The city had never been quiet, not truly. Even in stillness, Hollowroot hummed—a silent throb beneath cobblestone veins, under layers of rot and ruined time. But now, something deeper stirred. Not sound, not silence. A memory. A pressure behind Nima's eyes that grew heavier with each step forward.
She and Dmitri had followed the stranger—Ovrun, he called himself—down through the tunnels beneath the Cradle. The passage twisted like an infection through stone, wet and pulsing. The deeper they walked, the harder it became to tell whether the water running down the walls was condensation… or tears.
They said nothing for a long time. Ovrun carried a lantern of hollow flame, the light flickering but giving no heat. Dmitri stayed close, his grip never leaving the hilt of his blade. Nima's hand, however, hovered not over her weapon, but her side—where the Bell shard had started to throb again. It pulsed in rhythm with something deeper now, as if aware they were nearing a heart.
Eventually, the path opened into a cavern. It was vast, impossibly vast, as though the world itself had been carved out and left hollow. A shattered stone walkway stretched out over the void, suspended by nothing.
"This wasn't made by hands," Ovrun muttered. "It was… grown."
Dmitri stepped cautiously onto the path. "What is this place?"
Ovrun knelt, touching the walkway's surface. "The city's real foundation. Hollowroot wasn't built on earth or rock—it was built on memory. The first sin of this world, buried and rotting."
"And the Bell?" Nima asked, voice low.
Ovrun looked up, his eyes gleaming with something between awe and terror. "The Bell didn't just toll for the dead. It remembers them. It became their shape. Their sorrow. Their rage."
They walked farther. Statues lined the sides of the path, but they weren't made of stone. They were echoes—people frozen in agony, caught mid-scream, mid-prayer. Their eyes moved. Some wept blood. Others followed Nima's every step.
Each one whispered.
"Nima," Dmitri whispered, pointing. "Look there."
At the end of the path stood a monolith. A shard the size of a cathedral, embedded in the void like a blade driven into a corpse. The Bell's echo. A core fragment, maybe the first. Nima approached it—and the whispering turned into screams.
She collapsed to her knees. Her head split open—not literally, but in sensation. Images poured in. Her hands buried in soil, pulling at roots that screamed in her voice. A child burning beneath a black sun. A reflection in water that wasn't hers. And worst of all—
Her mother's voice. Calling her name. Singing.
The same song from the Bell.
"No," Nima gasped. "No, this isn't real."
But it was. And it wasn't a vision. She was there. A girl again. Standing in the kitchen. Watching her mother wipe her hands on a stained apron. The smell of onions and vinegar in the air. The soft rise of music playing from the old radio in the corner.
"You're early," her mother said. She turned.
Her eyes were black pits. And her smile was too wide.
"Don't you remember, Nima?" she whispered. "You left me. You left all of us."
Nima tried to back away—but her feet wouldn't move. The floor cracked beneath her. Her mother reached out. Not flesh—just shadow. Just memory. But it hurt.
"Your purpose was never yours," the shadow crooned. "You are a carrier. A voice. A vessel. That's all we are. Echoes."
Dmitri's voice—distant—called her name. But it was drowned by the Bell.
And then—crack.
The shard inside her pulsed like a second heart. Something tore inside her. Her scream wasn't her own—it was a thousand screams in one. The memory shattered.
And she was back on the path, gasping, tears streaming down her face.
Dmitri caught her. Ovrun stood over her, silent, reverent.
"You saw it," Ovrun said softly. "The root of it."
Nima could hardly breathe. "What… what is this place?"
Ovrun's voice dropped to a whisper. "This is the vault of the First Toll. Where the Song was born. Before gods. Before time. It sang once. And the world bent."
He pointed to the monolith.
"And now, it's singing again."
The city was no longer quiet.
Even after the shadows had thinned and the unnatural cold faded, Hollowroot pulsed with something foul—like the exhale of a dying god. Nima walked the fractured streets in silence, her blade still stained from the last battle. The shard of the Bell hummed faintly in her satchel, as if echoing some unseen rhythm beneath the earth.
She didn't speak to the others—not Dmitri, not the remaining Bellborne, not even the girl they'd saved who now trailed behind them like a ghost without a tether. Her thoughts were a storm, and no one could enter it.
The buildings leaned oddly now, like they had bent to the will of some titanic force. Windows stared blankly. Doors swung open to houses long emptied. It wasn't just the town that had changed. It was her.
And she was beginning to feel it.
They came upon an old cathedral at the city's edge, barely standing, its stained glass warped and bleeding with symbols she couldn't read. The others stopped to rest—Dmitri watched her from a cracked pew, but said nothing. He knew better now.
Nima stepped beyond the altar.
Behind it was a door scorched black, half-buried in rubble. Something pulled at her, not like before—not like the Bell's lure. This was quieter, like a memory that had been waiting.
She entered.
Darkness swallowed her whole. The floor descended into a narrow stairwell, and soon, the air grew tighter. Familiar.
She reached the bottom and found a mirror.
It stood freely in the center of a circular chamber, completely untouched by the decay above. Its frame was metal—obsidian twisted into geometric thorns—and the glass shimmered like the surface of deep water. Nima stared at it, not seeing herself, but something else.
A version of her.
Pale. Hollow-eyed. Drenched in ash and blood.
"You'll lose everything," the reflection said. It didn't mouth the words—it spoke them. "You already are."
Nima stepped closer. "What are you?"
The figure's mouth curled. "I'm what's left if you keep walking forward."
The chamber around her blurred. She smelled salt, fire, and the faint perfume of lavender—her mother's. But that wasn't possible. That memory had died with the house.
"You think you can change the world?" the mirror said. "You think the Bell chose you? It didn't. You were just there. Just available. Replaceable."
Nima trembled. Her hand moved to the shard, gripping it.
"But you do want to matter," it whispered. "You want to be remembered. Even if it means becoming something you fear."
She stepped back. The reflection moved with her, but its expression stayed calm—merciful, even.
"This is your trial," it said. "Not a monster. Not a blade. Just the truth."
The air collapsed.
The mirror shattered without warning—glass flying outward, slicing her cheek. Light filled the room, but not golden light. It was silver—pale, cold, silent. And in its gleam, she saw her memories laid bare across the walls: her father's silence, her village's fall, the night she touched the Bell and lost her innocence.
Nima fell to her knees.
Then something touched her shoulder.
She turned.
It was her—not the reflection. Not the twisted image. But her younger self. Before the Bell. Before Dmitri. Before the dying world.
"You don't have to lose yourself," the girl said. "But you can't stay who you were."
Nima reached out—but the moment vanished.
The chamber was empty. The mirror gone. Her hand bled where glass had sliced her. But the hum in her satchel had changed. Softer now. Less demanding.
She walked back up the stairs.
When she emerged into the cold, Dmitri looked up. "What happened?"
She didn't answer right away. She looked up at the sky. The stars above Hollowroot were clearer now, as if the fog had parted just enough to show the way forward.
"Let's keep moving," she said.
And they did.
But something inside her had shifted.
She no longer carried the Bell's shard.
It carried her.