Chapter Eight: The Fae

The corridor that led to him was the same as before—too tall, too still, cloaked in a darkness that didn’t quite cling to the skin but hovered just near enough to make it crawl. It didn’t hum like the Hollow’s domain. It didn’t breathe like the werewolf’s. It simply existed, patient and eternal, like the hall had been carved out of the concept of waiting itself.

I walked slower this time.

Not because I was afraid—but because I was finally starting to understand what fear really was.

When I reached the end, he was already there.

He stood just as I remembered—tall and terrible, too beautiful to be safe. But now, I saw more. His skin held the sheen of something not quite flesh, as if moonlight had been poured over stone and left to set. The air around him shimmered faintly, like reality was deciding whether or not to hold his shape, wavering at the edges of his form.

His horns curved back from his temples, enormous and elegant, veined with pale light that pulsed faintly like veins under thin ice. His chest was bare again, muscles lean and coiled like a predator held barely in check, marked with shifting ink I couldn’t read—symbols that flickered between languages, dancing with ancient meaning I wasn’t meant to understand.

His hair was dark, nearly black, falling to his shoulders in soft, weightless waves that defied the stale air. His jaw was sharp enough to wound, his mouth too still to be human. And his eyes—gods, his eyes. They weren’t a color. They were a force, pale and endless, like looking directly into starlight and being dared to survive it.

He didn’t look up. Didn’t greet me. Just stood there, still and sovereign, as if he’d known I would come eventually—and it didn’t matter how long it took.

I swallowed. The silence stretched long enough to be mistaken for challenge.

"You never told me your name," I said.

He blinked once, slow as dusk.

"Names are for offerings," he replied. "Are you offering me something?"

I lifted my chin. "No. I’m asking for the truth."

That made him look at me.

His gaze moved over me slowly, not like a man assessing a threat, but like something ancient considering the weight of a star.

"Then call me what I am," he murmured. "Fae will do."

I frowned. "You said 'a fae' when we first met. Not the fae. So, there are others."

He gave a slow nod. "There were."

I shifted my weight. "But not like you."

Something passed through his expression. Not emotion—something colder. Older.

"No," he said. "Not like me."

I took a step closer. The air tensed around us, brittle with unseen rules.

"Why are you here? Why this prison? What did you do?"

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he tilted his head toward the stone, the ivy, the faint shimmer of runes embedded in the ground beneath us.

"What do you think it takes to bury something like me?"

I didn’t answer.

He took a step forward, and the light around him pulsed—soft, slow, almost mournful.

"The others kill because they break," he said. "Because something inside them fractures, and they don’t know how to hold it together."

He paused.

"I never broke."

The silence after was heavy. It pressed into my spine, into my ribs.

He looked at me then, and the honesty in his voice felt like a blade drawn without anger. "They built courts to survive me. Carved out whole realms with laws just to keep me from walking through their doors. And when that wasn’t enough—they buried me."

My mouth went dry. "Why?"

His eyes didn’t waver. "Because no one could stop me."

I felt the truth of it settle in my bones.

And I knew—I wasn’t afraid of what he’d done.

I was afraid of what he hadn’t yet chosen to do.

A shiver chased down my spine. I drew my arms tighter across my chest, voice barely a whisper. "And the others?"

"Would you like to hear their sins?"

His words weren’t mocking. Just quiet. Like the offer of a story he’d told too many times before.

I nodded.

The fae’s gaze drifted, distant, as if watching ghosts.

"The vampire—Calyx—was once revered. Old enough to remember the shaping of blood magic, old enough to teach it. He ruled covens that worshipped him. Then one day, he began feeding on his own kind. Not for hunger. For pleasure. For control."

I thought of the way Calyx had touched me. The way he’d stopped. But I also remembered the way his mouth had felt on my throat. The ache that lingered. The strange, awful heat that flared as I thought of his fangs dragging across my skin while his hips moved between my thighs… wait, no. What the hell? I don’t want that bloodsucking fiend anywhere near me!

"He drained his lovers first," the fae continued. "Then his friends. Then those who dared confront him. Until there was no one left to kneel."

My stomach turned.

