The Hollow had grown quiet again—but not with peace. It was the hush before a storm, the stillness that came when the world held its breath.
Elira couldn't sleep.
The image of the seed, cracked and pulsing with darkness, haunted her. The entity's voice still echoed in her mind, curling through her thoughts like smoke. Even the ground beneath her feet felt different now—tense, as if it too feared what had been awakened beneath it.
She sat at the edge of the Grove's central pool, staring at her reflection in the water. Her face looked older, wearier. The light in her eyes hadn't dimmed, but it had sharpened—like a sword honed by loss.
Caelum approached from behind, his steps silent.
"You're thinking about it again," he said.
"I can't stop."
He sat beside her, his broad shoulders casting a long shadow over the water.
"I saw it too, Elira," he said. "Whatever that thing was—it wasn't meant to be seen."
She looked down at her palm, where a faint scar now glowed from the moment she touched the shard.
"It said we broke the chain," she murmured. "That we freed something."
Caelum's voice turned grim. "Then we need to find out what it is… before it finds us."
By morning, the Grove was on alert.
Elder Mora summoned the Circle of Keepers—ancient spirits who once communed with the Hollow's roots. Their forms shimmered like wind through glass, voices as old as the soil.
"What you describe," one whispered, "is the Rootborn."
"Legends," said another. "Fiction passed down to scare wardens."
Elira stepped forward. "It's not fiction. We saw it."
The chamber darkened as the spirits murmured among themselves.
Caelum crossed his arms. "What are they?"
"The first beings born of the Hollow," said Mora. "Not of flesh. Not of magic. Of will."
"Will?" Elira echoed.
"Before the Hollow was a forest, it was a gate," Mora continued. "A wound in the world. And from that wound came… thought. Hunger. Beings that fed not on blood, but on belief."
"Gods?" Caelum asked.
Mora shook her head. "Not even that. Predators of purpose."
A shiver passed through the room.
"They were sealed long ago. Bound beneath the Root. Forgotten."
Elira closed her eyes. "Until now."
Later that day, the visions began.
The Hollow's animals fled the forest.
The trees moaned when no wind blew.
And across the valley, people began to dream of eyes without form.
Elira's dreams became nightmares. In one, she stood in a valley of ash, Caelum nowhere to be found. In another, she watched herself split in two—one version of her walking toward the light, the other toward the void.
She woke each night gasping, the shard of the Mirror of Embers still pulsing faintly in her pouch.
A week later, they received a message.
A young scout—barely more than a child—ran into the Grove, bruised and terrified.
He fell to his knees before the circle of Elders. "There's something wrong at the western edge," he stammered. "The trees are bleeding."
Elira and Caelum exchanged a glance.
They rode immediately.
The western boundary of the Hollow was where the old barrier used to be—where the Thornbrand had first been forged. The soil here was dark, but peaceful.
Until now.
Now, it bled.
Elira knelt and touched the roots. A dark ichor oozed from the ground, steaming in the open air.
"This isn't corruption," she said. "This is… transformation."
Caelum's claws flexed. "Look."
He pointed to the sky.
Black tendrils of cloud circled above them—not thunderclouds, but smoke, alive and moving of its own will.
And from within the mist…
A figure.
Humanoid. Cloaked in bark and bone. It didn't walk—it drifted.
Elira drew Verdant Fang. "Is it one of the Rootborn?"
The creature turned its faceless head toward her. It didn't speak. But Elira heard its voice nonetheless:
"The seal is broken. The first root awakens. The Hollow will forget its name."
It raised its hand—and the trees screamed.
Roots erupted from the earth, snaring Caelum's legs. Elira slashed through them, but the creature was already moving, floating through the trees like a ghost of rot.
Caelum growled, shifting halfway into his beast form. "We can't let it escape!"
Elira chased after it, heart hammering. Branches tore at her arms, roots tried to trip her, but she ran harder, faster.
She caught a glimpse of it through the trees—a hollow silhouette, moving toward an old Warden shrine.
She leapt, sword raised.
But it vanished—dissolving into shadow—leaving behind a sigil carved into the ground.
Not a spell.
A summoning.
A second Rootborn was coming.
They returned to the Grove with grim news.
"This is a war we weren't prepared for," Elira told the Council.
"No," Mora agreed. "But it's one we must fight."
Elira touched her blade.
"Then we'll start preparing."
Caelum placed a hand on her shoulder. "Together."