Chapter 25: The Girl Who Shouldn't Be
Seren's voice had the weight of a tomb.
"You left me in the well."
Then she was gone faded like smoke in the wind.
Kael stood frozen in the square, his breath caught somewhere between a cry and a whisper. The fountain behind Seren was dry, cracked with age, but her image had shimmered like water like memory made flesh.
He turned to Lyra. "What did she mean?"
Lyra's eyes were wide, unblinking. "She's not real."
"She spoke to me."
"She's not real."
Kael stepped forward, closing the space between them. "You said she died. You said you saw her body."
"I did."
Kael's voice cracked. "Then why does she remember me?"
They didn't speak again until the edge of town, where the trees began to thin into the old orchard what remained of it. Gnarled apple trees stretched toward the sky like bone fingers. The ground was littered with rotting fruit and forgotten graves.
"We're being watched," Kael muttered.
Lyra nodded. "The Hollow Circle doesn't sleep."
They stopped when a shape moved between the trees.
Kael reached for his blade but the shape stepped forward with hands raised. Not a threat.
A boy. No older than sixteen.
His clothes were too clean. His eyes too knowing.
"I've been waiting for you," he said.
Kael's voice was hard. "Who are you?"
The boy smiled faintly. "No one. That's what they called me before the well took my name."
Lyra stiffened. "You were hollowed."
"Almost." His smile vanished. "But someone pulled me back. Just like her."
He nodded at Kael.
They followed him through a tangle of overgrowth into an old gardener's shack. Inside, candles were already lit. Someone had drawn a map of the town on the walls marked with Xs and spirals.
"I've been collecting what the town forgets," the boy said. "What you forget."
He touched Kael's shoulder gently. "You and I… we were taken the same way. Same well. Same Saint."
Kael's stomach dropped. "You were in the water?"
He nodded. "But I climbed out with something the Saint didn't want me to have."
Lyra's voice was cautious. "What?"
The boy reached into his coat and pulled out an old, tarnished locket.
He handed it to Kael.
Inside was a tiny painting. A girl. Blonde, eyes too large for her face.
Seren.
But not the girl they saw in the square. Younger. Smiling.
"She gave me this," he whispered. "After she died."
Kael dropped the locket.
"No," he said. "She can't be"
"Ghosts don't follow the same rules here," Lyra cut in. "She might be a memory. A mimic. Even a trap."
The boy shook his head. "She's something else. She's between. She remembers you."
Kael's hands trembled. "Then why isn't she talking to me?"
"She is," the boy said, turning. "You're just not listening in the right places."
He pointed to the wall.
A phrase was scratched into the plaster over and over.
"Tell Kael he was the first."
"Tell Kael he was the first."
"Tell Kael…"
Kael backed away, dizzy.
"What does that mean?" he whispered.
The boy gave a sad smile. "You weren't just taken, Kael. You were the Saint's first memory. The original hollowing. The blueprint."
Silence.
Then Lyra stepped back, almost stumbling.
She hadn't known.
Not this.
Outside, the wind had risen. The trees creaked and bent like something was moving through them not walking, pulling itself along.
Kael turned to Lyra, eyes blazing. "So I'm not just cursed I'm the reason it learned to curse."
"You didn't ask for this."
"I asked for the truth."
Lyra stepped forward. "And I'm giving it to you now."
The boy looked between them and whispered, "No, you're not."
Both froze.
He stepped toward Kael, voice low. "Ask her what happened to the one who tried to free you before."
Lyra's face darkened. "Don't."
The boy ignored her. "There was another. A man. He figured out the Saint's weakness. Almost broke the cycle."
Kael's heart pounded. "Where is he?"
Lyra turned away.
The boy said simply, "She killed him."
Kael's breath caught. "Is it true?"
Lyra didn't turn around. Didn't answer.
The wind outside rose again, and this time Kael heard it.
Seren's voice. Whispering: "Don't trust her."