The Hollow did not sleep that night.
It pulsed beneath the forest floor—an ancient heartbeat echoing through roots and stones. With the bond severed, its hunger sharpened.
Lyra felt it even in her dreams—if those fragmented visions could be called that. Shadows bled silver across her mind. A forest abscess breathed her name with a voice not entirely human.
When she awoke, the world felt alien.
Quieter. Cold.
As if a part of her had died—and something else had slipped into its place.
She sat up slowly, tangled sheets falling around her ankles. The hunger in her chest wasn't the vestige of Cain's bond. It was an emptiness cut deep into her soul.
Her skin itched—like the mark she'd severed still pulled between memory and flesh.
Lyra dressed in silence, wrapping wool around her shoulders despite Bloodveil's suffocating warmth. The cloak felt oppressive—another binding she wasn't ready to don. Her heart pounded, not with anticipation, but with an ache she couldn't name.
Cain did not leave his chambers.
Not for war counsel. Not for battle plans. Not even when Davin burst in, breath ragged, to report that two villages had fallen silent overnight.
Cain remained seated in the gloom, shoulders slumped against stone, breath shallow.
The bond was shattered. Its scar was gone.
The wound beneath still pulsed.
He felt… hollow.
Lyra's presence had grounded him. Even her rage had steadied something inside him.
Now there was only regret—and something else growing in its place.
A dark, echoing hunger.
From the upper battlements, Kael watched the valley below, shadows stretching over the land like spilled ink.
At the base of the tower, Lyra stood still, arms crossed, silhouette taut under the moon's light.
"Something's coming," she mused, voice cold.
Kael joined her, cloak brushing hers. "Or something already has."
She didn't turn.
"It wants me." Her voice was a whisper.
"It always has," Kael replied.
He leaned closer. "You opened the gate with your scream. You summoned the bond. And now that it's gone… the Hollow will ask again."
Her fists clenched.
"I won't offer myself again."
"You must," he said quietly. "If the Hollow rises, it won't wait."
Lyra took a slow breath.
"Then we seal it."
Kael's smile glinted beneath the moonlight. "There is a way."
Under cover of dark, Kael led her through crypts no one else knew—passages only whispered about among older wolves.
They entered a hidden chamber deep beneath the fortress, lit by flickering wolffire. In the center lay an obsidian well bordered by iron and carved with ancient Hollow runes.
The air smelled of old blood and forgotten fear.
"What is this?" Lyra asked.
Kael's tone was reverent. "The Mouth of the Hollow. The place where the first bond was forged—before laws, before Luna, before light."
Lyra inhaled—a tremor inside her belly.
"I came to sever it."
Kael caught her wrist. Not gentleness—but not force.
"To guard Bloodveil? To guard him?"
Her eyes narrowed. "That isn't my burden anymore."
His grip tightened. "Bind it instead. On your terms. With choice."
She yanked her wrist back.
"I've done that before. I nearly died."
Kael's eyes hardened. "Then rewrite it, not from blood—but from will."
Lyra looked at the still surface of the well.
She felt the pull—one she'd known since she was a girl screaming in flames. It called to her again.
Cain stirred in his quarters. Threadsof old magic tugged at his bones. He smelled blood. Felt fire at the back of his throat.
Lyra was near the Hollow.
He couldn't let her face it alone.
Wearied bones moved him toward the crypts the bond had once guided him to.
Lyra lingered at the chamber's edge. The well's surface rippled with black light.
She pressed a hand to her ribcage—bare where the mark once burned—and whispered:
"If I bind it…"
The darkness answered with memory.
"You command it—or it commands you."
Cain stepped into the chamber's shadows.
Lyra turned, meeting his gaze.
The memory fell between them.
Kael edged closer.
"You can contain it," Kael urged. "Bind it to yourself."
Cain's eyes flickered to Kael.
"She'll only shackles herself again," Cain warned.
Lyra lowered her gaze.
"This is my choice," she whispered.
She crossed the threshold toward the well.
Kael stepped aside. Cain remained behind her.
Together, they entered the Mouth of the Hollow.
Lyra felt the earth hum in response.
Cain watched.
Kael observed.
Lyra stood before the well—obsidian dark and whispering.
She lifted a blade etched with Hollow runes.
To bind or to break—but differently.
She carved the shape of the bond into her palm.
The Mark flickered in memory across the blade.
Then burned itself in blood.
She bit back a cry.
The forest above trembled.
The crisis she'd dodged had ruptured.
Cain fell to his knees in the forest beyond, fur steaming, fingers trembling around empty air.
He could feel her.
Not by bond. But by absence.
He crawled toward her name echoing in the trees.
Past vines that shook.
Past roots that hissed.
Until he reached the clearing.
Smoke curled across the ground.
He rose.
Lyra felt the unraveling inside her.
Not agony—but release.
The bond fragmented in her chest, leaving only memory.
Cain staggered into view—muscles trembling, fur damp with sweat.
They stared at each other—
No words.
Only the space between them.
The mark was gone.
So was the warmth she once leaned on.
Lyra pressed her hand to her chest.
Three faint lines remained on her palm—a scar. Not of love. Of survival.
Kael stepped into the stillness of the chamber.
"It's done," he said softly.
Lyra didn't meet his gaze.
Cain rose unsteadily.
"You can't save them both," she whispered.
Kael offered his hand—an open invitation. "Then come with me."
Cain's voice was low. "Don't."
She looked at each of them—unstable, fractured, raw.
And chose neither.
"I have to find my own path."
She turned and left.
That night, the keep trembled.
Bloodveil wolves glanced at Cain—empty, haunted.
He said nothing.
He stayed within the war chamber, facing maps and the past.
Lonely.
Kael, far above, stood on the summit of conquest.
He looked at a scrap of Lyra's cloak in his hand.
"She's free," he whispered.
He turned.
And behind him—stars bled across the sky.
The bond ended.
But the Hollow had begun to stir again.
Because what's broken—
Must be fed.