THE HOLLOW WALLS

Elara Vance

The sound was thin, rhythmic, and impossibly sharp. Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.

It wasn't the sound of a branch against a window or the settling of an old house. It was the sound of a fingernail or something harder dragging slowly across the grain of the door’s outer panel.

I sat bolt upright in the small bed, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. The room was freezing now, the fire having died down to a few glowing embers. In the dim light, I saw Kaelen’s silhouette. He hadn't moved an inch from his position by the door, but I saw the subtle glint of his eyes. He was awake. He was listening.

"I see you, sister," the voice whispered again through the keyhole. It was Lyra’s voice—high, sweet, and dripping with a childish malice that made my skin crawl. "The Duke can't stay awake forever. And when he blinks... I’ll be there to finish what the water started."

"Kaelen," I breathed, my voice barely a thread.

"I hear it," he replied, his voice a low, vibrating growl. He didn't stand up immediately. He was coiled like a spring, waiting for the right moment to strike. "But your sister is back at the estate, Elara. We left her behind miles ago."

"I know," I whispered. "But that is her voice. I would know it anywhere."

The scratching stopped. For a moment, there was nothing but the howling of the blizzard outside. Then, the sound shifted. It wasn't coming from the door anymore. It was coming from inside the wall behind the bed.

Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.

I scrambled away from the wall, nearly falling off the bed. Kaelen was on his feet in an instant, his heavy sword unsheathed and glowing faintly in the embers' light. He stepped toward the bed, putting himself between me and the wooden slats of the wall.

"Step back, Elara," he commanded.

He didn't wait. He raised his foot and kicked the wooden paneling with a force that should have shattered stone. The wood splintered, revealing not a solid wall, but a narrow, pitch-black crawlspace.

A foul, cloying smell drifted out, the scent of wet fur, old rot, and that same jasmine perfume Lyra loved.

Kaelen reached into the opening and pulled. There was a wet, tearing sound, and then something hit the floor with a thud.

It wasn't Lyra.

It was a woman or what used to be one. She was impossibly thin, her skin the color of grey parchment, dressed in the tattered remains of a maid’s uniform. Her eyes were wide, glassy, and fixed in a permanent stare. But the most horrifying part was her mouth. Her lips had been sewn shut with silver wire, yet the voice, Lyra’s voice was still coming from somewhere deep inside her throat.

"Sister... why won't you... come home?" the thing wheezed, the sound vibrating through the stitches.

I felt the blood drain from my face. I recognized her. She was the maid who had "fallen" into the well in my past life. The one Lyra had cried for.

"A Soul-Echo," Kaelen hissed, his face pale with a mixture of disgust and rage. "This is forbidden magic. Darker than anything allowed in Aethelgard. Someone has been using this woman’s corpse as a vessel to track us."

The creature lunged, its fingers ending in blackened, sharpened bone where the nails should have been. It didn't move like a person; it moved like a spider, its joints clicking and snapping.

Kaelen swung his sword in a brutal arc. The blade sheared through the creature’s shoulder, but there was no blood, only a puff of black, oily smoke. The thing didn't scream. It just turned its head 180 degrees to look at me, its sewn lips stretching into a grotesque parody of a smile.

"Caspian sends... his love," the voice croaked.

The red mark behind my ear suddenly flared with white-hot pain. The room blurred, and for a second, I was back in the Shop of Lost Regrets.

“The serpent doesn't just bite, Little Crow,” the Archivist’s voice echoed, cold and mocking. “He infects. The Soul-Echo is tied to the box you threw away. As long as the scent remains in this room, the creature cannot die.”

“Task Six: Destroy the anchor. The heart of the Echo is not in its chest, but in the shadow it casts. Burn the shadow, or the Duke will be its next meal.”

I snapped back to reality. Kaelen was struggling with the creature. It was incredibly strong, its bony fingers digging into his leather armor, trying to reach his throat. Kaelen was a master swordsman, but how do you kill something that is already dead?

"Kaelen! The fire!" I shouted. "The shadow! We have to burn its shadow!"

Kaelen didn't ask how I knew. He shoved the creature back with his shield and grabbed a heavy iron poker from the hearth. He kicked the remaining embers, sending a shower of sparks into the air.

"Get the lantern!" he roared.

I lunged for the oil lantern on the table, my hands shaking so hard I nearly dropped it. I fumbled with the flint, striking it once, twice, spark. The flame bloomed. I held it high, casting a long, sharp shadow of the creature against the far wall.

The Soul-Echo shrieked, a sound that shattered the glass in the windows. Its shadow on the wall seemed to writhe and peel away from the floor.

"Now!" I cried.

Kaelen didn't use his sword. He grabbed a flask of high-proof traveling ale from his belt, took a mouthful, and spat it through the embers toward the creature’s shadow on the wall.

A pillar of fire erupted.

The flames didn't touch the creature’s physical body, but they engulfed the shadow. The Echo let out one final, haunting cry in Lyra’s true, piercing voice and disintegrated into a pile of grey ash.

Silence returned to the room, broken only by the sound of our heavy breathing and the whistling wind.

Kaelen stood over the ash, his chest heaving. He looked at me, his blue eyes filled with a new kind of wariness. "You knew," he said. "You knew about the box, you knew about the shadow. Who are you really, Elara Vance?"

I looked down at my hands. They were covered in ash. "I’m the person who is going to make sure that thing never happens again," I said, my voice cold. "Caspian has crossed a line. He isn't just a greedy lord anymore. He’s a necromancer’s patron."

Kaelen walked over to me. He didn't stay back this time. He grabbed my shoulders, his grip firm and grounding.

"We leave now," he said. "Forget the storm. My men will clear the path. We are not spending another minute in this cursed place."

As we hurried down the stairs, the innkeeper was nowhere to be found. The common room was empty, the fire out. It was as if the entire inn had been a trap designed specifically for us.

We climbed into the carriage, and the horses galloped into the white wall of the blizzard. Kaelen sat beside me this time, his shoulder pressed against mine. He didn't pull away.

"Elara," he said softly as the carriage bounced over the frozen ruts.

"Yes?"

"When we reach the Thorne Fortress... we don't wait for the King's permission. We get married the moment we cross the gates."

I looked at him, surprised. "I thought you wanted a public ceremony to secure the lands."

"I want you under my name," he said, his voice hard. "I want the world to know that if they send a Soul-Echo after you, they are declaring war on the North. And I want to be able to hold you without the shadow of your father's house between us."

I felt a flush creep up my neck. For a moment, I forgot about the Archivist and the revenge. But then, I looked out the window.

Through the swirling snow, I saw a figure standing on a distant ridge. A tall man in a golden cloak, holding a white horse. He wasn't moving. He was just watching the carriage disappear into the dark.

Caspian hadn't just sent a gift. He had come to watch the opening act.