"They say the Hollow still breathes.
When the wind crosses its valley, it whispers the names of the dead—
and one name louder than all."*
— Old traveler's tale, whispered in Atherion taverns
The Hollow never truly slept.
Even when the last torches guttered out and the towers of obsidian fell to ash, something beneath the soil continued to pulse — slow, patient, hungry. The Black Hollow had not been alive for centuries, yet the air above it trembled like the chest of a dying god still dreaming of war.
And in that breathless ruin walked a boy dressed in shadow.
Vallen Heir — the last of a name once carved in obsidian banners, now only a rumor among tombstones. His boots crunched over black glass and old bones as he crossed what had once been the grand courtyard of House Heir. The moon hung low and red above him, its light fractured through the mist that never lifted.
He carried no pack, no weapon. Only a staff carved from shadowwood and a ring that glimmered faintly on his finger — the sigil of a dynasty that the world had already forgotten.
Behind him, the ruins of his home sighed.
The Hollow's ghosts stirred, murmuring through the cold air. Some voices wept, others hissed his name.
"You leave us behind, little king…"
"The crown does not forgive its heir…"
"The debt of Umbra must be paid."
He didn't answer.
He had learned long ago that responding only made them louder.
The Hollow had raised him on whispers — lullabies made of grief. The Shadowbinders, his teachers, were long dead; their spirits lingered only as silhouettes burned into the walls of their sanctum. He had buried them one by one when the war came, when the sky split open and the soldiers of Nocturnix rained fire and steel upon their valley.
He was sixteen then. A child, barely knowing what it meant to command. Yet when the siege began, it was his voice that called the shadows to rise.
Three nights. That was how long the battle lasted.
When the dawn finally came, there was nothing left of the invaders — only mist, ash, and the echoes of screams swallowed by darkness.
And at the center of it all, he had stood, eyes dim as dying embers, crowned not with gold but with smoke.
They called him the Pale King after that. Not in reverence, but in fear.
Now, three years later, he walked through the bones of that title, toward the edge of his cage.
The path wound down a slope of shattered marble and black vines. Every stone hummed faintly as his shadow brushed over it — old sigils still remembering their master. When he reached the last archway of the Hollow, he stopped.
Before him stretched a fog-wall, shimmering faintly with light. Beyond it lay the Eight Realms of Mystinia — a world that had forgotten the darkness it buried here.
Vallen lifted his hand. His skin was pale as porcelain, his veins dark like ink. He pressed his palm to the fog. It resisted at first, as if the world itself did not want him back.
A pulse ran through his arm. Shadows flickered behind his eyes — hundreds of faces, all watching.
"Leave us, then," one voice whispered. "But remember, heir of Hollow — you carry us with you."
The mist parted.
And for the first time in years, sunlight touched his face.
It burned.
Vallen staggered, shielding his eyes. The warmth felt wrong, intrusive — too alive. He had lived so long beneath the Hollow's cold that even the gentleness of dawn felt like judgment.
He took one step forward. Then another.
Behind him, the fog sealed shut, erasing the Hollow from sight. Only silence remained.
"When the dark learns to walk under the sun, the world will mistake it for salvation… until it smiles."
— Fragment from the Scrolls of Atherion, Year 842 KHL
The road to Atherion was lined with silver poplars, their leaves glinting like coins in the morning wind. Birds sang — too bright, too careless. Vallen walked in silence, cloak drawn tight around him. The world felt fragile; the air tasted wrong.
After days of travel, he began to notice the way light bent around him. Shadows clung to his boots like loyal pets, trailing behind no matter where the sun stood. Sometimes, when he passed through a quiet glade, the reflection of his face in puddles blinked even when he didn't.
He ignored it. Such things were part of the debt.
On the fifth night, he reached the city gates.
Atherion — jewel of the western realm, where towers floated on runes of blue light and the streets were carved from living crystal. The air thrummed with magic, pure and ordered. Spires rose like the fingers of gods pointing to the heavens.
To Vallen, it smelled of ozone and arrogance.
At the gate, a pair of wardens in silver armor stopped him. Their eyes gleamed beneath mirrored helms.
"Name and purpose," one demanded.
Vallen lowered his hood slightly, revealing only his pale jaw and the faint glimmer of the ring on his finger. "A traveler," he said. His voice was calm, distant — the kind of tone that carried the weight of old things. "Looking for work."
