Chapter 25
The grove breathed with them.
Ancient oaks loomed overhead, their limbs twisted like the hands of forgotten gods. Stone monoliths encircled the clearing, their runes pulsing faintly, as though watching, waiting.
At the edge of the sacred spring, Kaelioth turned. “Lay her here.”
Stephan paused before lowering Eris into the grass. The earth was cold beneath her. Firelight traced the stillness of her face.
Kareon stood nearby, his stance rigid, silence clenched between his teeth.
Kaelioth knelt beside them. He touched the spring with two fingers and whispered to something unseen, something that did not answer. Then he spoke.
“Her soul drifts between the living and the dead,” he said quietly. “Unmoored. Unknowing.”
A breath, then: “Calling her name will not bring her back,” Kaelioth said.
“She cannot be forced. The truth, if revealed too soon, may fracture her. If she sees through the illusion before she is ready, she may recoil, and be lost forever.” The fire cracked as the spring exhaled a slow breath.
“One of you must go after her. But understand this: You will not find the Eris you know. Time does not follow law within the Hollow. She may be a child, a girl—or a stranger. You are not there to convince her. You are there to remind her of what anchors her. If she chooses to return, she will wake. If she does not, neither will you.”
The words settled into the silence. A breath followed, then a heartbeat.
“I will go.” Two voices spoke in unison, colliding like drawn blades.
Stephan’s eyes narrowed.
Kareon stepped forward, his jaw tight. “You think I’ll let you go?” His voice carried edge and heat. “She doesn’t need a Dragov prince. She needs me.”
Stephan’s voice turned cold, edged with fury. “Over my dead body. We grew up together. I know her better than anyone ever will.”
Kaelioth exhaled, low and exhausted. “You are both insufferable.” He gestured toward the monoliths, his voice worn thin by old wars and older men. “Go together, then. Let fate decide whom she returns to.”
Neither moved. The silence became a blade suspended between them.
Kaelioth rose. His shoulders lifted, like he was carrying a burden handed down through generations. He turned to the stone basin and placed his hand on the obsidian jar. “Let it begin.”
Kaelioth uncorked the jar, and a scent slithered through the grove—not fragrance, but presence.
It crept like fog into lungs and blood: blackthorn, myrrh, wolfsbane…
and something sharper. Iron. Decay. Memory.
He lifted a bundle of yew and wolfsbane, moving with ritual care, as if watched by something ancient.
He lowered it into the flame. Smoke rose in black tendrils, twisting against the night.
The monoliths pulsed. Their runes flickered in resistance. Kaelioth exhaled and chanted in a tongue older than empires. The grove shuddered, and the runes dimmed. He dipped his fingers into the spring, and the water clung like oil. He marked Stephan’s brow, then Kareon’s. His touch burned cold.
“The veil is thin,” he said. “And the Hollow does not welcome strangers.” His voice no longer guided. It warned. He looked between them, weighing. “Drink, and remember this. If you carry fear into the Hollow, it will wear your face.”
The monoliths pulsed again, weaker now. Neither man moved. Neither looked at the other.
Stephan stepped forward first. He knelt and hesitated. Something old within him whispered: don’t. He drank anyway.
The liquid was thick and metallic, laced with soil and iron. The taste was wrong. His pulse faltered.
Kareon followed without pause. He grimaced instantly.
“Gods’own piss,” he muttered.
Smoke tightened around them as the scent of myrrh sharpened, thick with blood and the charge of an approaching storm. Kaelioth stood motionless and watched. Then the potion began to take hold.
The monoliths flared, not with power, but in protest. The ground exhaled, long and low, as something ancient shifted in the dark below.
Kaelioth spoke at last, his voice final. "Walk carefully. And do not look back."
The fall was not a descent. It was surrender. The world did not shatter. It simply let go.
Light vanished first, drawn back like breath. Weightlessness followed, then the scent of myrrh, earth, and ash. It clung to him like memory. Stephan did not know where his body ended, but he knew his hand still held hers.
Eris.
Her fingers were still, but they were real. If this was the last time he closed his eyes, he wanted her hand in his.
The ground welcomed them, as if it remembered. He drew her fingers to his chest and held them over the beat still struggling beneath his ribs.
The world twisted, reshaping into something beyond time. He pressed his forehead to hers, their breath mingling.
“I will find you,” he whispered. “Even if the gods forget your name—I will not.”
