Cold swallowed Aleron whole.
The glowing blue water closed around him like a frozen fist, dragging him downward. He tried to kick, to claw toward the surface, but something a current? a force? a presence?—pulled him deeper.
Deeper than the pool should have been.
Deeper than the cavern floor.
Liora screamed from somewhere above, her voice muffled by the water. "Aleron! ALERON!"
He couldn't answer. Water filled his ears, his nose, the pressure building in his skull until he thought it might crack.
And then… silence.
No light, No sound.
Nothing.
His body stopped falling.
Or maybe… he had never been falling at all.
A soft glow flickered in the dark.
The woman from the pool hovered before him, her body liquid and shifting, as if made of water and memory. Her eyes glowed brighter now—twin lanterns in the endless dark.
"You should not have come here, Hollowborn," she said, her voice echoing without sound.
Aleron tried to speak, but no bubbles left his mouth. No breath escaped his lungs. He wasn't drowning.
He wasn't breathing.
"What… are you?" he managed, even though his lips didn't move. The words echoed from his mind rather than his throat.
The woman drifted closer, light rippling along her limbs like waves. "I am what remains of the old guard. A sentinel carved from forgotten prayers." Her head tilted. "And you are the one I was built to watch for."
Aleron stiffened. "Watch for… or stop?"
She didn't answer. That alone terrified him more than any threat.
The darkness around them trembled—from above, faint rumbling sounded. Liora's voice reached him again, faint and distorted:
"Aleron, PLEASE—wake up!"
He forced himself to rise, but the sentinel's cold hand pressed against his chest, holding him in place with effortless strength.
"You were never meant to enter the deepwater," she murmured. "But fate has never cared for what is meant."
Her touch burned him—not with heat, but with memory.
Images slammed into him.
A small cabin lit by candlelight.
His mother drawing runes on the floor.
Her hands shaking as she whispered, "They will come for you."
A sigil burning on his skin.
Her tears hitting the wooden floor.
Fire.
Screaming.
A shadow reaching for her… and then nothing.
The vision shattered.
Aleron staggered back, gasping though he wasn't breathing.
The sentinel watched him quietly. "You remember the night she died."
"No," Aleron choked. "That isn't how it happened—she died in a fire. The house… "
"Burned," the sentinel finished. "Yes. But what set it alight?"
Aleron's stomach twisted. "You're lying."
"Am I?"
He shook his head violently. "No. No, my mother—she protected me. She would never—"
"She hid you," the sentinel corrected. "But protection? That is not what she gave you."
Aleron felt the cold creeping up his spine, squeezing around his heart.
"What do you mean?"
The sentinel drifted in a slow circle around him. "She hid what you are. What you were born to be. Because she knew what would happen when the world learned the truth."
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"Hollowborn."
A word that felt like a curse.
Aleron's pulse pounded. "I don't even know what that means."
"You will," the sentinel murmured. "But first… "
Above them, rock exploded.
A massive roar split the water.
The colossus had found the pool.
Aleron looked up just in time to see its huge stone arm slam into the surface, sending shockwaves through the depths. The sentinel's form flickered violently.
"We are out of time," she said sharply.
"Then send me back!" Aleron shouted. "Liora is up there alone!"
The sentinel's expression finally softened.
"Your heart still anchors you to her. Good. You will need someone to hold you to this world."
Aleron's breath hitched. "What does that mean?"
"You are slipping," she said simply. "Each time your power stirs, the line between worlds thins. Between life and divinity. Between self and hunger."
He froze.
"Hunger?"
She touched the center of his chest—right over the place the creature's hand had seized him.
"You can devour godblood," the sentinel whispered. "But power is a ravenous beast. It will devour you in return."
His pulse thundered in his ears.
"I don't want this," he whispered.
"Want has nothing to do with it."
Above him, he heard Liora's scream…
"Aleron, GET OUT OF THERE—IT'S COMING DOWN!"
The sentinel's glow intensified.
"I will return you," she said. "But hear this warning—"
The darkness around them trembled violently.
"—the creature hunting you is not your enemy."
Aleron's eyes widened. "What?"
"It was sent to find you."
"BY WHO?"
The sentinel leaned close, her voice breaking with urgency.
"By the one who made you."
Before Aleron could scream a question, she shoved her palm against his chest.
Light exploded.
The world tore open—
And Aleron shot upward through the water like a launched arrow, smashing through the surface in a burst of blue light.
He landed hard on the cavern floor, coughing for breath he hadn't needed moments ago. The glowing pool behind him churned violently, as if boiling from within.
Liora ran to him, eyes wide with terror and relief. "Aleron! Oh gods—are you—"
"Liora, MOVE!"
A massive stone fist punched through the cavern wall where she had been standing.
The colossus roared, its stone sockets glowing with furious blue fire. It had broken through the tunnel completely and now dragged its hulking body toward them.
Aleron pulled Liora up. "Run!"
But before they could take two steps, the pool exploded behind them. Blue water surged upward like a geyser—and the sentinel's liquid form rose from the column of light.
She hovered above the pool, eyes burning with unnatural brilliance.
The colossus froze.
Then—as if compelled—it knelt.
Liora stared in horror. "Aleron… what is she?"
The sentinel extended a hand toward the stone beast.
And it obeyed.
With a frightening, childlike obedience.
Aleron's pulse thudded in his throat. "No… no, no, that's impossible…"
Liora grabbed his arm. "Aleron—what's happening?"
The sentinel turned.
Her eyes locked onto Aleron's.
"Hollowborn," she said again, her voice shaking the chamber, "you must awaken."
Aleron stumbled back. "No. Stop. I don't want—"
But the water around the pool began to glow.
Blue light snaked across the cavern floor like living lightning, forming sigils he had seen only in his mother's forbidden books.
Liora grabbed his hand tighter. "Aleron…"
The glowing symbols converged beneath his feet.
And then—
Aleron's shadow rose from the ground.
Not like a trick of the light.
Not like magic.
It stood up.
Separate from him.
A perfect dark silhouette, its head slowly turning toward him
Though it had no face.
Liora gasped, stepping back. "Aleron—what is that?"
The sentinel's voice reverberated through stone and water.
"Your power."
Aleron's shadow reached for him.
And the chapter ends.