The transition wasn't a tunnel of light. It was a drop.
I fell from the void of death directly into a body that felt like a wet sandbag. The first thing I registered was the weight—gravity felt crushing, pressing down on limbs that were heavy, unresponsive, and weak.
Then came the cold.
It wasn't the chill of a winter breeze or an open window. This was a biting, internal frost that started in the center of my chest and radiated outward, eating the warmth from my blood before it could reach my fingers. It felt like I had a hole in my soul, a leak where my life was draining out into nothingness.
The Hollow. The name came to me instantly, though I didn't know why.
I tried to gasp, to pull air into my lungs to scream for help, but the sound that tore from my throat was a thin, high-pitched wail.
What?
I tried to lift my hand to my face. A small, pink, chubby fist waved weakly in the corner of my eye.
Panic, primal and terrifying, slammed into me. I wasn't me. I wasn't the man I used to be. I was... new.
"He's freezing," a woman's voice said. It was soft, laced with a panic that matched my own. "Toren, look at his lips. They're turning blue."
A giant face loomed over me. A woman with dark hair and eyes that held a fierce, terrifying amount of love. Miren. The name slotted into my mind like a memory I hadn't made yet.
She scooped me up. The movement made the world spin. She pressed me against her chest, wrapping me in layers of wool and linen.
Her body heat was intense. To a normal infant, it might have been comforting. To me, it was a lifeline. But the Hollow inside me didn't just want comfort—it wanted fuel.
As my skin touched hers, a dark, violent instinct surged up from the pit of my stomach. My gums ached with a phantom pressure. I wanted to bite. I wanted to latch onto this source of warmth and drink it until the cold inside me stopped hurting.
No.
I recoiled mentally, fighting the urge. I forced my toothless jaw to clamp shut. I wasn't a monster. I was a human being. I wouldn't hurt her.
But the resistance cost me. Without the external heat, the shivering returned, violent enough to rattle my tiny bones.
"The blankets aren't working," Miren whispered, rocking me. "Why is he so cold?"
"I checked the windows," a deep voice rumbled from the shadows. Toren. "The fire is roaring, Miren. It's not the room."
It was me. I was broken. I had been given a second chance only to freeze to death in my mother's arms because my own soul was leaking.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to focus, trying to find a solution through the haze of infant brain fog.
Think. Look. Fix it.
I opened my eyes again, forcing them to focus through the blur. The room was dim, lit by the flickering orange glow of a hearth. But layered over the physical world was something else.
Threads.
Fine, shimmering silver threads laced through the air like spiderwebs caught in moonlight. They drifted and pulsed, ignoring the walls and the furniture.
Magic, I realized. It's real.
I followed the threads with my gaze. They were thickest around the stone warmer in the corner of the room—a block of granite carved with intricate lines. It was meant to radiate heat, but to my eyes, it was radiating something far more potent.
The carving on the stone was glowing with a complex knot of silver light. But the knot was sloppy. It was frayed at the edges. Wisps of silver smoke were leaking out, drifting aimlessly into the air.
Waste, I thought. It's leaking.
And I was starving.
The Hollow inside me pulsed, reacting to the sight of the silver light. It was a hunger pang, but deeper. It was a thirst that went down to the bone.
I didn't know the rules of this world. I didn't know if what I was about to do was impossible or dangerous. I just knew that if I didn't get warm, I was going to die.
I focused on the leaking silver smoke. I didn't reach with my hand; I reached with the Hollow. I opened the hole in my chest and commanded it to pull.
Come here.
The reaction was visceral. The silver wisps snapped toward me, streaming across the room like smoke caught in a draft. They poured into my chest, sinking directly into the Hollow.
It wasn't hot like fire. It was hot like soup on a cold day. It was hot like life.
The silver energy filled the void, plugging the leak in my soul. The shivering stopped instantly. My blood warmed. My skin flushed from blue to pink. A sigh of pure, unadulterated relief escaped my lips.
I wiggled my toes. I was alive. I was warm.
"He's stopped," Miren breathed, her body relaxing against mine. "Look, Toren. The color is coming back to his cheeks. It must have been a draft."
"Miren."
Toren's voice didn't sound relieved. It sounded sharp. Edge-of-a-knife sharp.
I peered over the bundle of blankets. A large man stood by the crib. He had a warrior's build, broad shoulders, and a hand that rested instinctively on the handle of a sword at his hip.
He wasn't looking at me with the soft eyes of a new father. He was staring at the floor, right underneath the crib where I had just been lying.
"I saw something," Toren said, his voice low. "When he... when he stopped crying. The shadows."
"What about them?" Miren asked, defensive now, pulling me tighter.
"They moved," Toren said. "They stretched toward him. Like they were... feeding."
My heart hammered against my tiny ribs. He had seen it. The visual effect of my drain.
Miren stepped back, shielding me from him. "It's the firelight, Toren. You're exhausted. Don't look for enemies in the nursery."
Toren looked up, his gaze locking onto mine. He had dark, intelligent eyes. He looked at me, and I looked back, trying to project every ounce of innocence I could muster.
I'm just a baby, Dad. Just a hungry, magic-eating baby.
Toren slowly took his hand off his sword. He reached out, a calloused finger tracing the curve of my cheek. He was gentle, but I could feel the tension in his arm.
"He feels... different," Toren murmured. "Heavy. Like stone."
"He is Ren," Miren said, her voice leaving no room for argument. "And he is strong."
I grabbed Toren's finger with my tiny hand and squeezed.
Ren, I thought. I like that.
I was Ren. I had a mother who would fight for me and a father who noticed everything. And I had a hole in my chest that ate magic.
This was going to be a complicated life.