The ice walls stopped rising.
They didn’t sink back into the earth. They didn’t retreat.
They simply… paused.
The Hollows listened.
I felt it like a held breath, the land waiting to see which story would be told next.
“I stand here without a shield,” I said quietly. “Because if I’m wrong, I deserve what comes. But if I’m right, then violence will only serve the one who sent those shadows.”
The older orc met my gaze as seconds passed, and he lowered his weapon.
It wasn’t in surrender, but it was enough.
The shadows faltered again, one of them shuddering mid-fall before dissolving into nothing before it touched the ground.
The older orc spoke again.
“If you lie,” he said, voice rough but steady, “you will not leave this place.”
I nodded. “I wouldn’t expect to.”
Nova’s magic hummed softly, holding my words in the air without shaping them.
The vampires remained still.
The shifters eased, just slightly.
The shadows withdrew to the edges of the sky, no longer bold enough to fall freely.
And for the first time since we’d reached the Northern Luminary, the world didn’t feel like it was about to tear itself apart.
The Hollows waited, and so did the orcs.
And I stood there, heart pounding, hands empty, knowing I had stepped into a space where there would be no easy victories, only choices that would echo long after the ice melted and the shadows found new places to hide.
The Hollows answered the pause not with silence, but with pressure.
It began as a hum beneath the ground, low and resonant, like a distant bell struck once and left to ring. The ice walls that had frozen mid-rise trembled, hairline fractures crawling along their surfaces, not breaking but breathing, expanding and contracting as if the land itself were weighing the moment.
Neutral ground did not mean passive.
It meantbalancing.
Cold mist unfurled across the valley floor, spilling outward from the ice in slow, deliberate waves. It curled around boots and talons and hooves, around orc feet and shifter paws, around vampire hems and the edges of my coat. Where it touched skin, it didn’t burn or freeze. Itlistened.
The older orc stiffened, his nostrils flaring.
“This place,” he said, voice dropping. “It judges.”
“Yes,” Nova murmured behind me. “And it doesn’t like being rushed.”
The shadows hovering above hesitated again, their shapes blurring at the edges, as if the Hollows’ attention made them less certain of their own form. One tried to descend, slower this time, more cautious, and the mist surged upward in response, wrapping around it in pale coils.
The shadow didn’t scream.
It unraveled.
