8. Seren
SEREN
The straps of the bags dig into my shoulder the higher I climb. Roots and gravel crunch underfoot, and the occasional stray pebble skitters into my boot.
The roar of the Hollow fades with every step, smothered by the clammy earth and the thick, spongy bloom of fungal growth. Without a sky to signal the end of day, the dark only bleeds deeper into every crevice, coaxing the shadows to stretch and coil—a perfect shroud to vanish into.
Below, lights flicker to life, an endless, fractured sea of stars glowing within a hollow imitation of a night sky. A sky I have yet to meet.
The cliff path winds its way toward the only great hill anchored in this chasm we call home. Pantheon’s Peak—a name carried through the ages, its history warped by every generation that whispers it.
Some believe it was the cradle of the Veiled One; others say it once housed the three goddesses purged in the Cleansing. Its true purpose is a void, but we cling to the frayed threads of these fables as if they could save us.
I never believed any of it. Not until now.
The sparse scrub gives way to corpse-candle trees, their gnarled trunks blackened like ancient charcoal.
They grow in mournful circles, taunting us with the effervescent glow of the Death Apples.
One bite of that fruit ignites a rot in your marrow, a searing heat that turns your blood to liquid fire until it weeps from every orifice.
A shiver claws down my spine as I pick my way through the fruit littering the path. This place holds its memories like a scar that refuses to fade.
Images of Sylas darting through the trees, a stolen piece of fruit in hand, flicker in my mind. For a heartbeat, my lip quirks—until the pit in my chest yawns open, turning his laughter into a hollow, haunting echo.
I sink to my knees, buckling under the gravity of his absence.
The damp earth clings to my skin, and the shadows uncoil, wrapping around my shoulders like a living shroud.
They are the architects of this ruin. I should claw them off—but I don’t.
I surrender to the dark, letting it hold the pieces of me together.
The world narrows down to this single, jagged point in time. I knew the moment I left the house that my goodbye would be here, in the shadow of Pantheon’s Peak, where our happiness once felt as solid as the stone around us.
The scent of ash and charred memory envelops me, drawing my gaze to the city spreading below. Auria looms above, its underside gleaming like a false, mocking sky. Between them, I feel small and unmoored, a ghost caught between two worlds.
A plume of smoke drifts upward from the pyres, thinning until it dissolves into the night—the same way the light fled from his eyes. My throat tightens, my gaze frantically chasing every ghost-grey wisp, desperate to find the one that might still be him.
Something inside me shatters, the shards of my own soul slicing me from within. My knuckles whiten as I clutch at the damp moss, my body finally breaking. A ragged, animal cry bleeds out into the cold silence of the Peak.
“I can’t—” My voice stutters into the quiet. “I can’t do this alone.”
But I am alone. Truly, hollowly alone.
I suppose I always have been, but the truth of it burns now. There is no one left to protect, no one waiting in the shambles of the place I once called home.
The shadows constrict, cradling me with the cold weight of a mother I can’t remember. A tendril coils up my neck, its touch smoky and invasive against my cheek. I try to shake it away, but the dark is faster—it surges into my lungs, drowning the world until there is nothing left but the black.
* * *
The ground vanishes beneath my feet.
I stand in water up to my knees. It’s chill doesn’t bite— it welcomes me, a cold cradle in the dark. Overhead, veins of violet light fracture the vast ceiling, branching outward like lightning caught in a permanent strike. The cavern stretches into a smoky distance, its horizon lost to the gloom.
Faces float beneath the inky surface, pale and hauntingly familiar; Sylas, Da, and a woman whose memory is a shattered reflection. Their mouths are agape in silent screams, hands stretching toward me, but the water is a sheet of black glass—not a single ripple forms.
A voice curls around me, soft as velvet and cold as the grave.
Every piece you lose, I will take.
And when you are empty enough—
I will come.
I scream for the faces beneath the water, but my shadows constrict, hauling me back into the black.
* * *
I wake choking on air, my lungs fighting for every ragged breath.
The moss clings to my sweat-slick brow, and the toxic, vibrant green of the death apples washes over the charred trunks.
My head throbs with a dull, heavy pulse, but the pendant at my collarbone sears against my skin—a sudden, frantic heat.
And then I see him.
A figure stands at the edge of the trees, motionless and absolute, half-swallowed by the soot-blackened wood. His hood is raised, veiling his eyes, but I can feel his gaze—heavy and unblinking—locked onto me.
His cloak isn’t white, or gold, or even the dull grey of a Scavenger. It is a hollowed-out black, a shade that makes him neither a Guard nor a Collector, but something else entirely.
My breath snags as time stalls, our eyes caught in a silent, freezing deadlock.
The shadows at my feet shudder—a frantic, rippling movement of unmistakable recognition.
But he doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak. He simply waits, a shadow etched against the charred wood.