The Song Beneath the Stone
Caelen sat alone in the heart of the Hollow Cliffs, cross-legged upon a dais carved from obsidian. Around him, the ancient runes pulsed with faint crimson light, living veins within dead stone. The air was thick with ash and reverence. No birds sang here. No wind moved. Only the low, rhythmic hum of something older than language.
The gathered knelt in a wide circle: his followers—feral-blooded, spirit-marked, castaways from both noble lineages and outlaw tribes. Every one of them bore scars that had not healed, not in flesh, but in memory. Every one of them carried the weight of some betrayal.
And every one of them believed.
They called him The Hollowborn.
The Last Brother.
The Phoenix of Bone and Howl.
They spoke his name as if it were prayer and curse both.
They had seen what he had done to the forsaken cliffs.
They had seen the power rise like a storm from beneath his skin.
But they had not seen what he now saw.
He opened his eyes.
And the cave shuddered.
"My brother comes," he said.
The circle stiffened.
Liris, his shadow-priestess, stepped forward. Her voice was dust and velvet. "You saw him in the Dream?"
"I felt him," Caelen said. "The way light feels shadow. He carries more than blade. He carries hope. That makes him dangerous."
"Shall we prepare the veil?"
He looked up. "Not yet. Let him see what I've built."
Liris tilted her head. "You would risk exposure?"
Caelen rose, the motion fluid, smoke following his footsteps. "I do not fear being seen. I want him to look. To witness the truth that was buried in his name."
He walked to the edge of the platform, where the runes ended and the cliff mouth opened to the broken valley below. Fires burned in pits of carved earth. Wolves stalked the ridges—some beast, some man, most between. And at the valley's center, the altar: blackened by blood, ringed with banners torn from the old Council.
"What does he mean to you now?" Liris asked softly.
"My reflection," Caelen said. "Not in likeness. In contrast. He rose with duty; I with silence. He builds walls; I break them. He guards the crown; I burn the throne."
"You still love him."
Caelen's expression flickered.
"I love what we were. Not what he became. He became their sword."
Liris stepped beside him. "And what have you become?"
He smiled, slow and bitter. "I became their reckoning."
A sudden pulse of power rippled through the stone beneath them. The altar in the valley flared red, and from it rose the image of a beast—part wolf, part smoke, eyes like lanterns carved from stars. The gathered followers fell to their knees.
Caelen alone remained standing.
The apparition spoke without sound, but its will echoed through marrow:
"The time nears. One howl must end."
Caelen clenched his fists.
"I know."
Liris turned to him. "Then what is your will?"
"Let him come," Caelen whispered. "Let him come as spy, as brother, as blade. I will show him the future he was too blind to protect. And when he refuses it…"
He turned, and for a moment his eyes burned like coals yet to cool.
"…I will bury him with the past."