The dawn after blood is always the quietest.
Smoke rose in thin, crooked lines from the wreckage of the camp. Survivors moved slowly, like ghosts trapped in their own broken bodies. No one spoke loudly; voices felt like they would shatter what little strength was left.
Aelric sat apart from the others, his sword planted in the sand before him. His corrupted arm twitched with every heartbeat, black veins creeping farther up his chest. He ignored it, eyes fixed on the horizon.
Elara approached with a strip of cloth and a stubborn look. "You're bleeding again."
"I'm always bleeding," Aelric muttered.
"Then I'll keep wrapping you until you stop pretending it doesn't matter."
He smirked faintly but didn't resist as she tied the cloth around the latest wound carved into his side. Her hands trembled as she worked, though she tried to hide it. He noticed anyway.
"You're scared," he said.
"Of course I am." She met his gaze sharply. "But not of you. Of losing you."
The words cut deeper than any Hunter's blade.
---
Elsewhere, Mira barked orders at the ragged survivors. "Stack what's left of the tents. Sharpen anything with an edge. I don't care if it's a spoon—if it can stab, it's a weapon now."
Kael groaned as he tried to haul wood with his bandaged leg. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"
"Enjoying? No," Mira snapped. "But it beats waiting around to die."
Lysa appeared silently at her side, dropping a bundle of scavenged arrows. "No bows left. Maybe we can rig something."
"Then rig it fast," Mira said. "Because next time, we won't get mercy."
Her words settled like stones in the survivors' chests. They all knew it. Veyth's retreat hadn't been defeat—it had been a reprieve. And reprieves never lasted.
---
That night, the survivors gathered around the faint glow of a makeshift fire. Food was scarce—just a few scraps of dried meat, split into uneven shares.
Mira chewed hers without complaint. Lysa ate quietly, her eyes scanning the darkness. Kael muttered his half-prayers, half-curses, as though daring the gods to prove him wrong.
Elara offered half her portion to Aelric. He refused at first, but she shoved it at him with a glare that brooked no argument. He ate silently, his thoughts elsewhere.
Finally, Mira broke the silence. "We need a plan. We can't just sit here waiting for the next nightmare to stroll in."
"And what do you suggest?" Kael asked bitterly. "March into the desert until we collapse? Hide underground until the sky falls?"
Mira's jaw tightened. "Better than waiting to be slaughtered."
Aelric's voice cut through, low and steady. "We don't run. Not yet. They'll find us no matter where we go."
"Then what?" Mira challenged. "What's your brilliant plan?"
He lifted his corrupted arm, letting the black veins shimmer in the firelight. "We use this."
The survivors shifted uncomfortably. The corruption was terrifying, unpredictable. But they'd all seen what he did to the Mirror Hollow. They'd seen how his infection turned against itself.
"You want to fight their fire with your own sickness?" Mira asked flatly.
Aelric's grin was sharp, almost feral. "Exactly."
---
Far away, in the Council's chamber of frozen glass, preparations had already begun.
The eleven figures of shifting time-lights loomed in their eternal seats. Beneath them, Veyth knelt, head bowed, silent as a shadow.
From the center rose a new figure—a towering construct of bone and fractured clocks, its body stitched together from shards of erased lifetimes. Its hollow chest ticked with countless overlapping heartbeats.
"The Weaver," one of the Council intoned. "Born of severed timelines. It unravels what should never have been."
Another voice echoed coldly. "The Hollowbearer has proven resistant. He must face what he cannot fight—himself, undone."
The Weaver's fractured head turned, its face a clock with no hands. Each tick echoed wrong, like time itself stumbling.
Veyth spoke for the first time. "He will not survive it."
"Good," the eldest voice replied. "Then his flame ends where it began—in corruption."
---
Back in the desert, Aelric lay awake long after the others had drifted into uneasy sleep.
The stars burned overhead, sharp and cold. His corrupted arm pulsed with whispers louder than ever, each one pulling at the edges of his sanity.
You are already ours.
You fight for them, but you belong to us.
One day, even she will fear you.
His fist clenched until the skin split, black veins oozing faint light.
Then he felt it—a hand on his shoulder. Elara, half-asleep, whispering softly.
"You're not hollow, Aelric. Don't let them tell you otherwise."
For a moment, the whispers faltered.
And he let himself breathe.
---
But dawn would bring no peace.
Far beyond the desert, the Weaver's clock-face turned toward the rising sun, and its hollow chest began to tick faster.
Time itself was unraveling.
And the next storm was already on its way.
---
To be continued...