Kael moved through the Hollow like a ghost.
Not because anyone stopped him.
But because no one did.
Doors that once stayed ajar now closed at his approach.
Conversations ended mid-sentence.
Eyes slid away like water off glass.
Even the air tasted different—thicker, metallic, heavy with unsaid words.
He spent the morning in the drying halls, sorting bundles of herb-stalk and fungus roots.
Normally, it would have been mindless work.
Today, it felt like digging graves.
Mero passed by once.
The other boy didn't stop.
Didn't nod.
Didn't even glance at him.
Kael watched him go, feeling the space left in his wake settle like dust.
Later, a younger disciple approached him under the pretense of checking inventory.
Asked careless questions with careful eyes.
"Have you been feeling… strange lately?"
"Seen anything… unnatural?"
Kael answered with shrugs, monosyllables.
He saw the boy mark something on a thin wax tablet before disappearing back into the misty corridors.
They were cataloging him.
Measuring how much time they had left before he slipped fully out of their hands—or exploded in their midst.
Maybe both.
By midday, the Hollow buzzed with tension barely hidden beneath daily routine.
Council members moved through the halls in twos, sometimes threes.
Gray Division operatives lingered near the deeper gates that led toward the Lower Sanctum.
Weapons hung lower on belts.
Shields carried not for ceremony, but readiness.
Even the air beneath the garden canopies hummed with preparation.
Kael didn't need Sariel to tell him anymore.
He felt it.
Like standing on cracked ice, waiting for the first spiderweb fracture to race outward under his feet.
At dusk, he found himself drifting toward the eastern balconies.
They overlooked the lower valleys, where the mist never fully burned off even in high summer.
Tonight, the mists were restless.
Coiling.
Lapping against the cliffs like hungry tides.
He leaned against the railing.
The bottle pulsed faintly at his hip.
Still warm.
Still aware.
Still waiting.
Footsteps approached behind him.
He didn't turn immediately.
Didn't have to.
Sariel.
She stopped beside him, not too close.
Not today.
"Word is," she said quietly, "they move at third dusk."
Kael kept his gaze on the mist.
Third dusk.
Three days after the binding.
Exactly as promised.
"They'll use binding chains first," she continued. "If that fails, suppression talismans. Last option…"
She didn't say it.
Didn't need to.
Kael exhaled slowly.
Felt the brittle coldness of the night soak into his bones.
"They'll try to take me alive," he said.
Sariel's silence was answer enough.
Alive.
For now.
"You should leave," he said.
"I should," she agreed.
Neither moved.
After a long moment, she added:
"There's talk of offering you a choice."
Kael's lips twitched.
"A kind offer."
Sariel didn't smile.
Below them, the mist shifted.
Not with wind.
With movement.
Something large.
Something deliberate.
Kael's hand found the pouch.
The bottle's warmth sharpened—like a warning blade pressed to the skin.
Not yet.
But soon.
Behind them, bells chimed twice—sharp, metallic.
An old signal.
Lockdown at the training fields.
Restricting movement between sectors.
Standard protocol before internal sweeps.
Sariel turned without another word, disappearing into the descending twilight.
Kael stayed.
Watching.
Listening.
Waiting.
The Hollow groaned beneath the weight of its own breath.
And far below, at the roots of the valley, something moved again.
Closer this time.
Not mist.
Not shadow.
Something that remembered its shape only when it needed to be feared.
Kael closed his eyes.
Listened to the bottle.
Not words.
Not thoughts.
Just a rhythm.
A pattern.
A door swinging open somewhere in the blood.
He opened his eyes again.
Not afraid.
Not ready.
But inevitable.
Three nights.
Three summons.
Three fractures already spidering through the stone and soil of this place.
Tomorrow, they would try to bind him.
Tomorrow, they would fail.
Or everything would burn.
Either way, the Hollow would never be the same again.
And neither would he.