⚔️ The House of Embersong ⚔️
By Don RÆG
"There are seas you sail, and seas that sail you.
The Hollow is the second kind. And it never forgets your weight."
— Captain Rael of the Ghostfleet, last seen whispering to waves
I.
The sea groaned like a dying god.
Dark. Still. Shapeless.
It stretched beyond sight — neither fully ocean nor fully sky, a mirror of black glass where the stars above refused to reflect. Beneath that surface… something moved. Slowly. Like the thoughts of an old titan waking from the weight of centuries.
They called it the Hollow Sea.
The Final Gulf.
The place where maps went to drown.
And Reginal stood at the prow of his ship, The Emberfang, cloaked in red silence, staring into the water as if he expected it to blink.
II.
The Hollow was not marked on any chart.
Only the Ember Scrolls — cursed tomes once buried beneath Solmara's cathedrals — whispered of it:
"Beneath the Hollow sleeps the thing that made the First Fang bleed…"
Kammy stood at his side, wind tugging at her veil.
"I saw it in the dream again," she murmured. "The island that breathes. The tower without a top. Your name… carved in stone too old to be written."
"It's not the sea that frightens me," Reginal replied. "It's what it remembers."
Milo growled from below deck, pacing like a caged warbeast.
"Whatever's waiting," he shouted up, "let it know I brought my appetite."
III.
Three days in, the stars above disappeared.
The crew stopped speaking.
Shadows in the water whispered names — not screamed, not sung — just… spoken. Familiar names.
Reginal heard his mother's voice.
Kammy heard her future child crying.
Milo heard himself, begging for mercy.
"It's not illusion," Kammy warned.
"The Hollow feeds on what we hide."
"Then let it starve," Reginal snarled.
That night, a bell rang.
Land.
IV.
It wasn't an island.
It was a skull — larger than a fortress, half-submerged in black water, covered in vines that hissed and eyesockets that pulsed like open wounds.
They disembarked with twenty soldiers.
Only three returned.
Inside the skull lay a stairwell carved downward, lit by blood-torches and bone-lanterns — a spiral that reached deeper than the sea itself.
Reginal descended alone.
V.
At the bottom was a throne made of failure.
Not gold. Not bone.
Weapons.
Broken blades. Shattered shields. Cracked crowns — all forged from those who tried to take the Hollow and failed.
And on the throne…
…a corpse.
Wearing the same sigil as Reginal.
But older.
Grayer.
And when Reginal touched its crown — it opened its eyes.
"You're not the first," it rasped.
"But I will be the last."
The corpse laughed.
And shattered into light.
VI.
Reginal fell backward, gasping, eyes glowing.
Kammy caught him as he emerged from the stairwell. His skin steamed. His heartbeat echoed through the floor.
"You saw it?" she asked.
"I was it."
"What now?"
He looked up.
The Hollow Sea had turned red.
From within the waves… something had awakened.
And it knew his name.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Next: Chapter XIII – "The Thing That Named the Flame"
A voice older than gods rises from the Hollow. It knows what Reginal is becoming — and wants to claim it. Meanwhile, the world's last dragon prepares to kneel… or burn.