Chapter Twenty-Four
“Where are you going?” River’s voice cracks as he asks, but I can’t look back at him.
“I-I just need a minute…” My throat tightens around the words. “Watch her.” I gesture weakly toward Nala’s unmoving body. He gives a small nod, though concern shadows every part of him.
I step away, but the dismembered carcass looms behind me like an accusation. The centipede’s severed limbs, the metallic stench, the smear of its viscous blood—it all feels like it’s pointing at me. Reminding me of what I did.
I scoop up the sword I forged, half expecting it to vanish as soon as my fingers brush the hilt. But it doesn’t. It hums faintly in my hand, glowing with the same eerie pulse as Ryder’s blade.
Part of me thought it was a figment of my imagination, but here it stands in front of me—real. As real as the cold air burning my lungs. As real as the blood on my clothes.
“I see you used the Gift of Xoro.” Ryder’s voice breaks through my thoughts, and I flinch, turning to face him.
“I-I’m just so confused. There’s no magic in the Hollow,” I whisper, my fingertips trembling as they trace the tiny engravings of centipedes curling along the handle.
“And somehow,” Ryder says, crossing his arms as a faint smile flickers at the corner of his mouth, “you managed to find some.”
His admiration doesn’t warm me like it once did. Not now. Not with everything collapsing inside me.
The weight of it all presses harder—Oriah’s warning, the truth gnawing at the edges of my mind. I thought the fear of destroying the world was unbearable enough, but now… now Nala might never walk again. Because of me.
“You okay?” Ryder asks gently, placing a hand on my shoulder. I try to hold steady, but the question shatters me into a million pieces.
“It’s all my fault.” My voice is barely a breath as I crumble onto a fallen tree, burying my face in my hands. The Hollow has me right where it wants me.
Suddenly, everything feels too much. It was hard to carry before, but now it’s suffocating. My knees tremble and threaten to give out beneath me if I try to stand up.
“No, it’s not, don’t talk like that,” he tries, kneeling in front of me. But it’s useless. The words bounce off the wall of guilt, crushing my ribs.
“It is.” My voice shudders. “Oriah visited me… last night.” Tears prick hot at the corners of my eyes just saying her name.
Ryder’s expression softens immediately—shock masked by concern.
“She did…? What did she say?”
“That day in the mountain.” His jaw tenses instantly.
“When you were on top of me…” He exhales sharply, looking away as if reliving the memory burns.
“When I blended light and dark, the explosion wasn’t the only thing I caused.
” My voice falters, breaking around the truth.
“Oriah said it weakened the seal between our world and the underworld.”
A tear slides down my cheek, and I swipe at it uselessly.
“That thing hunting us—it isn’t Nyxos,” I say, and Ryder’s shoulders stiffen, breath freezing. “It’s a part of him. A Siphon. Sent to drain enough energy from us… from this world… to set him free.”
Ryder’s hand moves to his hair, tugging hard, lips pressed into a flat, brittle line.
“And the Gods?” he mutters, voice cracking with anger. “Why can’t they help us?”
“The Siphon is blocking them. Jamming everything. It’s why Oriah couldn’t reach me.” My voice is barely audible. “If any of them get close… he’ll drain them. And then Nyxos…” The rest sticks in my throat. I can’t say it. I can’t bear it.
I try to stand, but my knees buckle under the weight of the truth, and I fall, palms hitting the cold ground. “It’s all my fault— it’s all my fault.” The words spill out between sobs I can’t control, my vision swimming, my breath refusing to steady.
Ryder is on the ground with me in an instant, arms wrapping around me so tightly it almost hurts. His voice cracks as he speaks against my hair.
“It’s not your fault. You did what you had to do to survive.” His grip tightens—as if he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he lets go.
I cry harder, burying my face in his shoulder. “It is… If Nala dies… If any of us die… It’s because of me.”
“No, it’s not, Asha.” His voice sharpens—not unkindly, but fierce. “You had to save yourself because of me.” He holds me tighter still, as if trying to take the weight from my chest and place it onto his own. “I’ll take the blame. Not you.” A breath trembles out of him. “I’ll take the blame.”
For a moment, I sit there in his arms, the world blurred through tears, my sobs shaking both of us. I wipe my face on his shirt, leaving streaks of red and salt.
For that moment, breathing is just a little easier—
even if the weight hasn’t gone.
I pull away from him, breath catching as I realise just how close we are.
The warmth of him still clings to my skin, but the memory of his request—that distance he asked for—cuts between us like a blade.