"Work?" the guard sneered. "You don't look like a craftsman. Or a soldier."
"No," Vallen said softly. "Neither."
The other guard eyed the dark wood staff strapped to his back. "Arcanist, then? You'd best register. Umbra arts are forbidden within the city."
"I practice no forbidden art." He let the words fall like stones — technically true, for what he did was older than forbidden magic itself.
After a tense pause, they waved him through.
Inside Atherion, light reigned.
Every street was laced with luminous glyphs; every window glowed faintly. Vallen's shadow wavered like a living thing among them, twitching as if irritated by so much purity.
He wandered until nightfall, when the city's glow dimmed to a gentler hue. He found an inn at the edge of the Arcana Market — a place that smelled of ale and old parchment.
The innkeeper was a broad woman with half-moon spectacles and eyes that had seen too much magic in her lifetime.
"You look like you've been chased by the moon," she said as he entered. "Room's five silvers a night. Ten if you want dinner that doesn't bite back."
He set a coin on the counter — an ancient sigil-etched piece from the Hollow's treasury. The metal was darker than gold, and when it hit the wood, the room's candles dimmed slightly.
The woman's brows lifted. "That's… old money."
"It spends the same," Vallen replied.
She hesitated, then took it. "Aye. Long as it's not cursed."
Vallen smiled faintly. "If it were, you'd know already."
Her eyes flickered, unsure if he was joking.
He took his key and climbed the stairs.
That night, he dreamed.
The Hollow called to him again — the walls breathing, the throne empty, the whispers pleading. He saw his father's face, pale and stern, dissolving into ash. He saw the crown of mist forming over his own head, the weight of a hundred thousand voices pressing down.
"You are not done," they said. "The curse walks with you. The world will tremble before the debt is paid."
Vallen woke with his hand clenched around nothing. His chest felt hollow, cold spreading through his veins like ink. He looked down and saw faint wisps of shadow leaking from his fingers.
He sighed. "Not tonight," he whispered.
The shadows stilled, as if listening.
Morning came with rain.
Vallen sat in the inn's common room, watching droplets race down the windowpane. At the next table, a trio of mercenaries argued over a map. Their armor bore the sigil of the Sunward Guild — one of the many that hunted relics in the ruins beyond Atherion's walls.
He caught snippets of their words: "contract… lost patrol… something in the ruins near Vale's Edge…"
His gaze lingered. The Umbra stirred faintly in his chest, hungry.
He rose, approached their table. "You're short a mage," he said.
The leader, a scarred woman with copper hair, looked up sharply. "And you are?"
"Someone who can keep your shadows from biting back," he said.
They laughed — until he set his staff down. The air around it rippled, faintly bending the light.
Her smirk faded. "You're not registered."
"No," he said. "But I'm alive. Which is more than I can say for whoever you sent before."
A silence. Then she leaned back, studying him. "Name?"
"Vallen."
"Just Vallen?"
He met her eyes. "The rest doesn't matter anymore."
She nodded slowly. "Fine, 'Vallen'. Meet us at the east gate at dusk. If you're late, we leave you."
He inclined his head. "I won't be late."
That evening, as the sun sank behind Atherion's towers, Vallen stood before the gate again — the same one he'd entered through, now glowing faintly with wardlight.
The mercenaries were there, adjusting their packs. The copper-haired leader — her name was Lira, he learned — gave him a curt nod. "If you slow us down, I'll leave you for the crows."
"I've never slowed anyone down," Vallen said, eyes distant. "Usually the opposite."
Lira frowned but said nothing.
They set out into the fading light.
The road led east, through forests shrouded in mist. By nightfall, the torches flickered strangely; their flames bent toward Vallen when he walked past. Lira noticed.
"You sure you're not cursed?" she asked.
He smiled slightly. "Aren't we all?"
She snorted. "That's not an answer."
"It's the only one that matters."
They reached the ruins by midnight — an old temple half-swallowed by the earth. Statues of forgotten gods loomed from the dark, faces weathered away. The air was thick, humming with ancient wards.
"Vale's Edge," Lira said quietly. "They say it was built on top of something older. The patrol that came here never came back."
"Older things tend to bite harder," Vallen murmured.
He stepped forward. His shadow stretched unnaturally, slipping ahead of the torchlight.
Something moved within the temple — a whisper, a scrape. The Umbra inside him stirred like a coiled serpent.
Whatever waited in there, it was not merely a beast.
It was something that remembered.