The Hollow Veins
The passage wound downward like a serpent shedding time, its walls slick with condensation and veins of glowing lichen. Alaric's boots struck ancient stone etched with glyphs too old for even Mira to decipher. The air thickened, heavy with magic long exiled from the upper world. They had passed beyond the Council's reach—into the Hollow Veins, a labyrinth beneath the Ebon Spire known only in myth, where reality bent and whispered.
Alaric held the torch low, his eyes constantly darting into the darkness. "These tunnels… they were used by the First Pact wolves. Before the schism. Before even the memory of kingdoms."
Mira's fingers glided across the moss-covered markings. "I dreamed of this place once. A thousand steps buried beneath a thousand lies. It's not just a vault. It's the grave of the realm's innocence."
As they moved, the path opened into a cavern so wide it swallowed their light. Towers of bone-pale stone jutted from the floor like fangs, and a faint humming emanated from the central altar—an obsidian monolith with pulsing silver veins.
Mira stopped in her tracks. "This is it. The Arterial Pillar. The last known root of the Old Dream."
Alaric approached the stone, his breath fogging. "What's it doing here?"
She knelt before it, pressing her palm to its surface. Memories surged—burning forests, bleeding skies, wolves howling not from hunger but mourning. But then something new: a vision of herself, cloaked in moonlight, standing beside Alaric as flames curled around the Ebon Spire.
"This pillar was placed here before the Council existed. It was a living link to the dreamwalkers' temple. When they destroyed the temple, they severed the connection—but the root still pulses."
As she spoke, the stone trembled, releasing a rush of energy that swirled around Alaric, pressing into his skin like cold mist. For a heartbeat, his eyes turned silver.
"I saw it," he whispered. "The Council's lies. The cities razed. The children taken. Even Caelen's exile wasn't punishment—it was insurance. They feared his bloodline."
"They still do," Mira said quietly. "You are the last of the line they couldn't silence."
Suddenly, the humming intensified. A sharp cry echoed through the cavern—inhuman and near-feral. From the far edge, clawed feet scuttled against stone. Shadowed shapes emerged from the gloom: hollowborn sentinels—fleshless wolves formed from discarded memory and magic. Forgotten guardians of the realm's suppressed soul.
Mira stepped forward, arms raised, speaking in the lost tongue. The beasts hesitated. "They're echoes. Not alive. Not dead. They defend the dreamroot."
Alaric drew his blade. "Then we pass through by earning their trust."
"No," Mira whispered. "We pass by awakening what they guard."
She sliced her palm and pressed it to the monolith. The ground shook. The hollowborn dropped low, bowing—not to her, but to Alaric.
"Your blood… is the key," she said, turning to him. "Not because of heritage, but because of what you've chosen to carry."
Alaric approached and repeated her gesture, letting his blood mingle with the stone. A roar of energy erupted, cascading up the cavern like a geyser. The wall opposite cracked open, revealing a stairway flooded in silver moonlight.
They ran, ascending into light unseen for generations. The tunnel behind them sealed shut with a final hiss, leaving the hollowborn below in their eternal vigil.
They emerged into the wilderness beyond Ironfang's southern cliffs. Mira gasped, breathing the untamed wind. "We're beyond their wards."
Alaric looked toward the distant skyline. Smoke rose over the Council's high towers. "They'll twist what happened. Call us traitors. Heretics."
"Let them," Mira said, eyes shining. "We hold the truth now. Not just documents. Not just visions. But living proof. And we bring it not to the Council… but to the people."
He nodded, jaw set. "Then we go to Ridgefall. If the old bastion of dreamwalkers still remembers hope, that's where the fire starts."
Far behind them, in the depths of the Ebon Spire, the Council stood in a silent chamber now missing its forbidden vault. Elder Marlyns trembled before a memory sphere cracked open on the floor. Liris knelt beside it, lips curling into a cold smile.
"They've awakened the vein. The world will remember what we spent centuries to bury."
And above them, across the peaks and valleys, across villages and cities where humans and wolves still feared the truth, the pulse of the monolith surged unseen. Old powers stirred. Dreamwalkers blinked awake. And in every whisper of wind, the name "Alaric" began to rise.