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BEFORE THE HOLLOW CALLS

Author: Cynera
last update Last Updated: 2025-07-02 23:52:19

Chapter 11: Before the Hollow Calls

The stars hung low that night, heavy with heat and warning. Seraphine stood at the edge of the manor’s southern cliff, where the sea met the sky like a shattered promise. She wore a dark cloak lined in velvet, its hem already dusted with salt and ash from the air. Her sword was strapped at her back, but it wasn’t steel she trusted now — it was the fire sleeping in her blood.

Behind her, she heard Riven’s footsteps. Always quiet. Always steady.

“You’re quiet tonight,” he said.

She didn’t turn around. “I’m trying to remember who I was before all of this.”

“And who was she?”

“Lonely,” she said softly. “But not hollow.”

A pause. Then, “You’re not hollow now.”

She finally turned to face him.

He wore his leathers again — dark as ink, with runes traced faintly in silver thread across his collar and cuffs. His blade, dusksteel and deadly, rested at his hip. But it was his eyes that stopped her.

They were softer tonight.

Guarded… but open.

“We ma
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