Chapter 9: Part II – The Hollow Within
The courtyard was silent long after the last echo faded.
Smoke curled from the cracks that webbed across the marble, each vein pulsing with faint black light. The air itself seemed to tremble — as if the world didn't know whether to heal or break further.
Kael stood at the center of the chaos, his blade still humming with a low, unearthly vibration. Students stared from every direction, their expressions a mix of fear, awe, and something else — curiosity, sharp and hungry.
He barely heard them. The ringing in his ears drowned everything out, replaced by the whisper that had followed him since the dungeon.
"You opened the door once… and the reflection remembers."
He blinked hard, willing the voice away. But it lingered like smoke that wouldn't fade.
---
A firm hand caught his shoulder.
"Kael!"
He turned to see Instructor Draen, the Initiate Division's overseer — a man carved out of grit and discipline. His Flow flickered around him like molten gold, steady and grounded.
"Did you cause that rift?" Draen's voice was measured, but beneath it lay the kind of pressure that could snap a less stable student in half.
Kael opened his mouth, but the words tangled in his throat. "It wasn't me. I mean… not on purpose."
Lira stepped forward from the crowd. "It's true. His mark reacted before any of us could move."
Draen's eyes narrowed. "His mark?"
Kael instinctively tugged at his sleeve. "It's nothing, sir."
Draen's tone sharpened. "Nothing doesn't shatter half a courtyard."
Seren moved between them, her blade still faintly glowing. "Instructor, it's not fair to assume he meant to do this. He's been struggling with his control since the Trials."
"That much is obvious," Draen said, then turned his gaze back to Kael. "You're coming with me. Now."
The murmurs began as he led Kael away.
He made the rift.
That wasn't Flow — it was something else.
Maybe he's cursed.
Kael tried not to listen, but every whisper sank deeper than it should have.
---
The Instructor's Wing sat beneath the main halls — a quiet corridor lined with containment wards. Each rune along the walls pulsed with a soft blue light meant to suppress unstable Flow. The air was heavy with restraint.
Draen gestured for him to sit across a wooden table.
"I've seen Flow lose form before," Draen began, his voice low and steady. "Students crack under pressure. Weapons rebel. But what you did — I've never seen anything that consumes instability. That wasn't Flow. It was… something that wanted to erase it."
Kael swallowed. "I didn't mean to. It just reacts on its own."
"That's the problem," Draen said, folding his arms. "If your Veyra reacts without consent, you're not wielding it — it's wielding you."
Kael looked down at his trembling hands. "Then teach me how to stop it."
Draen hesitated. The boy's tone wasn't arrogant — it was desperate, worn.
"You'll report to the Flow Regulation Division tomorrow," the instructor said finally. "We'll run resonance trials under supervision. If the readings are unstable, the Academy will decide whether to suppress your Veyra or…" He trailed off. "Let's just hope it doesn't come to that."
Kael nodded faintly. "And if it does?"
"Then you'll be classified as a risk," Draen said simply. "And risks don't stay in Valenforge."
He turned to leave, but Draen's voice caught him again.
"Kael," the instructor said, quieter now. "That thing you saw in the rift — the one that looked at you. Did it… say anything?"
Kael hesitated. "…It remembered me."
Draen stared at him for a long moment. "Then pray it forgets."
---
That night, Kael lay awake long after the dorms had gone quiet. The moonlight bled pale across his room, glinting faintly off his training gear. His pulse hadn't slowed since the rift. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw that same reflection — his own face, smiling back from the darkness.
He turned his hand over. The Hollow mark was gone again, but he could feel it just beneath the surface, shifting like something alive.
Then came the whisper — soft, intimate, crawling right into his skull.
"They fear you because they cannot define you."
He sat up sharply, breath caught in his chest.
The room was still. No one was there.
"What are you?" he whispered.
"The part of you that remembers," the voice murmured, calm and low. "The piece they buried when they feared what you'd become."
Images flooded his mind — a black temple half-sunken in ash, walls of mirrored stone, a figure kneeling before a hollow reflection. When it turned, Kael saw himself… but its eyes were nothing but void.
He gasped and the vision snapped away. His skin was cold, slick with sweat.
He didn't sleep again that night.
---
By morning, the air around Valenforge was thick with rumor. Students avoided him in the halls — some out of fear, others out of fascination. The few who met his eyes didn't see a boy anymore. They saw a riddle they couldn't solve.
When Kael stepped into the Flow Regulation Chamber, even the instructors seemed tense. The room was circular, lined with crystalline conduits that pulsed faintly with energy.
"Kael Veyra, Initiate rank," said one overseer, adjusting a glowing tablet. "We'll begin your resonance test. Remain calm. Don't resist the Flow."
He nodded, stepping into the sigil's center.
The crystals brightened, matching the rhythm of his pulse. For a moment, everything seemed normal — smooth resonance, clean readings. Then something shifted.
The light dimmed. The crystals trembled.
One of the overseers frowned. "Wait—something's—"
The room darkened in an instant. Every sigil flickered out.
Then the crystals shattered, one by one.
Kael fell to his knees as the Hollow mark flared across his arm, veins of black and silver tracing his skin. The air warped. Every surface around him began reflecting his image — the walls, the shards, even the light itself — until a dozen versions of his face stared back at him.
Except one of them moved.
It smiled.
And whispered, "You can't test what doesn't belong here."