The hollow did not close—it breathed.
Where bark should have sealed, the veil stretched wider, spilling light like blood from an unseen wound. Adrielle’s body trembled at the threshold, half-pulled by the promise of memory, half-bound by the weight of the coin that pulsed in her hand.
Alex staggered toward her, blood dark against his temple, his sword still raised though his grip faltered. The Keepers’ chant had broken, silenced by the roar of the hollow, yet their eyes glowed with something more dangerous than steel—devotion.
And Maren… Maren stood untouched. Her gaze cut through the chaos, not with malice, but with a hunger older than the curse itself.
“You’ve opened it,” she said, voice quiet, almost reverent. “Do you even know what that means?”
Adrielle’s lips parted, but the answer was not hers. The hollow itself whispered through her veins: Every vow lives within me. Every broken oath stains the stars.
Her vision split. She saw two paths—
—Alex falling, chains of silver binding his hands as the Keepers claimed his blood.
—Maren kneeling, unchained, her scar vanishing as if rewritten by light.
The veil demanded a choice. Not of love, not of loyalty—but of memory.
“Adrielle!” Alex’s voice cracked. He reached for her, silver eyes burning. “Stay with me—don’t let it take you.”
But Maren stepped forward, and in her gaze Adrielle saw something she had never dared to name: recognition. “If you remember,” Maren whispered, “then you know it was me. At the altar. It was my vow they broke.”
The hollow screamed through her bones, the veil stretching, tearing—waiting.
Adrielle’s breath hitched. To save Alex, she would have to forget. To free Maren, she would have to remember everything. And the curse… the curse would not allow both.
The coin blazed. Her heart fractured. And in the split second between choice and surrender, Adrielle whispered not a name but a promise:
“I will not forget either of you.”
The hollow shuddered. The forest wept. And the veil burst open—showing not one sky, but two.
