CHAPTER VI HOLLOWBIRTH

The room was white. Sterile. Cold in a way that had nothing to do with temperature.

Noen sat shackled to a chair, wrists bound in light restraints.

MIND containment protocol.

The agents wouldn’t come in. They observed from behind mirrored glass. He could feel them. Smell their fear.

He hadn’t spoken since the Mourner incident.

Not once.

They’d tried to drug him. The drugs didn’t work.

They tried to question him. His mouth refused to move.

What would he say?

That something had awakened inside him? That a creature born of grief had chosen him like a prophet?

No.

Let them fear.

He stared at the ceiling.

The hum was now inside him.

Every beat of his heart echoed like a drum in a funeral procession.

Then, all at once…

The lights failed.

Emergency red lighting bathed the room.

Noen looked up just as the air sang?.

Not a siren.

A song.

Low. Monotone. Ancient. It vibrated through the walls.

And then…

He appeared.

Keiro.

Stepping out from the shadows like he had never not been there.

No guards followed. No alarms responded. It was as though the world allowed him entrance.

He looked down at Noen with eyes like cracked glass.

One brown.

One violet.

 “And there it is,” he whispered. “The first bloom.”

Noen tried to stand. The restraints didn’t budge.

Keiro raised a hand.

The air around Noen froze, thickening into invisible pressure.

 “I could kill you right now. But that would waste all this delicious potential.”

“What are you?” Noen spat.

 “A herald. A whisper. A wound that sings.”

 “What do you want from me?”

 “Not from you,” Keiro replied, crouching. “Of you. I want what’s growing inside your grief.”

Noen felt the hum spike.

Pain bloomed in his spine.

Keiro stood and pulled something from his coat.

A small silver chip.

He dropped it at Noen’s feet.

 “When you’re ready,” he said, “listen.”

 “What is it?”

 “A file. One that was erased by MIND. They thought it was dangerous. And they were right.”

 “What’s on it?”

Keiro stepped back.

 “A whisper. The first one she ever heard.”

 “Who?”

“Reina Saerun.”

The name knocked the air from Noen’s lungs.

But before he could speak,

Keiro was gone.