its warmth could chase away anything lingering in her head. “That we might actually be over halfway… or that we might actually make it out of this forest.”
She doesn’t look at me when she says it. Her gaze stays fixed on the flames—on the way they twist and bow with every breath of wind—as if the answer might be hiding there, flickering in and out of reach.
And for a moment, I’m not sure which possibility terrifies me more, either, because we both know that even if we make it through the Hollow, the gem will be waiting at the end of it, ready to claim whatever pieces of our souls we have left.