The first time he saw her, she was light in a place that devoured it. She was four years old, no taller than Caelâs ribs, walking between two silent Hounds with no struggle, no sound. Her hands hung at her sides, her eyes downcast. Most new candidates sobbed. Fought. Begged. Not her. Her hair and fur were radiant silverânot bleached, not pale from fear, but luminous, like moonlight on steel. A color not meant to exist in the Hollow Zone. A stark contrast to the filth and shadow that surrounded her. She didnât belong there. And that meant she wouldnât last. Or so he thought. He was eight then. A Tool with rising favor, quiet and sharp, and already noted by the Inquirers for his efficiency. He watched her pass without a word, but her image stayed with him, carved into the back of his mind like one of their ritual brands.
Not soft, heâd realized. Still.
Still, things break the hardest.
They carved her a week later. Candidates werenât supposed to survive the first procedure. The implantation of dama crystals broke more than bodies â it shattered will. They screamed, clawed, and sobbed for memories they didnât know were gone. But not her. When they carried her out of the black chamber, Cael was there. Assigned to deliver a scroll to the Inquirers. He hadnât expected to see her again so soon. But when the door opened, he knew her instantly. And still, he stopped short. Her hairâ No longer silver. Black. So deep it seemed to drink the hallway's light. Her fur matched, dull where it had once shimmered. The brightness was gone â all of it. Like something sacred had been sealed away. Her eyes didnât flicker. Her face didnât twist in pain or confusion. But something was wrong. Wrong in a way he couldnât name.
She looked like a shadow, Cael thought.
And I think⦠I think they killed something that day.
He stood there for a long time after the Hounds passed. The scroll crumpled slightly in his hand. It was the first time he had ever felt pity for a young candidate. And he hated it, because pity was weakness. And in the Hollow Vows, weakness got you carved again.
***
The years passed. And she never once said a word. Not in the mess halls. Not during training drills. Not even when the Hounds beat the younger Tools for breathing wrong. Shade â thatâs what they called her now, though it wasnât a name so much as a description â moved like fog through the stone corridors. Present, but untouchable. She obeyed orders. She completed assignments. She fought when told. She bled in silence. And Cael kept watching. At first, he told himself it was curiosity. Heâd seen dozens of candidates come and go â most died, a few survived, fewer still became anything resembling stable. But none of them were like her. None of them survived that first carving and came back⦠emptier. Most shattered by fire. She froze. He started speaking to her the way one might test a wall for hidden cracks. In passing. Never direct. Just⦠there.
âTheyâve got us training with live blades again. Means someoneâs about to die.â
âSaw a Hound spit blood today. Thought they werenât supposed to bleed like us.â
âYou know, you could blink once in a while. Itâs allowed.â
Nothing came back. But she never walked away. Sometimes she looked at him. Not with annoyance. Not confusion. Just⦠acceptance. Like she expected him to talk, the same way the stones expected dust to gather. He grew used to her silence. He started filling it. Heâd talk after missions. Jokes, light ones â or what passed for them in the Hollow Zone. Observations about instructors. Mock imitations of the Inquirersâ eerie stillness. Sometimes, if he spoke long enough, sheâd give him a faint nod. He lived for those nods. Not because they meant she cared. But because they meant she was still in there. Somewhere beneath the darkened hair and branded skin, she was still watching back.
Youâre not just another blade, he wanted to tell her. Youâre more. Even if they wonât let you be.
He never said it. He wasnât weak, nor was he stupid. But the longer they fought side by side, the more that unspoken truth etched itself into the marrow of his life. He called her âMouseâ sometimes. Or âLittle Ghost.â Rarely âShade.â That name belonged to what they made her. And Cael, without knowing why, refused to believe that was all sheâd ever be.
The mission changed everything. No one spoke of it directly. Not in the barracks. Not in the war rooms. The Hounds avoided the topic altogether. But whispers still seeped through the cracks in the stone. An operative had done wrong. A ward collapsed. And something had been summoned. Not dama. Not steel. Something else.
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The few who returned from the mission refused to describe it in full. One Weapon swore she saw a blade tear through the dark â a mass of void, shaped like a sword too massive to be held by mortal hands. Another said it didnât cut â it erased. Even the Inquirers were unsettled. And Cael, who had long thought he understood the depths of the Hollow Vows, felt a chill he couldnât explain. Shade was brought back in silence. Her runes were glowing faintly. Her weapons were confiscated. Her faceâunchanged. But the air around her was wrong. Heavy. Like reality hadnât fully caught up to what sheâd become.
