They traveled under gray skies and colder silence. Kaelen had thought the world would feel bigger once she left Dromar. But instead, it felt… thinner. Like a dream held together by memory — and hers were getting stranger.
Each night, she dreamed of places she'd never been.
A tower with no doors.
A field of swords, all pointing inward.
A god-shaped hole in the sky.
And always, the sigil — glowing, burning, pulling.
---
By the second night, Kaelen couldn't sleep. She sat outside the cave Tareth had chosen for shelter, fingers absently tracing the spiral into the dirt.
"You shouldn't do that," came his voice behind her.
Kaelen looked up, startled. "Why? It's not like it'll summon another… Hollowborn."
"It might," Tareth said grimly. "Or worse. Drawing the sigil calls memory to you — and not all memory is yours."
He knelt beside her, pulled a battered map from his coat, and unrolled it. It was hand-drawn, marked with faded ink and strange notations.
"What's this?" she asked.
"A record of the forgotten," he said. "Cities that once were. People no one recalls. I keep it updated — best I can."
Kaelen leaned in. There were dozens of names.
Narethune. Ivalas. Glaeth Hollow. Elrath-Ven.
None of them familiar — yet they stirred something in her bones.
"What happened to them?"
Tareth's jaw tightened. "They were eaten."
---
He told her the story in a low voice, like a myth passed in secret:
Long ago, when the world was still tethered by story and stone, a god emerged from the void — not to create, but to erase. It fed not on flesh, but on memory. It had no name, because names grant shape. It had no face, because faces can be remembered. It was known only as the Hollow God.
Kingdoms fell to it, not by war, but by forgetting. Entire cities erased from thought. Histories turned to dust. Families vanished mid-lineage, remembered by none.
The only resistance came from those who bore the sigils — markings burned into soul and skin, anchoring memory in defiance of erasure. These were the Remembered.
But they were few. And the Hollow God is patient.
Kaelen was silent for a long time.
"…Why me?" she asked at last. "Why do I have it?"
Tareth looked at her, something unreadable in his eyes.
"Maybe you were born with it. Maybe someone gave it to you. Or maybe…"
"Maybe?"
"…Maybe you chose it. Once."
Kaelen laughed bitterly. "I don't remember choosing anything."
"That's the point," he said. "It took something from you, Kaelen. Something big. And the sigil — it's what's left."
---
Later, while Tareth slept, Kaelen found herself drawn to the edge of the cave. The wind carried voices — not loud, but insistent.
She turned toward the slope.
There, half-buried in the earth, was a mirror.
Its surface was black glass, cracked at the edges, reflecting stars she didn't see in the real sky.
Kaelen stepped closer.
A voice rose from it, soft and layered — like a dozen versions of herself speaking at once.
"We remember you."
"You were ours."
"Why did you forget?"
Kaelen reached out, trembling.
The glass shuddered — and for one brief moment, she saw something staring back.
A face with no mouth. No eyes. A hole where a soul should be.
And then — silence.
The mirror darkened.
Behind her, Tareth was suddenly there. His hand gripped her shoulder, strong.
"Don't listen to it," he growled. "It lies."
Kaelen looked back once.
But deep in her mind, the whisper had already rooted.
And that night, she dreamed of Elrath-Ven — a city no one had ever told her about.
A city she couldn't possibly remember.
Yet did.