The Hollowed did not walk.
They moved like memory—erratic, flickering, terrifying.
Yet one thing became clear:
They followed the light.
Nima's lantern, now a beacon pulsing with ancestral fire, became their north. As they emerged from sea and salt and soil, the Hollowed moved toward her—not to worship, not to kill—but to witness.
Morya watched from the ridge.
"They're storm-walkers now," she whispered. "Children of grief and lightning. They'll need to remember… or they'll become ruin."
In the city of Emberthrone, sirens howled through cobbled alleyways as forgotten memories flooded into the minds of its oldest citizens. Some wept. Others screamed.
A child drew faces in ash on the walls, mumbling names he had no way of knowing.
And at the council's apex tower, the ancient archivist—Zairun—tore open the forbidden scrolls.
"The Bridge is real," he murmured. "And she has chosen fire."
He turned to his disciples.
"Send word to the Lantern Guild. Prepare the vaults. We must either protect her... or stop her."
Far from the cities, Nima and Morya climbed toward the Valley of Unnamed Rain, a land scorched by centuries of silence. The Hollowed followed but kept their distance—silent, swaying in stormlight like trees caught in wind they could not feel.
"Why are we leading them here?" Nima asked.
Morya's voice held sorrow. "Because this valley was once the cradle of the first forgetting. If they're to remember anything… it must start where the silence was born."
As they reached the valley's edge, Nima halted.
Carved into the cliffs was a vast mural—hidden by time, dust, and intention. But now the lantern's glow revealed it:
The First Bridge.
A woman holding light in one hand, and darkness in the other. Below her, the Hollowed knelt—not in fear, but in peace.
And scrawled beneath it, in a language Nima had never learned, but somehow understood:
"When the storm finds its name, peace will return to the wind."
Then the wind changed.
It smelled of blood and salt.
A ripple of wrongness unfurled across the valley.
Morya stiffened.
"They're coming."
"Who?"
Before she could answer, the shadows bent backward.
From the other side of the cliffs emerged the Red Lanterns—rogue memory-mages, branded with crimson sigils and sworn to protect the old silence. Behind them hovered obsidian orbs, dripping memory like venom.
Their leader, tall and hollow-eyed, stepped forward.
"You would make a world of storm and flame," he spat. "But we remember what happens when the Hollowed rule."
Nima gripped her lantern.
"I didn't bring them back to rule. I brought them back to be seen."
"Then you're a fool."
The Hollowed tensed.
Lightning tore the sky in half.
The storm had arrived.
And Nima… stepped into it.