Chapter 2: Whispers in Darn Hollow
Darn Hollow was not a place where time moved quickly. The days rolled like low clouds—gray, predictable, and thick with routine. People here valued silence, steady work, and old superstitions. They carved charms from bone and iron, left offerings at crossroads, and never spoke aloud the names of things that might be listening.
Kael was a disruption to that silence, though he never tried to be.
He woke before dawn and worked until the sun dipped behind the peaks. He hauled stone for the masons, gathered herbs for the healer, chopped wood for those too old to swing an axe. He spoke little, took no coin, and rarely asked questions. But wherever he went, the air grew still.
Children ran the long way around him in the village square. Chickens scattered from his path. Even the dogs, bold and loud with everyone else, never barked when Kael passed—they lowered their heads and whimpered, ears pressed flat.
Only one person dared speak to him without flinching.
Her name was Lira, a weaver's daughter with fire in her voice and mud always on her hem. She was seventeen, sharp-tongued, and never cared much for rules. She found Kael's silence more intriguing than frightening.
"You always look like you're staring into something no one else can see," she said once, tossing him a piece of bread as they sat on a wall overlooking the temple gardens. "Do you ever dream of anything normal?"
Kael took the bread, hesitating. "Sometimes," he said. "But they don't feel like dreams. They feel like... remembering."
Lira tilted her head. "Remembering what?"
Kael didn't answer. He couldn't. The memories weren't full images—just flashes. A hand reaching through fire. A broken sword. A voice calling him traitor. Always the same name in the distance like thunder—Arkan.
That night, he wandered to the old shrine near the edge of the Blackwilds. The shrine was half-rotted and choked in ivy, its god long forgotten. The villagers avoided it, whispering that something had once been sealed there. But Kael was drawn to it.
He sat in the cold, listening.
The wind moved oddly through the trees, carrying voices too faint to understand. Shadows bent strangely around the shrine's edges, like the stone remembered being worshipped and resented being ignored. Kael placed his palm against the ancient altar. The stone felt warm. Alive.
Then he heard it.
A whisper—not in his ears, but in his mind.
"Return."
He pulled his hand back sharply. The warmth faded.
---
The next day, strange things began to happen.
The well near the square overflowed—though no rain had fallen. Birds flew in circles above the temple spire, screeching, feathers falling like black snow. A storm rolled in from the north, but stopped at the edge of the forest as if waiting.
And that night, a boy Kael's age went missing near the cliffs. No tracks. No signs. Just his boots, neatly placed by the edge.
The villagers blamed the woods. They always did. But Enric, the high priest, grew pale when Kael passed the temple steps. He whispered to his fellow priests:
"He's waking. Something is waking in him."
---
Later that week, Lira found Kael sharpening a blade outside the woodshed. Not a sword—just a farmer's tool—but he held it with the precision of a soldier.
She leaned against the doorpost. "You've changed."
Kael didn't look up. "I don't feel different."
"You're quieter. Heavier. Like you're… carrying something." She paused. "Something old."
Kael stopped sharpening. "I don't know what I am," he said softly. "But I don't think I'm meant to stay here."
"Then find out," Lira said. "But don't forget this place. You've still got someone who isn't afraid of you."
She smiled, but there was a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. Even she felt it now—like a storm was building behind his gaze.
Kael returned the smile. Just a hint. "Thank you."
That night, he dreamed again. But this time, it was not a battlefield. It was a hall of mirrors, each one showing a different version of himself—some armored, some bloodied, some crowned. In the center stood a throne made of bones and fire. And behind it, a shadow with no face whispered:
"You were not cast down. You were reborn."
Kael woke at dawn, eyes burning, heart pounding. The wind outside howled through the eaves, and from the edge of the Blackwilds, a single crow stared at his window… waiting.