"Ruarc led a pack that spanned continents. He was born to protect. But something inside him rotted. Rage, maybe. Grief. Or maybe he just wanted to see who could stop him. He tore through his own bloodline in a single night. Left only bones."

I felt the heat of Ruarc’s desperation again, his trembling restraint. The chains.

"And the Hollow," the fae said at last, voice dropping low. "He doesn’t kill for rage. He kills for love. The kind of love that devours. He had an obsession. A girl who loved him back—until she didn’t. When she tried to leave, he erased her village. Then he erased her."

The chamber felt colder now.

"He wept for a century," the fae added. "Then he started searching for someone else to fit the hole."

I staggered a step backward.

"And you?" I asked, voice hoarse. "You say they buried you because they couldn’t stop you—but what did you do?"

He stepped closer.

"I did what they feared. I took. I unraveled. I unmade."

"Why?"

"Because I could. Because I like silence, and they wouldn't stop knocking. They begged for mercy and scraped at the edges of my peace with their endless, trembling needs. So, I made them quiet."

The answer didn’t just land in my chest—it hollowed something out. Like he’d scooped the breath from my lungs with nothing more than truth.

He didn’t smile. Didn’t gloat. He wore his confession like a crown, not boastful—but inevitable. It was who he was. There was no regret. Only fact.

I turned to leave, pulse roaring in my ears, nausea swirling just under my ribs.

"Elarys," he said softly, the first time he’d spoken my name.

I froze. I didn’t tell him my name.

The sound of it on his lips felt intimate. Violating. Like he’d peeled something sacred off my skin and made it his. My breath caught. I took half a step back, instinct flaring sharp and wild.

How did he know? Was it some magic of his kind—was he reading my thoughts, peeling through my memories like pages in a book?

I opened my mouth, but no words came. Just the pounding of my heart and the shiver rolling down my spine.

"You came here for truth," he said again, and his voice was so soft it almost didn’t echo. "You’ve seen it now. The only question left—"

I didn’t wait to hear the rest. I didn’t want to know what came next.

I turned, legs trembling, and fled.

The corridor swallowed me.

And behind me, the stone sealed shut like the hush after a scream—too quiet, too final, as if it had always known I wouldn’t stay.

I ran—breathless, unraveling, reeling from what I’d heard. My heart beat like it was trying to break its way out of my ribs. My breath hitched, uneven and hot, every step echoing through the hollow veins of this place. But I didn’t go to my corridor. I didn’t want the illusion of safety. I didn’t want soft walls and knowing stone curling around me like a lullaby.

I wanted the unknown.

So, I turned deeper into the prison.

Past the glowing runes. Past the familiar doors that pulsed like heartbeats waiting to be answered. I walked the corridors that weren’t meant for feet. That weren’t meant for anyone at all.

Here, the silence changed. It stopped feeling like absence and started feeling like judgment.

The air thickened with dust and age. Old spells clung to the walls like barnacles, broken and brittle, crumbling in the corners of reality. I passed arches etched with forgotten languages, staircases that led nowhere, alcoves that reeked faintly of rot and magic left to sour.

No names adorned these halls. No doors waited to open. These weren’t places where beings lived. These were the bones of the prison. The parts even the monsters didn’t roam.

Still, I moved forward. Each step dragged more from me than the last—like the place was siphoning something subtle with every breath I took.

But I felt it again.

That pulse.

Not a heartbeat. Not a whisper. Not even magic.

Awareness.

Not my corridor.

Not theirs.

The prison itself.

It was watching me.

I stopped, breath ragged. My body wanted to turn back, to flee to something known, something named—but my mind wouldn’t follow. I needed to see. I needed to understand.

I wandered until the air changed again—so subtly I almost missed it. But I felt it in my teeth, in my spine. A tremble in the magic, like something had once clawed at this place from the inside. Not just a crack. A scar.

I stepped into it.

The pressure eased. Not like welcome—like curiosity. Like something ancient had noticed I’d found where it hurt.

I sat.

Not because it was safe. Not because I was tired.

But because it was the first place that didn’t try to be anything.

And there, beneath stone that remembered and silence that waited, I began to decide what came next.