The wind howled like a dying god.
Kael stood before the crumbling gates of the Temple of Silence, where the world's first stories had been buried. The sky above was ash-colored, choked with the weight of stormclouds that had forgotten how to rain.
The temple wasn't built of stone, but of memory—each pillar carved with languages no one remembered, each step heavy with the weight of untold truths.
"This is where she began," Kael whispered.
"The Hollow Queen?" Iris asked, frowning.
"No," Kael said. "Elaria. That was her name, once."
The Ghost of Who She Was
Inside the temple, there was no light—only echoes.
Not sounds.
Memories.
"Do you want to hear a story?"
The voice echoed through the dark—young, curious, untainted.
Kael followed it into a vast chamber lined with stone shelves. Scrolls and tomes filled every crevice, each glowing faintly like stardust caught in paper.
And there, sitting at the center like a child at play, was Elaria.
Not the Hollow Queen.
Just a girl.
Eyes wide with wonder.A book in her lap.She looked up as Kael entered—and smiled.
"Oh! A visitor. Would you like to read with me?"
Kael froze.
"You're not real," he said softly.
"I'm a memory," she replied. "But that doesn't mean I'm not true."
Reading with the Forgotten
Kael sat beside her.
They read silently for a time, though the words on the page blurred and shifted—stories that hadn't been written yet. Legends that had been erased. Names of people who never existed… but might have.
"Do you know why the world stopped telling stories?" she asked suddenly.
"Because they stopped needing them," Kael answered.
"No," Elaria whispered, voice breaking. "Because they were afraid of what they might remember."
She closed the book and stared ahead.
"I remembered them all, Kael. Every single tale. Even when no one else did. I kept them alive. But one day... I realized I was the only one left."
"That's when she was born?" he asked. "The Hollow Queen?"
"No," she said, her voice hollow. "That's when I died."
The Choice
The air shifted. The ground cracked.
The illusion faded.
And the Hollow Queen emerged.
Not screaming.
Not weeping.
Just… watching.
She looked at Kael like someone looking into a mirror—recognizing the cracks that made him human.
"You've seen her," she said. "You know now. What I lost."
"You didn't lose them," Kael replied. "They gave up on you. That's not the same."
Her face twisted—not in rage, but pain.
"I wanted to forgive them, Kael. I really did. But every story I ever carried turned into a weapon. And every memory became a curse."
She raised her hand.
A storm of forgotten names swirled in the air around them—words so old they could kill.
"So now tell me, son of nothing… do you pity me? Do you love me? Or do you fear me?"
Kael stepped forward.
"None of those," he said. "I remember you."
He held out his hand.
The Hollow Queen faltered. For the first time, her magic stuttered.
Because deep inside her…
Elaria was listening.
The Unwritten Ending
The storm began to fall apart.
Her power cracked—not from battle, but from doubt.
"I could end it all, Kael," she whispered. "Right here. Every kingdom, every god, every story. Gone."
"Or," Kael said gently, "we can write a new one."
She hesitated.
Then turned away.
And vanished.
The temple collapsed behind her—dust reclaiming silence.
Kael remained standing, the only one left holding the memory.
Outside the Silence
Vaerin and Iris found him outside, kneeling in the ash.
"Is it done?" Iris asked.
"No," Kael said. "But the ending's changed."
"What now?" Vaerin asked.
Kael rose, his voice steady.
"Now we find her again. Not to kill her. But to help her remember… who she was."
And with that, they turned north—toward the Forgotten Wastes, where the Hollow Queen had fled to sleep.
But not forever.