Corin didn't go back to the house.
He should have. That's what Maer had told him—"Stay close. The Hollow doesn't like strangers." But Corin wasn't a stranger anymore. Not after what it showed him. Not after the way it listened.
He needed to know more.
So he walked.
Past the clearing. Past trees that bent toward him like they remembered his name.
The forest didn't stop him.
It watched.
—
The deeper he went, the less the world made sense.
Time unraveled. Light bent. His footsteps echoed in places they shouldn't. He passed a tree with no shadow. A stream that flowed uphill. A patch of moss that whispered when he stepped on it.
He didn't flinch.
He'd grown up in chaos. This was just a different kind.
—
He found the hollowed place by accident.
A dip in the earth, ringed with stones, pulsing faintly. Not magic. Not ritual.
Memory.
He stepped inside.
The air shifted.
The forest exhaled.
And Corin felt it.
Not a voice. Not a command.
A pull.
—
He knelt, pressed his palm to the soil.
It was warm.
Alive.
Images flickered behind his eyes—fire, ash, antlers, silver eyes. Not Corin's. Older. Wilder.
He felt something move beneath his skin.
Not pain.
Not power.
Permission.
—
He stood.
Raised his hand.
The wind bent toward him.
He whispered, "Show me."
The trees rustled.
The moss stirred.
And the Hollow answered.
—
It wasn't a spell.
It wasn't a gift.
It was a remembering.
Corin saw how the forest moved—how it twisted space, how it bent memory, how it swallowed what didn't belong. He saw how it listened. How it chose.
He saw how to speak to it.
Not with words.
With want.
—
He reached for a branch.
It bent into his hand.
He stepped toward a stream.
It parted.
He whispered to the wind.
It carried his voice farther than sound should go.
—
He didn't feel powerful.
He felt understood.
And that was worse.