Chapter 1: Darius

I stand at the edge of the clearing where the moonlight stitches silver seams through the dense canopy, tracing the worn scars of the land. My breath comes slow and steady, each exhale a ghost in the cool night air.

The ground is harsh, unforgiving beneath my bare feet—a tremor of power coursing through the roots, the soil, and into my bones.

I run my hands through my hair, missing my horns that should crest from my skull. Once a permanent fixture on my head, now they only appear under the full moon.

I was born to rule my kingdom. Now I wear my exile like a second skin I cannot shed.

I raise my arms and close my eyes, letting the humid night settle around me. The wind lifts my hair, brushing gentle fingers across my skin. My muscles are taut, like springs pulled to their snapping point and ready to unleash the raw strength dwelling deep within.

I am Darius, the Herd King, ruler of a realm lost to curse and rot. I’ve reigned over a kingdom, broken bones, bled and burned. But I’ve never wanted like this.

Not until her.

The air sharpens.

I feel them before I see them—shifts in shadow, the bend of light around bodies that don’t want to be seen.

Two figures emerge—powerful, silent, each stepping with the precision of predators who long ago stopped pretending they were anything else.

“You feel it too?” Vastian’s voice, rough and low, cuts through the quiet.

“Yes. The Hollow is restless.”

He moves to stand beside me. His presence is grounding, solid like bedrock beneath a storm. The scar across his back glows faintly, a relic of a battle lost not with blades, but with fate. His eyes sweep across the trees like he’s expecting them to turn against us.

From the shadows, the third of us steps forward.

Khael.

He is more silence than man—liquid shadow wrapped in skin, his presence a whisper of danger. The moonlight touches him like it doesn’t dare linger, casting his sharp features in glints of silver. His gaze finds mine and holds.

There’s a ripple between us. A wordless dance of loyalty, regret, and something darker—something we don’t name. Not aloud.

His voice is low and controlled. “The time for the pact draws near.”

I nod, hands clenched and unclenched at my sides, my body a cage holding too much. “She will come.”

“How do you know?” Vastian asks. His tone balances doubt and loyalty, sharpened over centuries. He has always followed me, even when I didn’t deserve it.

“Because her blood calls.” The words leave my lips with certainty. “Her scent lies on the wind. On the soil. It tastes of sorrow and something bright. Unbroken.”

Khael tilts his head. “Only a hucow of her lineage could pierce the boundary. A hundred cursed years of male heirs sealed the line. Until now.”

He doesn’t speak often, but when he does, it carries weight.

Vastian shifts beside me. “Is she safe?”

I glance toward Khael. He is the only one among us who can sense her in dreams.

“No,” he answers after a long pause. “There was no one left to prepare her. She’s been alone for too long.”

The words land heavy in my chest. Alone. I know what that does to a creature meant to belong.

“She survived,” I say. “And now she’s being called.”

The wind stirs again, swirling leaves in loose spirals across the clearing. Overhead, the moon climbs higher, fierce and opalescent, its glow bathing the land in otherworldly light.

Ancient stones ring the clearing. Runes etched on its surface flicker to life, faintly pulsing with a hungry magic. They remember the old days—when we ruled, when the pact was whole.

They remember the moment it broke.

The Hollow has never forgiven us.

I step forward, resting my palm on the largest monolith. The stone is cold at first, then warms beneath my touch, pulsing in time with the slow, rising beat of power below. A forgotten rhythm—waiting.

“She’s not ready,” Khael murmurs.

“No,” I agree. “But she will be.”

Vastian snorts. “You’re a fool for hope.”

“Perhaps,” I say. “But she’s the only hope we have.”

For a moment, we’re all quiet.

Then—sensation. A ripple through the Hollow. My breath catches as the bond flares sharply inside my chest.

A glimpse. A feeling.

She’s dreaming.

And in that dream—she runs.

I glimpse her through Khael’s magic. She runs barefoot through tall grass, the sky above her bleeding violet and gold. Her skin is flushed, her chest heaving, eyes wide with fear and something else—something she doesn’t yet name.

She’s fighting the pull.

Not because she doesn’t feel it, but because she does.

She’s burning.

I open my eyes, breath ragged.

“She’ll come,” I say. “She won’t be able to stay away.”

Vastian raises a brow. “And if she does?”

“Then we prepare her,” I answer.

“And if she fights?”

Khael’s voice is cold and soft. “Then we make her crave it.”

I glance at him. His expression doesn’t change, but there’s a flicker behind his eyes. He’s already touched her mind. Already tasted her fear—and her curiosity.

He’ll know exactly how to unravel her.

“She deserves gentleness,” I say.

“She won’t get it from the Hollow,” Khael replies.

The trees groan again, as if agreeing. The very land beneath us hums with hunger.

The Hollow remembers the pact. It remembers being fed, being kept in balance. It remembers the betrayal.

And now, at last, the Hollow demands its due.

“It was never meant to be this way,” I whisper, mostly to myself.

“She’s not just the key,” Vastian says, voice quiet. “She’s the offering.”

The words lodge in my throat.

I can’t let her be just that.

Not when the memory of her voice already claws at me in sleep. Not when her laughter, quiet and weary, already echoes through the hollow spaces of my mind.

I was supposed to be her king, not her captor, but I will become what I must.

Because if we fail again, the pact will irreversibly shatter and the Hollow will consume everything.

And there will be no more second chances.