The knife at Kael's throat was cold as winter iron.
He didn't move. Didn't breathe. The blade's edge kissed his skin, drawing a single bead of blood that traced down his neck like a tear.
"The Order lies," the note had said.
Now its messenger stood behind him—a presence without sound, without scent. Only the pressure of steel betrayed them.
"Speak," Kael growled, "or cut."
A chuckle. The knife withdrew.
Kael spun to face empty air. The room was still, the note fluttering on the wall where it had been pinned. Only now, fresh words smeared beneath it in what looked like ash:
"Eris wakes at moonfall. Ask her about the brand beneath her ribs."
The infirmary reeked of vinegar and burnt yarrow. Eris lay motionless on her cot, her breathing shallow, the venom's black veins receding but still snaking toward her collarbone. The healers had barred visitors, but Kael had learned long ago that locks were suggestions to those with nothing left to lose.
He slipped in at the changing of the guards.
Eris's eyes opened before he reached her Clear. Too alert for someone who'd been poisoned half to death.
"You're supposed to be unconscious," Kael said.
"And you're supposed to be dead." She lifted her shirt just enough to reveal a mark seared into her skin beneath her ribs: a twisted rune, the flesh around it scarred as if clawed open repeatedly. "But here we are."
Kael knew that symbol. Every initiate did.
The Hollow King's brand.
Eris's voice was raw. "They don't tell you what happens to initiates who fail the Gauntlet."
Kael sat slowly. "They're cast out."
"Try repurposed." She traced the scar. "The Order's been dumping failed recruits into the Black Hollow for years. Feeding them to whatever's down there. I was supposed to be one of them."
The pieces clicked. The corrupted initiate's recognition. The Shade-touched's unnatural coordination.
"You escaped," Kael said.
Eris bared her teeth. "I killed three of my own to do it. Draven found me afterward, offered a choice: die or become his hound." She nodded to the brand. "This is what keeps the Hollow King's whispers out. Mostly."
Kael thought of the hooded figure. "Who else knows?"
"Only the high ranks. And now you." Eris gripped his wrist. "Which means you've got until the next moon to decide: run, or help me burn this place to the ground."
Draven intercepted Kael at the barracks.
The spymaster leaned against the doorframe, spinning the blackened dagger—the hooded figure's dagger—between his fingers. "Curious thing," he mused. "This blade's steel is folded in the northern style. Rare here. Rarer still for its owner to leave it behind."
Kael kept his voice flat. "Maybe they didn't need it."
"Or maybe they wanted it found." Draven flipped the knife, caught it by the tip, and offered it hilt-first. "Take it. I suspect you'll need it soon."
The moment Kael's fingers closed around the grip, Draven leaned in. "One lesson, boy: in this game, the only truth is that everyone lies. Even her."
A nod toward the infirmary. Toward Eris.
That night, the dreams came sharper.
Kael stood in a cathedral of bones, the air thick with the scent of rust and rotting lilies. Before him loomed a throne—not of gold or wood, but living flesh, pulsing like a heart.
The Hollow King watched from its depths.
"She didn't tell you everything," he whispered, though his lips never moved. "Ask what happens when the brand fails."
Kael woke with the dagger in his hand and a new note nailed to his door:
"The Gauntlet wasn't a test. It was a harvest. Meet me at the old well—Eris."
The well stood in the ruins behind the barracks, its stones slick with moss. Eris waited in the shadows, her face drawn.
"They're coming for us," she said without preamble. "Draven's marked you. That dagger's his way of tracking you."
Kael thumbed the blade's edge. "Why?"
"Because the Order doesn't just feed failures to the Hollow." Eris's hands shook. "They feed it successes too. The Gauntlet's real purpose is to find minds strong enough to survive the Hollow King's touch. To make weapons."
A scrape of boot leather behind them.
Eris whirled—
—just as the first crossbow bolt took her in the shoulder.
Six figures emerged from the dark, crossbows leveled. Not Order guards. Not quite. Their eyes gleamed the same sickly green as the corrupted initiate's.
The leader pulled back his hood.
Kael's blood turned to ice.
It was the missing initiate from his Gauntlet visions—the one he'd thought was an illusion.
