The Hall of Silence had never known warmth, yet now it seemed to breathe it only in the echoes of a girl who had already ceased to be. She knelt in the center, chains wrapped taut around her wrists, binding her to the cold stone floor. Magic circles glimmered faintly beneath her, intricate sigils soaked in her own blood, humming with the subtle rhythm of obedience. The air was heavy, thick with the scent of iron and incense, a perpetual twilight where shadow and light merged into an indistinct gray. Time did not exist here. Days and nights had no meaning, nor did weeks. The only constant was pain, and in pain, her identity slowly dissolved.
Once, she had been Illyria. Selene. A girl who had laughed, who had known joy and warmth and the gentle presence of a man she had dared to call Dad. Each memory had been stolen from her, meticulously erased one by one, as though the very concept of her past had been a threat to the masters of this place. She could feel them fading—the sound of her father's voice, the touch of sunlight on her skin, the fleeting comfort of a home that had never truly been hers. She reached for them, and they dissolved into nothing, leaving hollow silence in their wake.
Her body remembered more than her mind. The chains that cut into her wrists were guides now, shaping her posture, forcing her to bend, to yield. Each night, the assassins came, silent and precise, their movements almost ceremonial. Swords glinted under the dim magical light, whips hissed as they cut the air, and dagger points pressed cold against her skin. She bled. The pain was sharp, immediate, real—yet even that was filtered through a strange haze. The girl who screamed had ceased to exist; all that remained was the vessel, the body, the instrument.
Her first screams had been wild, incoherent, desperate. She had called for a father who no longer existed in her memory, who had never been more than a phantom here. She had thrashed against the chains, against the inevitability of her breaking. But over the months, her resistance became methodical. Her body learned the rhythms, the patterns. Blood spilled, but she remained upright. Pain was absorbed into her sinews, into her muscles, into the very fibers of her being. It sharpened her senses. She could hear a pin drop on the stone floor, smell the scent of steel before it touched her skin, feel the brush of a shadow before it passed over her.
Her mind had grown quieter, emptier. Each memory erased left a void, a darkness that seemed to pull everything from her. And in that darkness, a strange clarity emerged. She did not think; she simply existed. Movements became instinctive. Chains became guides. Pain became education. The rituals of breaking her spirit had unknowingly forged her into something else entirely—a weapon in human form, a living, breathing conduit of skill and obedience, yet stripped of will.
The Hall itself bore witness to her transformation. The walls, etched with sigils older than kingdoms, absorbed the whispers of her cries and returned them as nothing but silence. Her blood soaked the floor, mingling with the faint traces of previous sacrifices, forming patterns that shimmered under the faint glow of arcane light. Those who had come to break her had not anticipated the beauty in her breaking, the terrifying elegance of a girl who had surrendered everything but life itself. Even in hollowing her mind, in erasing her laughter, her warmth, her identity, she moved with a rhythm, a grace, that betrayed the remnants of a soul that had once known freedom.
One year had passed in this twilight prison, though it could have been centuries or moments. Her hair had grown wild, tangled, sticking to her sweat and blood. Her skin bore marks, scars, cuts, and burns that mapped every night of agony into a tapestry of suffering. Yet her eyes—empty as they were—reflected nothing. They were mirrors, black and still, absorbing all light without returning it. She did not see the assassins, the magic, the chains. She did not hear their whispers or the careful calculation of her keepers. She did not feel hunger, nor thirst, nor cold. All that existed was the rhythm of her body responding to the cruelty designed to mold her.
She remembered nothing. Not her name, not the forests she had wandered, not the warmth of Azeriel's presence she had once clung to as a child, nor the fleeting hope of calling him "Dad." Those joys had been scrubbed clean, leaving only the hollow vessel she now occupied. Yet in the deepest shadows of her mind, beneath the layers of pain and erasure, faint echoes of sensation lingered. A flicker of warmth when sunlight had once touched her skin. A faint whisper of a father's voice. A pulse of longing for a life she could no longer grasp.
The courtiers of Crimson Dominion who had overseen her breaking approached silently. They whispered among themselves, marveling at the efficiency of their work. "She is ready," one said, voice trembling with both fear and admiration. "The vessel is complete."
Another nodded. "Her mind is empty. Her body has been trained. She will obey without question."
Yet in that darkness, the girl—no, the hollow form—remained alive. Breath came shallow, even. Limbs moved as directed, but her spirit, once vibrant and defiant, had been replaced with something else entirely. She was not a child. She was not Selene. She was not Illyria. She was a weapon waiting for a master.
Chains rattled as the mages circled her, invoking old and forbidden magics. Each movement left a glowing imprint in the air, sigils that shimmered with power and malice. Her blood, spilled and pooled in intricate patterns, was the final ingredient in the ritual that would cement her obedience. Each drop carried fragments of her past, now consumed by the arcane, leaving only the shell behind.
At first, she twitched in response to the pain, a subconscious flicker of the girl she had been. But the chains reminded her, the blades reminded her, the magic reminded her. Instinct took over. She remained still. She became the pattern, the circle, the obedient shadow of a human body.
Days turned into nights, nights into cycles of ritual and exhaustion. She was fed only enough to survive, chained in positions designed to teach endurance, forced to repeat movements that honed her reflexes while suppressing any remnants of independent thought. She was given names, commands, roles—but none of them stuck. She was nothing. A hollow, bleeding form, her body a map of pain and obedience, her mind a void where only the rhythm of ritual remained.
Her senses sharpened unnaturally. She could feel the brush of a finger before it touched her skin, hear the faintest sound of footsteps on stone, sense the presence of magic in the air. These heightened senses were the only remnants of her former self, the only tools left in the vessel that had once been Illyria. Even in her emptiness, she was formidable. Every movement precise, every reaction instantaneous, every response honed by the very cruelty that had destroyed her childhood.
And yet, in the quietest corners of her mind, faint echoes persisted. A warmth that once existed. A smile that once blossomed. A father's voice she could no longer place. These fragments, tiny and fleeting, were buried beneath layers of ritual, pain, and obedience, but they gave her the faintest flicker of resistance—a reminder that somewhere, deep within the hollow shell, life had existed.
Finally, after a year of darkness, chains, blood, and ritual, the moment came. She knelt in the center of the magic circle, her head bowed, her body obedient, her eyes vacant. The mages whispered the final incantations. The chains hummed with magic, locking her into place. The last vestiges of her will, her identity, her self, were sealed beneath the arcane sigils. She was complete.
King Veythar approached, his presence imposing even in the dim glow of the Hall of Silence. He looked upon the vessel that had once been a girl, once a child, once someone who had known love and warmth, and now saw only the obedient instrument of his will. "At last," he murmured, voice heavy with greed and triumph, "my weapon is ready."
The courtiers bowed, the mages nodded, and the assassins stepped back. The Hall of Silence seemed to exhale, as though the ritual itself had taken its final breath. The hollowed one remained kneeling, chains rattling softly, blood soaking the floor, magic sigils glowing faintly beneath her. She did not speak, she did not move beyond the ritualized responses ingrained in her body. She had nothing left. Nothing but existence.
And yet, even in that emptiness, even in the silence of a mind erased, there was a story hidden in the blood, the scars, the posture, the very essence of her being. It was the story of a girl who had lived, who had loved, who had fought, and who had been broken—not completely destroyed, but transformed into something else entirely. She was no longer Selene. No longer Illyria. She was the Hollowed One, the weapon forged by cruelty and arcane power, waiting for the hand that would command her.