The Hollow did not celebrate.
Even as the golden fragments of the mirror dissolved into the air, the chamber remained still—watchful. As if waiting to see what Lyra would do now that she had spoken the name and shattered the veil.
Velan bowed his head beside her.
"It has accepted you," he said.
Elias touched the stone wall that had opened like a mouth. "And changed again. The house won't be the same."
Lyra stepped into the stillness. The pedestal where the mirror had stood now bore something new: a carved book, sealed in wax and vine. She hesitated, then placed her hand on the cover.
It pulsed—once—beneath her skin.
Not just memories, she thought. Instructions.
---
They brought the book back to the drawing room where Elira's painting still hung.
Lyra laid it carefully on the table. The moment she broke the wax seal, the vines curled back and vanished into mist. The book creaked open, revealing pages not made of parchment, but some other substance—soft, silvery, and warm to the touch.
The first page bore no words, only a symbol she now recognized: the eye of thorns.
Beneath it, a phrase etched in fine red script.
The Hollow is not bound to land. It is bound to blood.
Elias read over her shoulder. "This… this was a vessel."
"A container," Velan murmured. "For grief. For magic. For her."
Lyra turned the page.
And the Hollow remembered.
---
Flashes of lives long gone filled the room—holograms of memory dancing in the corners of their vision. A child crying over a lost sibling. A woman walking alone into the forest with a blade in her hand. Villagers burying a body beneath a tree that pulsed with roots shaped like ribs.
Each image faded before the next began.
Amaris had given herself to the land, the book said. But not all of her.
"Part of her stayed conscious," Lyra whispered.
Velan nodded. "To watch. To guide. To decide."
Elias frowned. "To control."
Lyra shook her head. "No… to grieve."
---
She turned to a page etched with a map—not of land, but of veins and ley-lines, all converging beneath the estate. At the center was a heart. Not symbolic—a literal one. It pulsed faintly on the page, as if drawn from life.
"The Hollow has a core," she said slowly.
"And it's alive," Elias added.
Velan closed his eyes. "You can choose to dissolve it. End its memory. Let it sleep."
Lyra didn't answer.
Because she wasn't sure she wanted to.
---
Night came fast.
The halls remained in flux, but they no longer shifted in fear or hunger. The house had quieted, as though exhaling after centuries of silence. Lyra walked alone beneath the chandeliers that no longer flickered ominously. The shadows no longer watched.
She ended up in the conservatory, where wild ivy had broken through the glass ceiling.
Moonlight spilled down like water. The air smelled of jasmine and moss.
She sat beside the old piano. Her fingers hovered above the keys.
This time, it didn't play on its own.
This time, she chose the melody.
---
Elias found her there, some time later. He sat beside her on the bench without speaking until the song ended.
"It feels… lighter," he said.
She nodded. "It is."
"But it's not over."
"No," Lyra said. "There's something still waiting. The book says the Hollow can be reshaped. Reborn. But not by force. By choice."
"Yours?"
She looked at him. "Ours."
---
Later that night, she stood beneath Elira's portrait again.
For the first time, she didn't flinch.
"You tried to contain it," Lyra whispered to the painting. "But I think… it was never meant to be a prison. It was meant to be a memory."
She turned.
"Maybe it's time to set it free."