The wind never stopped blowing from the Hole.
It carried with it the taste of iron and ash, a dry bitterness that clung to the tongue. Even now, as the dawn broke crimson across the stone terraces of Orrhollow, the abyss exhaled. The banners of the king snapped restlessly in its breath, as though the kingdom itself were perched at the lip of some endless maw, waiting to fall in.
At the very edge of the First Ring — the lowest circle of the kingdom — a boy knelt with his hands pressed to the earth. He was thin, with hair like dust, his bare feet bleeding on the broken stones. Beneath him the ground trembled, soft groans echoing from the Hole's depths. The others fled when the tremors began, but he stayed. He could hear it.
A voice.
Not words — not yet — but something older, deeper. Like a drumbeat buried beneath the world.
Behind him, bells tolled in the temples above. Priests in gold robes raised their chants, claiming the quake was another blessing of the abyss. Soldiers ran to the walls, peering down into the black fog that curled up from the Hole.
The boy lifted his head.
For a heartbeat, he thought he saw something moving in the abyss. Not claws, not wings, not a shape he could name — just the suggestion of a vast shadow, shifting far below.
Then, silence.
The trembling stopped. The fog thinned. And the boy knew — with a certainty that filled him with dread — that the Hole had looked back.