"I saw her," I said suddenly. "The child. In the dreams. She was me. She had horns. And the Hollow King…he cut something out of her."
"Her potential," Venus muttered. "He ripped out her inheritance and buried it in blood. Smart. Cowardly. But smart."
I looked up.
"You were going to kill me, weren't you? When the blood reacted."
He didn't deny it. "For a moment, yes."
"Why didn't you?"
"Because you cried," he said bluntly. "And no Hollow ever cries like that."
My lips trembled.
He sighed and rubbed his temples. "Damn it all… I've spent years researching Hollow biology, understanding how their power passed through relics and corpses…but this? This is something else."
I felt the scroll fade behind me. Its magic spent.
"Is there a chance this was a lie?" I asked. "What if it's manipulation?"
Venus shook his head. "No Hollow ever needed to lie to us. They had the power to break cities. They just didn't want the girl found. Until now."
