"When the stars fell quiet, the earth remembered their hunger.
From the blood of the fallen, the roots drank deep,
and from that thirst came the fruit that ends all hungers.
Love was its seed — the first sin, the last mercy —
and even gods bled when they reached for it."
— The Canticle of the Hollow Dawn, Verse VII
Prologue — The Dream of the Fruit
The dream began with light.
Soft, golden light that felt alive—breathing, pulsing, warming the dark. Brandon drifted toward it, weightless, unhooked from body and time. Somewhere inside the glow, a heartbeat sounded—slow, steady, old. His own heart answered, falling into its rhythm without asking.
"Do you wish to see?"
The voice was neither male nor female — a symphony of tones, both lover and judge. And with it, the world bloomed into being.
His bare feet met warm, cracked earth that shifted faintly beneath him. Above, the sky writhed: molten gold bleeding into storm clouds veined with crimson. The air was thick, heavy on his tongue, it tasted like ash and rain, hope and ruin. The ground beneath his bare feet cracked open like dry lips, exhaling steam. Through the fissures ran rivers of liquid light—pulsing, alive.
Shadows moved at the edge of sight. Not quite human. Not quite gone, half-formed things that brushed past him like cold silk. He flinched as they began whispering. Their voices a collage of broken promises, forgotten lullabies, and a deep, gnawing hunger.
"Stay."
"Remember me."
"I loved you."
Faces flickered in the haze—
A couple locked in an embrace as the world burned.
A king slumped on his throne, crown askew, blood pooling in his lap.
Celestial beings plummeting from the heavens with beatific smiles.
And at the heart of it all, a tree.
It rose from the ash like a monument to a forgotten god. His gaze followed its roots, gnarled and thick, dug deep into what looked like the bones of the world. He tracked up the trunk—its bark pale as moonlight and cracked like old porcelain—to a sky clutched by skeletal branches. Sap, black as tar, wept from its limbs and hissed into smoke where it touched the ground.
But there, amid the absolute desolation, life persisted.
A single fruit hung from one trembling branch.
It held a soft, internal light that grew as he watched, washing the dead plains in the colors of a false dawn. He could feel its promise—a warmth that spoke of life, of hope, of an end to all yearning. Yet, coiled within that radiance was a shadow, a deep and seductive pull that made his chest tighten with a terrible longing.
He didn't know if it was salvation or damnation.
Maybe it didn't matter.
He took a step. Then another. He wasn't walking; he was being pulled.
The voice returned, softer now—intimate, like a secret pressed against his ear:
"This is what remains. The seed of gods… and monsters. The beginning. The end."
The wind picked up, a low moan that rustled the dead branches. The fruit shivered, its skin shimmering. He saw the veins of light and black fire coiling just beneath the surface. His hand rose, not because he willed it to, but because some deep, primal part of him needed to feel it.
His fingertips brushed its surface—
—and the world shattered.
A torrent of visions assaulted him:
Stars wailing in seas of blood.
Cities of impossible beauty curdling into madness.
Two lovers turning to wolves mid-kiss, fangs bared in ecstasy and agony.
His own face, but not. The eyes were twin voids, burning like dying suns. Power, raw and terrible, coiled in his hands as worlds before him fell to their knees in worship and in ablaze
Through the chaos, a woman's voice screamed his name—a sound of jagged grief and fierce devotion.
"Brandon"
Silence
The tree was crumbling, its final breath a ghost of rain and rebirth. The fruit, now ripe with destiny, detached from the branch.
Time stretched, thinning out. The fruit slipped from the branch.
He saw it tumble in slow motion, a single point of light in the dying world. He felt everything at once: the desperate need of the lover, the terror of the king, the hunger of the shadows. He reached, a single, desperate act of want. He was terrified of it. He was in love with it.
It landed in his palm.
Light detonated—white, gold, red, black—swallowing sound, thought, self. A single, silent scream that tore through eternity.
Then—darkness.
Brandon gasped awake.
Cold sweat. Racing heart. Sheets tangled around his legs.
Outside his window, the world was quiet. Streetlights hummed. A car passed in the distance.
But the dream clung to him like smoke in his lungs.
The warmth of the fruit still tingled in his palm.
The scent of ash lingered in his hair.
And in the silence, a whisper—not in his ears, but in his bones:
"You will remember me."
He sat up, trembling.
Was it a warning? A vow?
He didn't know.
But deep beneath the city—beneath bedrock, beneath time—something ancient uncurled in the dark.
And opened its eyes.