Elian's fingers wrapped around the dagger, its hilt slick with sweat and ash. The blade shimmered faintly, etched with runes he still didn't understand. It had once belonged to Tomas—his brother, the fifth son. One of the marked. One of the sacrificed.
The Hollow Child waited, its gaze empty and bottomless. Around them, the specters of the six brothers hovered like dying stars, flickering in and out of visibility. Not pleading. Not warning. Just… watching.
"Elian," Father Luka said quietly, "if you strike it, you end the curse. But—"
"But I die too," Elian finished, voice low. "Don't I?"
The priest said nothing.
Vlad staggered to his feet, blood running down his temple. "Then *kill it.* Better one death than a thousand."
"Spoken like a man who's never lost everything," muttered Father Luka.
Elian's thoughts spun. The Hollow Child *hadn't* attacked. Hadn't even moved to harm him. It only spoke the truth—that he was the key. Not a weapon. Not a hero.
Just the hinge on which damnation or salvation turned.
He looked into the creature's face. In the hollows of its eyes, he saw a memory—one not his own.
His mother, screaming.
Blood on the birthing stone.
A voice whispering, *"Seven, for the gate to open."*
They had made him to die.
The Hollow Child tilted its head.
*"End it… or begin again."*
With a scream torn from the weight of blood and grief, Elian lifted the dagger—
—and plunged it into his own heart.
Light exploded from the wound, a pulse that shattered the cradle and sent the spirits reeling. The Hollow Child cried out—not in pain, but in release—as cracks webbed through its form and it dissolved into ash.
Elian fell to his knees.
And smiled.
Because for the first time, he'd made his *own* choice.
—