Root didn't sleep.
Even after the whisper faded. Even after the room stopped spinning. Even after the fourth time he checked that no one else had stirred.
The bunkhouse was quiet. Thirty other voids breathing in and out across creaky beds and crumbling walls. But Root lay wide-eyed on his cot, eyes locked on the tin ceiling above him, heart crawling like a trapped beetle in his throat.
You're late.
Not a voice. Not really. More like… a thought that didn't belong to him. As if someone had opened a door inside his head and spoken through it.
It hadn't sounded angry.
Just… waiting.
By morning, he had almost convinced himself it hadn't happened. Sleep deprivation. Stress. Amara's pity-lecture twisting itself into his imagination. Maybe that was all.
But as he stepped outside, barefoot in the wet grass, the truth returned in the wind: his chest still ached. Not like a wound. Not like soreness. But like something under the surface was moving.
He took the long path through the southern ridge, away from the market walkways and morning harvesters. He didn't want the stares. Not again.
Drossmere wasn't big, but it never let you disappear.
Once the label stuck—Voidseed—you became part of the town's soil. Forgotten, stepped on, left to rot with the other failed bloomers.
He found the old glyph-well in the jungle clearing.
It hadn't worked in years, its sigil-ring cracked down the middle and overgrown with thin roots. He used to play here as a child—back when he still believed his mark would come.
Root crouched beside the stone and pressed a hand to his chest.
Nothing. Still nothing.
He closed his eyes.
Inhaled.
Exhaled.
Tried.
He felt… not power. But presence. Not warmth. But pressure.
Then—
Thud.
His palm slipped. His breath caught.
Because the pressure pushed back.
The world tilted. His knees gave out. Grass became cloud. Cold vanished. Sound folded in on itself.
He didn't fall asleep.
He fell inward.
—Inside the Hollow Within—
At first, he thought he was dreaming.
He stood barefoot on a vast stone platform, circular and dim, surrounded by empty black.
Not night. Not void. Just… space that hadn't decided what it was yet.
There was no sky. No walls. No sound.
But something pulsed beneath his feet.
A heartbeat that wasn't his.
A low hum radiated from the stone, slow and steady—almost like breathing. The floor was carved with lines, shallow grooves that formed no symbols he could read. But they pulsed too. Faintly. Like veins beneath pale skin.
Root turned slowly.
In the center of the platform stood a single chair.
Old. Made of jagged black roots wound into a crude throne. It looked abandoned, ancient—and yet… familiar.
He took a step toward it.
And the air changed.
Not louder. Not colder. Just aware.
Like someone had opened their eyes.
Then—a flicker.
To the left of the throne, at the very edge of the platform, something moved.
A shape. Small. Cloaked in dark, fluttering threads. No taller than a child. Face hidden behind a smooth white mask, cracked slightly across the mouth.
It stood perfectly still.
Root froze.
The figure tilted its head.
Then it spoke.
"Still slow," it said.
Root's voice was barely a whisper. "What… are you?"
The masked figure ignored the question. "You heard me yesterday. That means you're opening. Good."
"Opening what?"
The thing stepped forward—graceful, almost floaty. "You. The seal. The hollow. Whatever poetic phrase makes you feel important."
"I didn't—" Root took a step back. "This isn't real."
"No," the figure agreed. "It's worse."
Another step. Closer. Root could hear the soft tap of its too-small feet on the stone. Not threatening. Not fast. But confident. Intentional.
The mask looked up at him.
"You expected light," it said, voice flat. "You expected glory. A burning mark. A beast to command. What you got was silence. And silence is where I live."
Root swallowed. "Am I dead?"
"No. But give it time." The figure turned away and walked toward the throne. "I'm not your death, Root. I'm your consequence."
The name stung. "You know me."
"I was made from you." It touched the throne. "Well. Sort of. You were the mold. I was the… fermentation."
"What does that mean?"
"It means you should've broken." The masked thing tapped the side of the throne. "You didn't. So now I have to carry it."
"Carry what?"
"The throne," it said simply.
Root blinked. "What throne?"
It turned and stared at him like he was the dumbest thing alive.
Then shrugged.
"The one inside you."
Root woke with dirt in his teeth and blood on his lip.
He'd fallen forward onto the cracked glyph-stone.
The jungle clearing around him was still. Empty. The sun hadn't moved.
But his chest—his chest burned.
He pulled open his collar and looked.
There was no sigil.
No mark.
Just a faint pulse beneath the skin.
And the softest echo in his head:
"Get ready, slow one. Next time, I'll bring the mop."