The ground still trembled beneath Vaelen's bare feet as the remnants of the shattered monolith wept black ichor into the soil. The rip in the world's fabric had sealed, leaving behind only a scar in the air — a shimmer, like oil on water, rippling with unseen hues.
He stood alone in the clearing, the corpse of the malformed priest still rotting where it had fallen, the scent now oddly muted. Time was wrong here. The trees no longer whispered in alien tongues, but hung limp, as if mourning what had passed.
And yet… something had changed.
Vaelen lowered the Threnody of Broken Stars, its living pages now silent, symbols still and inert. His pale gaze drifted toward the edges of the wood, where mist clung like wet wool. It took him a heartbeat to notice it — the grass had grown high. The stone ruins of the village wall were half-swallowed by creeping vines.
It had been… longer than moments.
His blood hummed, old instincts he did not understand tugging at the edge of his mind. He knelt, brushing his fingertips over the earth. New roots. New growth. Seasons had shifted.
Time did not obey the Hollow Between.
Vaelen felt no alarm. Fear was for weaker men, for the fools chasing meaning in a world shaped by indifferent gods. Only fools clung to hope.
He stood, cloakless now, ashen hair clinging to his face in damp strands. His small frame did not suit the power laced through his blood — but his eyes, cold and depthless, had the weight of ancient stars.
A voice slithered through the void where the monolith had stood.
"The gate will open again, child of Vael'Zhaur. But the world must be made ready."
He said nothing.
The voice was a flicker of the old thing that dwelled in his veins — the Womb Beneath All Stars. It was not a guide, not a guardian. It was a hunger, wearing his flesh like a vessel.
Vaelen Morghast would wield it… or be consumed.
The forest parted at his approach. No bird called, no beast stirred. Nature itself recoiled from the thing wearing a boy's skin.
Ahead, the charred remnants of Morghast Village lay buried in overgrowth. Houses half-collapsed, blackened bones scattered like pale seeds in the soil. No scavengers, no burial. The world had abandoned this place.
He passed beneath a fallen archway, tracing the old warding runes once etched in protection. Useless now.
His mind moved ahead — calculations forming.
They would search for him. The Choir of Pale Ash. The Cairnbound. The Velthorn Order. Each would feel the ripple. Already factions would be moving, spies dispatched, augurs bleeding themselves dry over shattered scrying bowls.
He could not remain.
Not yet.
Knowledge required time. Power demanded patience.
Vaelen's gaze fell upon a discarded weapon — a rusted dagger half-buried in ash. He claimed it without ceremony. A tool was a tool.
And then he saw it — a tangle of fresh tracks in the earth. Not animal. Boots. Heavy. Armed men.
The Choir's hounds.
A flicker of irritation stirred in him. Predictable. They chased shadows while the true threat sharpened itself beneath their notice.
Vaelen turned west.
Beyond the Mourning Vale lay the Salt Hollow — a desolate place, abandoned after the Pale Fever. Forgotten places bred forgotten relics. And relics bred power.
He would go there.
Disappear. Learn. Devour. Grow.
And when the world forgot him… he would unmake it.
A final glance back at the shattered monolith. Already, mist swallowed the clearing. No one would find it. Not in time.
His fingers brushed the book's cover. The Threnody of Broken Stars pulsed once, as if approving.
And Vaelen Morghast, child of slaughter, heir to an ancient blight, stepped into the mist.
The world did not weep for him.
But it should have.
The mist clung to Vaelen's skin like cold breath, coiling around his thin frame as he left the clearing behind. Each step felt heavier, though no weariness touched his limbs. The world here was wrong — tilted, twisted, breathing in ways no man should endure.
His bare feet pressed into earth that seemed to pulse, the soil slick with moisture though no rain fell. Beneath his skin, the ancient thing in his blood stirred, a dull thrum in time with the unseen stars. The Threnody of Broken Stars nestled beneath his arm like a sleeping serpent, silent for now, though its pages twitched in unnatural drafts.
The land grew stranger as he walked.
Trees gnarled into unnatural arches overhead, their branches entwined like skeletal fingers, blotting out the dawn. The light that pierced through came in sickly hues — not gold, not white, but some pallid, weary gray. No birds called. No insects hummed.
Vaelen preferred it so.
Ahead, the land sloped down into a gully where a forgotten road lay half-swallowed by grass and rot. Old stone markers lined its edges, their warding runes long faded, some toppled, others gnawed by ivy. It had once led to the Salt Hollow — a land cursed by old sickness and older sins.
A fitting place for the unwanted.
Vaelen's gaze lingered on a crude symbol etched into a nearby stone: a closed eye, weeping blood. The mark of the Pale Ash. Recent. Men had come this way.
A flicker of contempt crossed his features. They chased echoes. He was done leaving echoes.
His hand tightened around the rusted dagger, more for familiarity than need. Power was rising within him — slow, steady, patient as a coming tide. But he understood caution. Even fledgling gods bled when careless.
He crossed the gully without sound, slipping between broken pillars and crumbled archways. The skeleton of an old way shrine lay ahead, choked with vines and hollow-eyed statues. He ducked within its shadowed embrace, the stone walls damp and cold.
Inside, remnants of a long-forgotten faith lingered. A cracked font, filled with rainwater turned black. Faded murals depicting men cast down by faceless shapes in the sky. He touched none of it.
But he listened.
In the distance, a howl.
Low. Wet. Not wolf, not man.
His head tilted, pale hair clinging to his brow. The Choir had loosed their hounds.
Good.
Let them come.
He turned, slipping through a fissure in the wall, moving deeper into the tangle of dying woods. The path narrowed, the trees leaning in so close their branches knit together. The mist thickened. Here, the air itself tasted of copper and old stone.
Time warped again.
Seasons shifted in a breath — brown leaves becoming frost-bitten in one step, then new green buds in the next.
Vaelen paid it no mind.
At the edge of this strange corridor, a glimmer. A standing stone, worn by rain and grief, marked the threshold. Beyond it, the Salt Hollow stretched like a wounded plain — a wide expanse of dead grass, skeletal trees, and the distant outline of sunken spires.
It called to him.
And at the edge of his awareness, the voice returned.
A coiling, infinite hunger speaking not to his ears but his marrow.
"Grow, little wretch. The world forgets you now. Make it regret."
Vaelen smiled, thin and cold.
He crossed into the Hollow.
Behind him, the mist closed like a curtain.
And far away — hours? Days? — a company of Pale Ash hunters reached the ruined clearing. What they found was worse than the reports. The shattered monolith bled no longer, but the ground hissed where their boots touched it. Their augurs fell to their knees, blood spilling from their eyes and mouths as whispers clawed at their minds.
One, a grizzled captain named Orsyr Kade, stared into the mist where the boy had vanished and felt his own blood rebel.
"The heir lives," he rasped. "And the Gate… spoke."
No one dared follow.
The Hollow Between had claimed him.
And somewhere beyond that cursed veil, a storm began to turn.