He seems to remember it at the same moment I do.
He clears his throat and shifts back a little, eyes softening.
“Do you mind if I take a look at the sword?” he asks, eyebrows lifting gently.
Words still stick in my throat, so I simply hand it to him. The Hollow grows eerily quiet around us, as if holding its breath.
The blade glints against his face as he turns it over, and his expression melts into awe.
“Such intricate designs,” he murmurs, almost to himself. The wonder in his voice steals some of the air from my lungs. “You are really something, Asha.” A small smirk pulls at his lips, half hidden behind the steel. “You don’t even know how special you are, do you?”
His fingertip trails along the edge of the sword—too close—until it nicks him. A thin, bright line of blood blooms across his skin. My brows pinch instinctively, but he doesn’t flinch; he only studies the blade more intently, as if the wound confirms something.
“Xoro’s Gift, unlike others, doesn’t appear on a whim,” he says, voice low.
“It comes when the world claws at you, when survival demands more of you than you think you have.” He leans in so close to the steel that for a moment it looks like he might fall into his own reflection.
“Most who wield Xoro’s Gift forge weapons born from fear— they’re raw, rushed things crafted from nothing but desperation. ”
He shakes his head faintly.
“But this sword…” He falters, and his throat works around the words as if they’re too heavy, too sacred to speak lightly. “This sword looks as though it was made with intent. With precision. As if you had all the time in the world to shape it… even though you didn’t.”
He finally looks at me.
And it’s the way he used to look at me—before everything complicated, before distance became a rule we both try and fail to follow. His eyes shimmer with something like reverence. Like belief. Like he’s seeing more in me than I can bear to acknowledge.
The sword gleams between us, catching the faint light of the Hollow.
“And the power inside it…” he breathes, almost in awe. “Asha… It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”
And for a moment, beneath the steady glow of the steel, all I can do is look at him—really look at him.
Wishing, foolishly, desperately, that I could swim in his eyes forever.
That the world would stop tearing itself apart long enough for me to drown in the way he’s looking at me now.
“She’s awake.”
River’s voice snaps us both back to reality. We rush to Nala’s side just as she winces, pushing herself upright. Her eyes dart immediately to her leg, confusion tightening her features.
“Take it easy,” River murmurs, settling a hand behind her back. She frowns, breath wobbling.
“W-what happened?” she asks, the pain clear in her voice.
“The tenari,” River explains softly. “It threw you into the tree. And when Asha killed it… one of its legs fell on you.” His jaw tightens at the memory.
“I wrapped it as best I could, but we need to get out of the Hollow before I can heal you properly,” I say.
Nala nods weakly—then her gaze drifts, landing on the sword resting beside me. Her eyes widen.
“Did you make that?” she asks, awe slipping into her voice despite everything.
“Oh—um, yes. I… I’m not really sure how,” I admit, suddenly aware of the weight of the blade and the weight of everything else.
“I’m just glad you did.”
She offers me a small, tired smile—warm and grateful. And it twists something inside me, because if she knew the truth.
If she knew I was the reason all of this was happening.
I don’t think she’d smile at me at all.
The ground shudders again—violent enough to snap every muscle in my body taut. Not the deep, writhing tremor of the tenari. This is different. Heavier. Like something landed.
A tree cracks and crashes nearby.
I whirl toward the others. “You have to get Nala,” I whisper urgently. “We need to go. Now.”
They move instantly.
Ryder scoops Nala up and shifts her carefully over his shoulder just as the earth trembles again—slow, deliberate steps this time. Whatever it is, it’s walking.
“We can’t run,” Ryder breathes. “It’ll hear us. We hide.”
We scramble behind the nearest tree, dropping into a crouch as the undergrowth swallows us. Leaves and thorny shrubs claw at my skin as I peer through the gaps. Nala hisses softly when Ryder adjusts his grip, and I press a hand over her mouth, my pulse roaring louder than my thoughts.
Then I see it.
Something enormous emerges from behind the tenari’s corpse.
‘Squark.’
The sound comes from above.
A bird—if you can call it that—slams into the clearing.
Its beak is a hooked slash of red, jagged and obscene, like it was never meant to exist, and its feathers are an array of murky greens, like algae blooming on a dark lake and blending into the Hollow.
Its onyx talons punch straight through the tenari’s shield as if it’s paper, and I choke back a sound as its teeth tear into the body, ripping, gorging.
It must have smelled the blood.
The ground jolts again.