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Chapter 7 - The Hollow Rift

The Hollow Rift was not a place.

It was a wound.

Auren felt it before he saw it—like a pressure behind the eyes, a pulling beneath the skin. As if something deep underground was breathing, slow and cold and older than memory.

The land itself whispered: wrong, wrong, wrong.

They camped a mile from the canyon's lip. No one wanted to get closer than necessary, not even Darien. Not even Caelen, whose sword had never left his side since they crossed the Shardspike Field. Not even Lys, whose usual poise had slipped into silence.

The wind here howled in bursts, as if screaming from below.

The scouts returned near dusk. Only two out of the five who went.

"The others—vanished," one gasped, blood on his cheek. "No sound. No sign. One moment walking, next—just gone. Like something... unstitched them from the world."

Darien's jaw clenched. "We move at first light. Into the Rift."

Caelen stepped forward. "That's a death sentence."

"They're not dead," Darien said. "Not yet. And if something in there is Void-touched, then we end it. We're not leaving rot to fester this close to the Reach."

For the first time, Caelen did not argue.

He only said, "Then we go together."

That night, Auren dreamed.

But not in sleep.

He saw a throne—not of gold, but bone. A spiral of corpses twisted into a seat that breathed. Something sat upon it—a figure without a face, cloaked in shifting light. Its fingers were made of broken Shards, glinting with stolen glow.

And it whispered, not in voice, but in feeling.

You were made from fracture.

You were shaped by silence.

You do not carry a Shard...

Because you are one.

He woke in a cold sweat, gasping.

The symbol from the crypt burned in his mind.

A circle.

Broken.

The next morning, they descended.

The Hollow Rift was wider than expected, its edges sheer cliffs carved by time—or by force. The walls pulsed faintly with deep blue veins. The snow did not touch its floor. The wind did not stir its air.

And something watched them from below.

Darien led with sword in hand. Caelen followed, scanning every ledge. Lys moved wordlessly, her own Shard glowing faintly beneath her collarbone.

Auren walked behind them, his feet numb, heart thudding with every step.

The silence was unbearable.

Until it broke.

A scream—short, sharp, and cut off.

They turned.

One of the rear guards had vanished. No trace. No sound.

Lys's eyes glowed faintly. "Something's folding the light here."

"An illusion?" Caelen asked.

"No," she whispered. "A predator."

They reached the canyon's floor by mid-afternoon.

Ruins sprawled at its base—shattered pillars, strange stone paths marked with glyphs none of them recognized. It wasn't ancient Rivenhart architecture. It wasn't Crown-era.

It was older.

Pre-Shardfall.

"Impossible," Darien muttered. "This predates the oldest maps."

And then Auren felt it.

Not fear.

Not pain.

Recognition.

A soft pulse at the base of his spine, traveling up like smoke.

He stepped away from the group, pulled without knowing why. The ruins seemed to bend toward him. The glyphs flared faintly as he passed.

One shimmered brighter than the others—etched into a standing slab cracked down the middle.

Auren placed his palm against it.

And the world shattered.

He stood in another place.

Not truly, not physically.

But his mind had been pulled into a memory.

Not his own.

A battlefield. Shardbearers clashing, wings of light tearing through sky and flesh. Giants of glass and iron crumbling. A man standing atop a broken tower, arms outstretched, blood glowing with raw power. Around him, a thousand Shards... cracking.

And beneath it all, the throne.

The whisper returned.

They tried to Bind us. To tame what was never meant to kneel.

So we broke the bindings.

We became the fracture.

And you...

You are our echo.

He snapped back, falling to his knees.

Lys was at his side in an instant. "What did you see?"

He looked at her, throat dry. "They were like me. Broken."

She paled. "You saw the Fractured."

Darien pulled him up, rougher than necessary. "Enough visions. We're here for answers, not dreams."

But Auren shook his head. "This is the answer."

He turned, pointing at the ruins. "This place—it's not a battlefield. It's a grave. And something down here remembers."

Caelen's hand went to his hilt. "Then we leave. Burn it. Seal it."

Darien's voice was low. "We can't. Not yet. The Crown needs proof. Power. If this is a lost shard-source..."

"It's not power," Auren said. "It's a warning."

That night, three more men vanished.

No blood. No noise.

Only the mark left behind—scorched frost on stone, and a circle, broken.

Drawn in ash.

Auren stared at it for a long time.

Then looked up at the dark.

And whispered, "You're coming, aren't you?"

A breath passed across his ear.

And the dark whispered back:

We never left.

[End of Chapter 7]

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