“Yes.”
I lower myself into the shaft.The ladder rungs are slick, each step sounding like the toll of a funeral bell.My shadows follow, carrying the staff and guiding Eira.Kael descends behind us, and the world shrinks into the narrow circle of his light and the rhythmic drip of water.
Coldness prickles my ankles as we reach the bottom.Descending back toward the Hollow.Back toward my old life.
But the girl who returns will never fit inside it again.
44
SEREN
Adeep, cavernous space burns behind my eyes—blood-red water, a stark echo of where my journey began.
We venture deeper into the tunnels.Kael takes the rear, his light a fading pulse, while shadows slither ahead like silent guides.Eira prowls beside me, her hackles rising with every step.
“Here,” Kael says, indicating a dark offshoot to the right.
A black, gaping mouth of a tunnel opens before us.The sound of trickling water grows into a roar.Without pause, the floor vanishes, and we slope into the sluice.
The surge is merciless.It steals our footing and pitches us forward into the churn.I fight to keep my chin above the black liquid as it rises, cold and suffocating.Kael’s light streaks behind us, a wild amber spark in the dark, as my shadows clutch Eira and the staff to keep them from being swept away.
Our ragged breaths join the cacophony of the gushing tide.We are thrown every which way, the world tilting until up and down lose all meaning.
The sluice finally spits us out—a mouth vomiting its contents into a half-lit gutter.We crawl on hands and knees through the stinking silt until the tunnel widens and the damp gives way to a hollow breath of older stone.
Eira shakes her fur free, spraying my face with cold water.As I palm the moisture from my eyes, something catches the light: a flash of black set into the rocky floor.
It can’t be.
The onyx ring.Ma’s ring.The one I dropped weeks ago, miles above this place.
It lies there, half-swallowed by lichen, looking as if it has waited for a century.My heart trips.How is this possible?
Nyx’s voice rolls over me like wind through reeds:It has found its way home to you.To us.
“What is it?”Kael sputters, hands on his knees as he coughs up the last of the water in his lungs.
I crouch, my joints locking.I dig the ring free; its metal bites with a cold so sharp it feels angry I left it waiting.I trace the black stone—a void in a silver embrace.My pendant ignites in a burst of heat, answering the call of the stone.
“My ring,” I whisper.
“How is it here?”Kael asks.
“I—I don’t know.”I slide the ring on.The tunnel dissolves.
I am nowhere—and everywhere.
* * *
A small roomcarved from the rock.Herbs drying in bunches over a narrow bed.The air smells of milk, iron and smoke.
A woman kneels, cradling a newborn.Her face is drawn with exhaustion and awe; dark curls cling to her damp forehead.She hums a lullaby that falters between notes, the sound of someone trying to memorise love.
“You’ll forgive me,” she whispers into the child’s ear, her mouth lingering at her cheek.“You will achieve great things.”
Another figure moves from the shadows.Yara—younger, her hair black as pitch, eyes like chips of blue ice.“It must be now,” she says, her hands steady, yet her voice trembles.“Before the Great Pale Mother falls behind the smoke.”
The mother nods, pressing one last kiss to the baby’s brow before placing her into Yara’s waiting arms.The child whimpers once, then stills.
