The Hall of Silence seemed to breathe around her, as though the very stones had taken part in her breaking. Shadows twisted across the walls, bending to the dim glow of the magic circle. Each breath she drew, shallow and ragged, echoed like a bell in the cavernous chamber. The air was thick with her own blood, mingling with incense and the metallic scent of ritual steel. She knelt motionless, chains cutting into her wrists and ankles, marking the border between body and spirit, between what she had been and what she had become.
King Veythar's gaze lingered on her. He did not see a child. He did not see Selene or Illyria. He saw only a weapon, a tool forged through pain, blood, and obedience. Yet in the quietest corner of her hollowed mind, a flicker remained—a spark from the life she had once known. It was faint, unformed, like the distant glow of a dying star. It did not speak, it did not cry, it did not fight. It simply existed, a hidden fragment beneath the layers of ritual and torment.
The mages whispered, their incantations rising and falling like waves. Each syllable struck her mind, guiding her thoughts, erasing traces of rebellion, teaching her to obey without question. Swords and chains became extensions of her being; pain became the rhythm that shaped her movements. She no longer understood hunger, thirst, cold, warmth, laughter, or love. All that remained was the rhythm of survival, of obedience, of the intricate dance laid out by her captors.
Assassins moved silently around her, their blades cutting through the air, drawing arcs of gleaming light. Each strike landed with deliberate precision, leaving shallow marks, teaching her reflexes, honing her body into a weapon. Blood dripped onto the stone floor, pooling into patterns that shimmered faintly under the glow of the sigils. Every drop of her life force became part of the magic, sealing her mind, her will, her soul, into submission.
She did not scream. She did not plead. She did not resist. Her hollowed body had learned to absorb, to react, to obey. The pain, the ritual, the chains—they became her language. Her veins coursed with it. Her senses, sharpened beyond natural limits, registered every shift in the room, every footstep, every murmur of incantation. Yet her mind remained empty, a blank slate. Her soul had been folded, twisted, and pressed into service.
The weeks passed indistinguishably. Each day blurred into the next. Hunger and exhaustion were calibrated, pain measured and administered with precision. The girl who had once called a god "Dad" no longer knew warmth, no longer knew comfort, no longer remembered love. She was nothing. A hollow vessel, a weapon, a construct of human cruelty and arcane mastery. And yet, in her body, in the movements of her limbs, in the response to every command, there was a tragic elegance. The cruelty that had broken her had also forged her into something deadly, something beautiful in its symmetry of suffering.
King Veythar observed silently, his chest swelling with pride and anticipation. The girl's obedience was now absolute. The rituals had stripped away the last remnants of her identity, leaving her body ready, her mind pliable. She had no name, no will, no past. She existed only as the vessel for his command, a living weapon forged in the Hall of Silence.
The mages completed the final rites. Sigils glimmered and pulsed across the floor, chains hummed with binding magic, and her blood glistened in intricate patterns that made the air itself seem to quiver. Her body, trained and conditioned through pain, followed every subtle movement, every arc of motion that the ritual required. Even in emptiness, there was a rhythm, a precision, a terrifying beauty that spoke of the life she had once lived.
King Veythar stepped forward. His voice, low and commanding, broke the silence. "Rise," he said. The hollowed girl obeyed, chains rattling faintly as she moved. Her body, trained for a year in pain and ritual, responded instantly. She stood, trembling slightly from exhaustion, blood dripping from countless cuts and abrasions, yet every movement precise, every step controlled.
"Look at her," whispered one of the mages. "The vessel is perfect. Every resistance erased. Every instinct bent to obedience."
"She is ours," Veythar said, his eyes gleaming. "Our weapon. Our child. Our instrument."
And yet, even as he claimed her, even as he spoke of ownership and power, the faintest trace of her former self lingered—a heartbeat in the darkness, a shadow beneath the chains, a whisper of warmth that no magic could completely erase.
The Hall of Silence fell into a heavy quiet. The ritual was complete. The chains hummed with power. The magic circle glimmered faintly, feeding on her blood, shaping her obedience, sealing her identity. She was ready. Ready to be commanded, ready to be used, ready to serve.
And in that silence, the tragedy of her existence was complete. She was no longer Illyria. No longer Selene. No longer a child, a daughter, a person with a past, a memory, or a voice. She was the Hollowed One, bound by blood, by magic, by chains, by cruelty, by obedience.
Yet, even in that emptiness, the world seemed to hold its breath. For within the vessel that had once been a girl, within the blood-soaked chains and the magic-laden stone, there remained a spark—tiny, imperceptible, perhaps meaningless to all but the universe itself. A spark of life, a fragment of a soul, a trace of someone who had once been more than this.
The Hall of Silence exhaled its final breath of ritual. The mages withdrew, the assassins stepped back, and King Veythar stood, surveying his creation. He did not see the spark. He could not see it. To him, she was perfect, complete, obedient, hollow. A weapon ready for the wars he would wage, the kingdoms he would conquer, the power he would wield.
But the universe, indifferent and eternal, noted the spark. And somewhere, deep within the blood and chains, a fragment of the girl who had loved, who had laughed, who had called someone "Dad," remained. Silent. Waiting. Hidden.
The Hall of Silence closed in around her, eternal, unyielding, and unforgiving. Chains hummed. Magic pulsed. Blood soaked the stone. And the Hollowed One knelt, ready to obey, ready to serve, ready to be used.
Yet, even in that perfect obedience, there was a whisper of what once had been, and the world would remember it in ways none of the cruel architects of her breaking could ever understand.