"Hello, brother," the man crooned. "You didn't really think you woke up, did you?"
Kael's sword was in his hand before the corrupted initiate finished speaking.
The six figures fanned out, their crossbows now dangling at their sides—useless at close range. Their leader grinned, his teeth too white, too sharp. "Still swinging that steel like it'll save you?" He tapped his temple. "You should know by now—nothing here is real."
Eris staggered to her feet, the crossbow bolt still jutting from her shoulder. "Don't listen to him, Kael. The Gauntlet's over. This is real."
The leader sighed. "Oh, Eris. Still lying to him? Still lying to yourself?"
Then the world rippled.
The Fractured Truth
One heartbeat, Kael stood in the moonlit ruins. The next—
—he was back in the Gauntlet.
The same stone walls. The same whispering voices. The same phantom version of himself in Order armor, standing over corpses.
"You never left," the phantom said. "The Order doesn't waste resources on failures. They just... repurpose them."
Kael's sword clattered to the ground. His hands shook.
Eris's voice cut through the haze: "Kael! Look at me!"
She stood across from him, but not in the Gauntlet—in the ruins, her face pale with pain and fury. Two realities superimposed.
The leader laughed. "See how she fights it? The brand makes them stubborn. But we always break through eventually."
Kael grabbed his sword. "What are you?"
"A warning." The man's eyes bled from green to black. "The Hollow King remembers those who run. And he hungers."
The Brand's Price
Eris moved first.
Her dagger took the nearest attacker through the throat. Black blood sprayed as she wrenched the blade free and lunged for the leader.
He caught her wrist. "You could have been magnificent, Eris. Instead, you're just... broken."
The brand on her ribs began to glow.
Eris screamed.
Kael was moving before he thought, his sword cleaving through the leader's arm at the elbow. The severed limb hit the ground—and dissolved into smoke.
No blood. No bone. Just... nothing.
The leader didn't even flinch. "Clever boy. But you can't kill what's already dead."
Then he changed.
His skin sloughed away, revealing the same ember-eyed horror as the Shade-touched—but taller. Hungrier. Its voice came in whispers:
"Join us. Or watch her burn from the inside out."
Eris collapsed, the brand now burning through her shirt.
Kael did the only thing left: he grabbed her and ran.
The Spymaster's Web
Draven was waiting in Kael's quarters.
The spymaster sat at the small wooden table, cleaning his nails with the blackened dagger. He didn't look up as Kael kicked the door open, Eris limp in his arms.
"I did warn you," Draven said.
Kael laid Eris on the bed. The brand's glow had faded, but her skin was fever-hot. "Fix this."
"Can't." Draven flipped the dagger onto the table. "That brand was never a shield. It was a leash. And someone just yanked it."
Kael's vision swam with rage. "You knew."
"Of course." Draven stood. "Just as I know you'll now do exactly what I need." He tossed a small vial onto the bed. "Give her that. It'll dull the pain. Then meet me at the eastern gate. We have a king to kill."
The Hollow Crown
The vial worked.
Eris's breathing steadied, though her eyes remained closed. Kael hesitated at the door—then took the blackened dagger and left.
Draven waited atop the eastern wall, staring at the distant mountains. "The Hollow King wasn't always a monster. He was one of us—a spymaster, centuries ago. He discovered something in those mountains. Something that changed him."
Kael followed his gaze. "What?"
"Power." Draven's smile was thin. "The kind that eats you alive. Now he wants to spread his gift." He nodded toward Eris's still form in the distance. "Starting with her."
A horn sounded in the valley below.
Shade-touched. Hundreds of them.
Draven unsheathed his sword. "You've got one night to decide, Kael. Die with the Order... or live long enough to become the thing we hunt."
The Dreaming Dark
Kael dreamed of the cathedral again.
This time, the Hollow King stood before his throne of flesh, his crown of screaming faces silent for once.
"Draven told you half-truths," the king said. "I didn't find power in those mountains. I escaped it."
He reached into his own chest and pulled out a writhing shadow.
"Take this. Or watch your world burn."
Kael woke with the taste of blood in his mouth—
—and Eris's dagger at his throat.
Her eyes were entirely black.
"Hello, Kael," she whispered. "Did you miss me?"