The hollow did not fall silent—it screamed in two voices at once.
Above Adrielle, the sky split like glass, shards of light spilling into a darkness that bled silver. One half burned with Alex’s chains, each link echoing his cry; the other half glowed with Maren’s face, unscarred, unbroken, eyes bright with the weight of truths denied.
Adrielle’s knees buckled beneath the pull of both visions. The coin in her palm seared her skin, branding its choice into her bones. Yet still, she refused.
“I said—I will not forget.”
The veil shuddered, cracks racing outward like veins of fire. The Keepers staggered back, their chants faltering, eyes widening in something that was not fear, but awe. The air bent, twisted—something beyond vow or curse was being born.
And at the center of it, Adrielle stood trembling, the world demanding she surrender—while she clenched her bleeding hand tighter, daring the veil itself to break around her.
The veil cracked like glass under thunder.
Alex lurched forward, shouting, “Adrielle!”
But his voice was swallowed whole, pulled into the split sky.
Maren’s hand lifted, trembling—not from fear, but recognition. “It remembers you,” she whispered. “No… it obeys you.”
The forest bent inward, trees groaning as if bowing to something unseen. The coin in Adrielle’s hand pulsed brighter, hotter, until her skin burned silver.
And then—silence. The kind that comes not before the storm, but after the world has already broken.
