“Right. The wards.” I pull my knees to my chest, suddenly cold. The warmth he left on my skin is already fading. “Because that’s the pressing issue.”
He doesn’t take the bait. He doesn’t even seem to hear it. He just gives a curt nod, turns on his heel, and walks out. The kitchen door clicks shut behind him with a soft, final sound.
I sit there on the edge of the table, the wood grain imprinting itself on my bare thighs. The storm has passed, leaving a dripping, hollow quiet. The only evidence that any of it happened is the lingering ache between my legs and the profound, echoing silence where he used to be.
CHAPTER 14
HARDIN
Her scent still clings to me.
Lavender and rain-damp skin and the faint burn of candle smoke from the kitchen table, where the wax melted in long golden rivulets down glass jars, catching shadows and holding them hostage against the wall. The table creaked like it hadn’t been touched in years. Her fingers were soft, curious, trembling only once. And I remember the sound she made—barely a breath when I kissed her shoulder.
But morning breaks sharp and cold, and I don’t belong in her house anymore.
I’m already gone before the kettle boils.
The Hollow doesn’t warmthe way it used to. The trees stay still too long now. The wind hovers at the edges of the wards like it’s listening to my guilt. I push harder into the forest than I need to, following a path lined with gnarled bark and stone teeth, straight to the roots of the place I swore I wouldn’t return to unless I had blood to spill.
The council lives behind old growth and time-stained stone.
The oldest ones don’t sleep, not really. They just sit in the hollows of carved-out trees and wait for questions that shouldn’t be asked. I know the path to the tribunal seat by heart. Seven steps through the blue moss. Five breaths past the ironwood arch. Three knocks against the sigil-sealed gate.
When the wood splits open, Brekka is waiting. She’s still tall as ever, pale bark skin threaded with veins of gold magic, long white hair braided back in ceremonial cords.
“You stink of her,” she says.
“I didn’t come for judgment.”
“Then you came for something worse.”
She leads me down into the grove where the elder stones form a ring around the deep flame. The other council members begin to gather as word of my presence spreads. Old souls. Faded eyes. Names that haven’t been spoken aloud in decades. There’s no warmth here, only truth, and the brittle weight of keeping ancient things from waking.
They don’t sit. They don’t ask questions. They wait for me to speak.
“I took her to my bed,” I say.
The words fall like stones.
No one gasps. No one flinches. But the flame in the center flares taller, casting long, reaching shadows over the stone floor.
“You’ve claimed her,” Brekka says.
“I haven’t marked her.”
“You didn’t need to.”
Silence again. The kind that tastes like disappointment and fear rolled into one.
“She’s bound to the Hollow now,” Brekka continues. “Her blood woke it. Your touch sealed it.”
“She didn’t ask for this.”
“None of us did,” the oldest among them says, a voice like breaking bark.
I shift my stance, weight braced, breath low. “Tell me what it means.”
“If the Hollow accepts her, it will change everything,” Brekka says. “It could unravel protections older than you. Than me. Than this soil.”