A few steps away, Kareon felt the shift. The veil tugged at him, strange and vast, but he did not let go.
His fingers stayed laced with Eris’s. One arm curled around her as his forehead pressed to hers, letting silence carry what words never could.
If she vanished, he would follow, because without her, the war meant nothing.
Without her, he was only fury with no shape.
She had always been the only thing that made him more than what they had made him.
He could not lose her again.
Then the darkness cracked, and the world between worlds opened.
The void rippled. It stretched, then split. Silence tore open like worn cloth, and through the cracks, light poured in.
Stephan stumbled forward. The weightless dark vanished beneath his feet, and the jolt hit like waking from a drowning dream.
Then came a scent. Oak leaves. Damp earth. The breath of something long buried.
He froze. He knew this place.
The Dragov estate shimmered in soft gold, but something was wrong. The warmth was unnatural. The estate stood too intact, untouched by time or consequence. The past should not feel so real. It should not hurt like this.
He stepped forward, even as his soul resisted. He told himself it was only the Hollow. Only an illusion.
Then he saw her.
She sat small and curled into herself, humming. Not the woman he knew. The child. Eris. Auburn curls spilled down her back. Her dress was regal, streaked with mud. She held a wooden doll, one arm missing.
His breath caught, sharp in his chest. His hands clenched against the ache blooming beneath his ribs. “May I sit with you?”
She gave a small nod, and he eased down beside her. She did not look up. She only adjusted the doll, smoothing its worn dress. She looked so young, so familiar. So painfully real.
Memories rose without mercy. The girl who’d chased him through castle halls. Who’d laughed like no one watched. Who’d returned his stolen books with wildflowers pressed between the pages. The girl who had never been allowed to truly be one.
“What are you doing?” he asked, quietly.
She answered without looking. “I’m waiting for someone.”
“Who?”
Her fingers paused. She blinked, her brow furrowing with confusion. “I don’t know.”
He went still. This was it. A fracture. A piece of her soul adrift and searching. “Why are you here alone?”
“They do not let me play with the other children.” She said it simply, like something long accepted. “Mother says I am embarrassing.” There was a pause. Then she spoke again, softer. “I do not act like a proper princess.”
She laughed too loud. She ran too fast. She got her dress dirty. She listened to wind that should not speak.
Stephan’s hands curled tightly in quiet fury. He had always known the cage they built around her. He had watched them shape her shame.
She picked at her dress, her shoulders curving inward. “Maybe the person I am waiting for is not coming, because they think I am embarrassing too.”
It broke something inside him. “Do not say that.” His voice cracked, rough and full of ache. “You do not have to change for anyone.” He turned to her completely, voice raw. “You are fearless. Brave. Sacred. Do not let them take that from you.”
She looked up, her wide green eyes searching his. Then she smiled—a small, knowing thing. “I like you.”
His heart stopped, breaking and mending in the same breath. If they ever made it back, he would tear apart anyone who made her doubt herself again.
She leapt to her feet and grabbed his hand. “Come on! Let’s play!”
He exhaled, smiling despite himself. “Are you sure you want to play with a boring old prince?”
She grinned, eyes bright. “I bet I beat you.”
He laughed and shook his head. “All right. Show me.”
She darted into the maze, and just like that, he was ten again. Her laughter echoed through the hedges, light, free. Perfect. The most beautiful sound in the world. He would give anything to hear it forever.
She turned too quickly, rounded a corner, and ran straight into him. Eris yelped and tumbled back.
“Eris—” He dropped to his knees.
She blinked up at him, cheeks flushed, curls untamed. He brushed the hair from her face with aching tenderness. Then she spoke.
“I think I remember.”
He froze. “What do you remember?”
Her brow furrowed in concentration. “Who I am waiting for.” She paused, eyes distant. “Someone special.” The world seemed to hold its breath. “He makes me laugh, makes me feel safe. Like you do.”
His heart slammed against his ribs. It was him. She had always been waiting for him.
“Try, little one,” he whispered. “Say his name.”
She squeezed her eyes shut as panic rose in her small frame. The world trembled, and shadows began to gather.
Stephan’s voice cracked. “Say it, Eris. Please.”
She looked at him, trembling, desperate. The shadows surged as the world twisted around them. “His name is…” Her fingers clutched his sleeves.
The ground split beneath them, and darkness rose.
She gasped. “Stephan.”
Joy broke through him, raw and absolute. “That’s it.”