Before I can process what’s happening, a cold hand clamps around my wrist—myhand—as if life is suddenly breathed back into it. The jolt snaps me into motion. I squeeze my eyes shut and, acting on pure instinct, drive the dagger into my chest—once, then again for good measure. It cracks as my knife fights through muscle and bone. I hold my breath as I glance back at my body impaled, a twisted vision.
The wound bleeds a black goo, and then… then the body disappears.
My knife thuds on the ground below as the vines relinquish their deathly grip. Nala, River and Ryder drop to the floor, gasping for the air they lost.
I run to them, relief and nausea colliding in one scattered feeling. They’re okay. Thank the Gods they’re okay. The grave disappears again as if the sick trial was nothing but a fable.
But I lived it.
I died with it.
Bile creeps up my throat as I stare unblinking at Ryder.
“Who was it in the grave?” he asks, between breaths, his eyebrows knit in concern.
“I-It was me.” The air around us stills.
The trial is done, the forest seemingly sleeping. Though I don’t fall for its slumber, for I know it is awake… plotting its next move.
A thought settles like stones in my stomach, a hope that what just unfolded was not
a subtle foreshadowing of what’s to come.
The Hollow’s sadistic game
Chapter Eighteen
For a while, all I could think about was my pale face staring back at me from my own grave. I tried to wrench my thoughts away from it—the worms threading through the crevices of my skin, the cracked blue lips, the colour drained from my eyes until they looked dull and stark, yet stretched wide as if the last thing they saw had shocked them to their core.
I knew it wasn’t me—Itcouldn’tbe me.
I was here, walking through this forest, manoeuvring through the underbrush, feeling the rough bark scrape my fingertips. Every ridge and groove reminded me that I was alive. I hadn’t been lying in a sullen grave in the middle of a dark Hollow with a dagger carved into my chest.
And yet… I can’t shake the feeling that a piece of mediddie there, swallowed by the dirt and grime, and that part would come back to haunt me.
The Hollow is smart—far more than a knot of trees and mud. It’s clever. Calculated. It knew me. It knewIwould be the one to dig my own grave while my friends watched, gasping for breath as its vines tightened around their ribs. It crafted me perfectly: every freckle, every strand of hair. It knew my dreams. It knew the mountain. It knew about the bruises on my neck from him.
I should have died that day. I thought I would. I had already made my peace with it moments before the explosion, when all I saw was him, and the indigo corona around his eyes—theunnatural surge of light and dark that ripped through the air, shuddering glass and marble, and bone, and flesh. The General. Miss Worthington. Charlie.
The memory clings like a film across my tongue, a taste so foul that no amount of food or brushing can wash it away.
Seeing myself dead in the mud brought it all back. I always imagined that, when I died, I’d find peace. But there was no peace in those eyes. No rest. They were sunken and wild—a canvas of trauma, panic, and hurt, as if they hadn’t slept even when the heart beneath them still beat.
And I knew those eyes. I see them in my reflection every morning—red, sore, tarnished by nightmares.
Was this truly how it was going to end?
The forest thickens around us again, the trees crowding in too tightly, as if the woods themselves have decided to squeeze the life out of us. We fall into a single-file line along a narrow trail, each breath feeling borrowed. Ryder leads, carving a path through the brambles before they can curl around us like hungry mouths. Sweat slicks his skin, catching on the edges of his jaw each time he swings, and his lips are drawn into a hard, unbroken line. I can tell he is stewing on something, that a thought is desperately trying to work its way to the surface and manifest on his tongue. Whether it’s my nightmares, the trial, or the memory he sacrificed… I can’t tell. Maybe it’s all of them tangled together, and he’s trying to choose which truth will cause the least damage when he finally speaks it. Though we both know any one of them would leave a considerable dent in the air.
The awning is a thick blanket again, casting us in shade, and a chill hangs in the air. Possibly a foreboding of the upcoming trial. If the first one could craft my bones and skin. Only the Gods know what is waiting for me.
“How did you know… that the answer was in the grave?” Nala whispers as if the forest itself could hear her.
“Honestly, it was just a lucky guess.” And it was. I had thought that it may have been the answer, but that’s all it was… a thought. I hadn’t known for sure, and that’s what scared me the most. The truth is, it could’ve been anything in this forest. A woodland of a million different roots, a thousand different problems with a thousand different answers. “I just got lucky.”
“Well, let’s just hope that luck stays with you. I only just got the vine taste out of my mouth.” River laughs, and I know he meant to lighten the mood, but it only makes my shoulders heavier. I flash him a small smile and pick up my pace, aligning with Ryder at the front of the group.
A subtle whisper escapes Nala’s mouth to River behind me. “You don’t have to try and make a joke out of everything, River,” she mutters, and though I don’t turn around to look at them, I know he is shrugging his shoulders.
