The ruins whispered.
Not with wind, not with the groans of settling stone—but with *voices.* Half-heard murmurs slithering between cracks in the world, syllables that dissolved before they could be understood.
Kael walked through the corpse of a city that had no name, his boots crunching on blackened glass. Lysara moved like a shadow beside him, her sword unsheathed, her eyes darting to every flicker of movement. Sera had vanished into the ruins ahead, scouting, though Kael knew she was also running—from him, from what he was becoming.
The Emberguard pulsed in his chest, a slow, molten heartbeat.
Then—
A figure stood in the road.
Tall. Gaunt. Cloaked in tattered gray.
Kael's lightning surged before he could stop it, crackling along his arm. Lysara hissed a warning, blade rising.
The stranger did not move.
"You are lost," he said. His voice was wrong—not muffled, not distant, but *hollow,* as if the sound came from somewhere far deeper than a throat.
Kael forced his power down. "Who are you?"
The figure reached up.
Pulled back his hood.
Revealed *nothing.*
No eyes. No mouth. No scars.
Just smooth, featureless flesh where a face should have been.
Lysara's breath caught. "A Hollow Saint."
The faceless man inclined his head. "Once. Now, I am Eras. Or what remains of him."
Kael's fingers twitched toward the Stormblade. "What do you want?"
Eras turned his void toward the sky, where the tear in reality bled violet light. "To show you what you've done."
Then—
He *moved.*
Not walking. Not stepping.
*Unfolding.*
One moment he was ten paces away. The next, his skeletal fingers were pressed against Kael's forehead.
And the world—
*Shattered.*
Kael stood in a cathedral of flesh.
The walls pulsed like a living heart, veins threading through blackened stone. The air stank of copper and rotting flowers.
At the center of the chamber, suspended by chains of bone, hung a corpse.
No—
Not a corpse.
A *god.*
Its skin was the color of storm clouds, its hair a cascade of liquid shadow. Its chest had been split open, ribs pried apart like a butchered animal, and within the hollow cavity—
A *spike.*
Black iron. Dripping gold.
The Godspike.
But *smaller.*
*Older.*
Kael's stomach twisted. "This is where it began."
Eras stood beside him, his faceless gaze fixed on the dead god. "The first sin. The first theft."
A sound.
Wet.
Guttural.
The corpse's *eyes opened.*
"KAEL."
Kael *staggered* back—
And the vision *ripped* away.
He was on his knees in the ruins, gasping, his fingers clawing at the ground. Lysara was shouting, her hands on his shoulders, but her voice was distant, muffled.
Eras loomed above him. "The Vein is not a Current. It is a *corpse.*"
Kael's head snapped up. **"What?"
"The first god,"** Eras said, his hollow voice trembling. "Murdered by the Emperor's ancestors. Its blood became the Vein. Its bones became the Ash. Its *scream* became the Storm."
The words hit Kael like a physical blow.
The Three Currents were not forces of nature.
They were the *pieces* of something *butchered.*
Eras knelt, his featureless face inches from Kael's. "And now, the Hollow Ones walk again. The god's children. Its *vengeance.*"
A whisper, then, from the ruins around them:
*"Little storm."*
Kael *spun.*
Shadows *moved.*
Not just shadows—
*Figures.*
Tall. Thin.
*Faceless.*
Hundreds of them.
Watching.
Waiting.
Eras stood slowly. "They remember you."
Kael's voice was raw. "Why?"
"Because," Eras said, "you carry the weapon that killed their father."
He pointed to the Stormblade.
Then—
The Hollow Ones *surged.*
Kael's lightning *erupted,* searing through the first wave of Hollow Ones. Their bodies *dissolved* into smoke, their whispers becoming shrieks of fury.
Lysara fought like a demon, her blade cutting through the faceless horde, but for every one she felled, three more took its place.
Sera's arrows *found* their marks—but the Hollow Ones did not *die.* They simply *reformed,* their featureless faces turning toward her with eerie focus.
Eras did not fight.
He *watched.*
Then—
He reached into his cloak.
Pulled out a *key.*
Blackened iron.
Dripping *gold.*
"Take it," he said, pressing it into Kael's hand.
The moment the metal touched his skin, Kael *screamed.*
The key was *alive.*
It *burned.*
Not with heat—
With *memory.*
A thousand faces.
A thousand *names.*
All *screaming.*
Eras leaned close. "The Hollow King comes. And he will *remember* you."
Then—
The ground *split.*
And something *older than the world* began to *rise.*