They locked her away for three days. And then came the order. Reassignment. Not to another cell. Not even another hideout. To somewhere deeper. Darker. Where the Vows sent their greatest mistakes, and their greatest experiments. Where even named Hounds went to die. They wanted to start again â break her open, strip her further, dig out whatever had allowed her to call forth something that should not exist. Cael didnât hesitate. He entered the Hall of Flesh alone. Didnât wait for approval. Didnât ask permission. He made a trade.
âCarve me,â he said to the Inquirers.
His voice didnât shake.
âOnce. The worst youâve got. In her place and to stop reassignment.â
They paused only to verify his rank. Then they smiled. And accepted. It was the worst pain he had ever known. They opened his back like parchment, their blades guided not by need, but by curiosity. They wanted to see what a prodigy looked like when he bled for someone else. He didnât tell her. But when he passed her in the corridor days later, she stopped. Just once. Her eyes met his â no change in expression, no words. But they fell to the thick bandages that peeked through his uniform. Then rose again. A nod. Small. Quiet. Certain. And Cael felt the truth anchor itself in his ribs.
She knows.
She always knows.
And whatever she'd summoned on that mission, whatever dark radiance had followed her home â it was hers alone. He didnât understand it. He didnât need to. Heâd already given what he could to protect her. Even if she never asked.
***
He hadnât meant to follow her. But when he saw her walking those streets, no chains, no collar, no commandâhe couldnât stop. She passed through Faeyren like a ghost trying to remember what it was like to live. Always cloaked. Always quiet. But no longer hunted. Not yet. She made her way to a modest inn tucked between market squares and enchanted lantern trees. The Dragon Tear Inn. He watched from a nearby rooftop as she slipped inside without knocking. As though she belonged there. Inside, a brown-haired girl greeted her with a beaming smile. Hugged her tightly. Cael overheard her name. Leni. Daughter of the innkeeper. No nobility. No titles. Just someone who saw her. And Shade let herself be seen. That was what shook him most. They sat at a table near the hearth. A dish was passed. Something rusticâhe couldnât smell it from this far, but it looked like a meat pie. Leni talked. Shade listened. She didnât speak. But she smiled. Just barely. Cael didnât understand.
Youâre free, he wanted to say. But how? Why now?
And deep down:
Why not me?
He didnât return to the shadows of the Hollow Zone. He followed her instead. Silently. Carefully. Through the winding veins of Faeyren. Past merchant gates and warded spires. All the way to the Grand Hall. She entered at nightfall, slipping through the upper channels, the guards oblivious. She moved with purpose. Not like someone on a mission. Like someone returning to the center of something inevitable. He stayed in the rafters. Watched. And when the summit began, and the tension in the room rose like pressure in a sealed cauldron, he knew. This was no ambush. This was the moment the world cracked. Everything after that happened fast. He remembered her falling from the ceiling, the Queen in mourning black, the name Ashanti whispered like a spell. The vial. The light. The silence. He moved to protect her from the first blade raised. And was struck down by the Hounds in a single, brutal blow. He woke only once. Briefly. Blood in his mouth. Bones screaming. And her, White hair, glowing runes, light coiling around her like it had been waiting centuries to come home. She moved like wind given form. And for the first time in his life, Cael felt awe.
Sheâs not mine to protect anymore, he thought.
She never was.
Then everything went dark again.
***
The stone beneath him was warm. Too warm. For a second, Cael thought he was still bleeding. That the heat pooling under his back was from a wound that hadnât closed. Then he heard the voice.
âHeâs awake.â
A rough clank. The scuff of boots. A door creaked open. Light flooded the chamber â not harsh, but real. Natural. The kind he hadnât seen in months. He blinked against it, groaning, trying to sit up. Something metal clattered near his hip. A canteen.
âDrink,â came a voice, gruff, older, laced with command but not unkind. âYouâll need it. You have a lot of talking ahead.â
Cael dragged himself into a slouch against the wall, blinking blearily at the man whoâd thrown it. Beiron Grayare. One arm was bandaged beneath his cloak, the other resting easily against his hip. Eyes like steel worn smooth by time. Cael reached for the canteen, unscrewed it, and took a long swig. The water was cold and sharp â a shock to his system. Beiron watched him for a moment. Then turned to leave.
âDonât think this makes us friends,â the old warrior said over his shoulder. âYouâre alive because my Queen said so. Start talking, and maybe you'll stay that way.â
Cael exhaled, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His ribs still ached. His head still swam. But when he spoke, his voice was steady.
âFor herâ¦â He looked up toward the sunlight slanting through the narrow window before continuing, âIâd do anything.â