The heart of the Hollow wasn't marked on any physical map, yet the house seemed to know where Lyra wanted to go.
Corridors straightened, doors once sealed now opened with a breath. It felt like walking through the ribs of a living thing, the walls warm with quiet pulsing, the very air humming with memory. The farther they went, the more the lights dimmed behind them, until the only glow came from the veins beneath the floor—lines of faint crimson and gold, like blood flowing through the earth.
Elias walked beside her, silent but steady.
Velan followed, staff in hand.
Ahead, a staircase spiraled down. It led not into darkness, but into something stranger—a space without time.
They stepped into a chamber of roots.
It was vast. Almost cathedral-like. The ceiling arched in a tangle of wood and vine, as if the trees above had sunk their claws deep into the Hollow's spine. At the center, a mass of roots rose in a slow, rhythmic pulse. It throbbed like a beating heart, silent yet deafening.
And in the middle of it—encased in amber—was the shape of a woman.
Not quite alive. Not quite dead.
"Amaris," Velan breathed.
---
Lyra stepped closer.
The amber wasn't stone—it was memory, frozen and dense. The woman inside it was ageless. Hair floating like smoke. Hands curled as though in sleep. Her face was peaceful, but not passive. She looked like someone who had once ruled a kingdom of silence.
And the Hollow breathed through her.
Lyra reached out, not touching the amber but holding her hand just above it. A flicker of warmth passed through her fingers. The sigil in her pocket burned gently.
"She's not trapped," Elias whispered. "She's waiting."
"For what?" Lyra asked.
Velan answered, his voice distant: "For release. Or rebirth."
---
They circled the chamber.
Glyphs covered the walls—some Lyra recognized from the book, others older. More primal. One caught her eye: a spiral of roots with a single eye at its center, weeping. She traced it gently, and a vision bloomed in her mind—
A field of bodies. A girl with hollow eyes. A scream that broke the trees in two.
She staggered back.
"She bound the pain," she said aloud. "All of it. Into herself. Into this."
Elias steadied her. "And now it's passed to you."
"No," she said. "Now I choose what to do with it."
---
At the base of the amber heart, a slit had formed. Thin and gleaming, like a wound. The book hadn't mentioned this. Neither had Velan. But Lyra felt it—this was the threshold. The place where the old memory ended and the new could begin.
"What if I wake her?" Lyra whispered.
Velan's eyes darkened. "She may not come back as she was. This isn't sleep. It's something deeper."
Elias met Lyra's gaze. "Then we shape the Hollow into something else. Together."
She nodded.
Then stepped forward.
---
The sigil crumbled in her pocket, turning to dust as she drew near.
The amber began to split.
Cracks ran across its surface, slow but certain, like old ice thawing beneath spring sun. Light poured from them—not golden, but a deep, warm red, like the color behind closed eyes.
A voice echoed—not in words, but in sensation.
Pain. Love. Loss. Hope.
Lyra pressed her hand to the amber.
"I'm not here to bind you," she said. "I'm here to remember you. To forgive you. To carry you forward."
The amber broke.
Amaris opened her eyes.
And the Hollow exhaled.