Chubby and squirrel-sized, with impossibly large doe eyes and layers of red petals cascading down its spine like a blooming rose frozen mid-blossom. For a moment, my heart warms; something so small shouldn’t look so heartbreakingly gentle.
“It’s what we call a bloomblade,” Ziek says, and the word drops like a stone into my stomach.
Suddenly, I’m stepping back, just a fraction, but enough to betray the instinct curling low in my gut. Of course, the Hollow would make its most lethal things look like they belong tucked behind someone’s ear or floating in a meadow. Of course, it would hide danger in sweetness; lull you into softness, then strike when your guard slips. Like the Lady of Death. The Hollow doesn’t need to stalk its prey—it only requires you to trust the wrong thing for one breath. Then it sinks its teeth in.
“Bloomblade?” River echoes, his brows knitting. His expression mirrors mine perfectly—we had both mistaken it for something beautiful and harmless, safe even.
“Those petals are razor-thin,” Ziek continues, his pace never faltering. “When it spins or shakes, they fan outward like blades. They make clean cuts. Deep ones.”
As if to punctuate his words, the bloomblade pauses a few feet away, tilts its head, and lets out a sound so tender and innocent it makes my chest tighten—a soft, fluttery coo, like a newborn dove taking its first breath.
I swallow hard and keep moving, forcing my steps to stay steady even as a chill prickles over my skin. The bloomblade’s coo fades behind us, but the unease it leaves behind clings like cobwebs.
I try not to imagine what else might be watching us from behind painted petals or soft fur. What other wolves here wear the gentlest sheep’s clothing? What else waits for us to blink just once too long?
The trees creak overhead, branches swaying like skeletal fingers, and suddenly every rustle feels like a threat dressed as innocence. The Hollow doesn’t just want to hurt us—it wants us to doubt everything we see, everything we touch, and everything we think is safe.
The gaps in the canopy grow wider with every step, no longer thin slivers but open wounds in the treetops where sunlight bleeds through in warm, golden spills. The light feels almost foreign on my skin after so many days of the Hollow’s cold breath on the back of my neck.
I tilt my head up, letting a stripe of warmth graze my cheek. My chest loosens, just a little.
A sign. It has to be.
The first glimpse of the sun in what feels like an eternity, breaking through the suffocating dark like a reminder that the world outside the Hollow still exists… that freedom still exists, and the sun is still holding on to some of its power.
“We’re close,” I whisper, more to myself than to the others. The forest doesn’t argue. It creaks, it murmurs, but the shadows shrink back instead of leaning in. Even the air feels lighter, less choked with the metallic taste of fear.
For the first time since entering this nightmare, I feel something warm bud in my chest—hope, quiet and trembling but undeniably there.
Maybe—just maybe—we’re almost free from the Hollow’s clutches.
“This is it.”
Ziek’s voice lands heavy in the clearing, heavier than I expect. When he turns to face us, there’s a strain in his eyes—like the voices pressing in on him are now shouting instead of whispering. The Hollow is thinning, but that only means Mourna’s grip on him is sharpening.
“This is as far as I take you,” he says, and my stomach flips, twisting tight.
Even though I knew it was coming, the words knock something loose in my chest. Ziek has been our anchor in this place, the one steady voice in a forest full of lies. Losing him—even this last stretch—feels like stepping off a ledge with no sense of how far the fall goes.
He points straight ahead. “Just keep going. Five miles that way, no detours. You’ll reach a bridge.” His tone hardens. “And it’s imperative that you cross it one at a time.”
“One at a time,” I echo, committing it to memory like a spell that might save our lives. “Got it.”
I step forward before I can overthink it and wrap my arms around him. The hug is brief because Ziek isn’t much of a hugger—but he squeezes back with surprising strength.
“Thank you,” I murmur. “For everything. Please… look after Nala.”
“You got it.” He taps his temple once. “Just save the world.”
Ryder and River come forward next—bro hugs, handshakes, those half-gruff, half-affectionate gestures men use when the real emotion is too big to hold. Ryder grips Ziek’s shoulder a second longer than expected, gratitude shadowing his features. River mutters something likeDon’t die out here, man, and Ziek grins as if the Hollow doesn’t frighten him.
And just like that, he turns and disappears into the trees, swallowed by the shifting forest he calls home.
The moment he’s gone, the energy feels different—as if the Hollow is finally aware that we’re on our own.
“You heard the man—let’s keep going,” River says, hitching his satchel higher on his shoulder and striding ahead like momentum alone can keep the fear off our heels.
We follow.
