MasukLily's POVWe didn’t even get that far before we were interrupted. Maybe it was a step or two?“Wait!”A chorus of small, scrambling feet followed the voice. I turned around just in time to see a cluster of pups tumbling down the dirt path behind us, arms waving, cheeks pink, and hair tousled with sleep.One of them—a chubby-faced little boy with a crooked scarf—nearly tripped over his own paws trying to catch up. “You—you can’t just leave!”“We’re not stealing anything, I swear,” Brinn said, hands up dramatically.“We know!” a smaller girl huffed, marching right up to him. “We came to say thank you.”I blinked.They were all there. At least ten pups, some still rubbing sleep from their eyes, a few dragging blankets or clinging to older siblings. But their expressions were serious. Like, really serious. Like we’d saved their lives or something.Which I guess… we kind of did.A taller girl, maybe around Joha’s age, stepped forward. Her hair was braided in a crown, but messy, like someo
Lily's POVI didn’t sleep.I sat curled up beside my brother’s body, arms wrapped around Mr. Bumble, who was looking more like a lump of stuffing than a bear now. His head flopped sideways, and his only remaining eye was scratched. But he was still soft. Still mine.Although, I would surely annoy Joha later to stitch Mr. Bumble.But for now, I hugged him. And I watched Joha’s chest rise and fall, slow and steady.That meant he was alive.Alive was good.But I hated how still he was. Joha was never still. Even in sleep, he used to twitch like a dreaming pup—his fingers curling like he was chasing something in a dream.Now he didn’t move at all. His face was pale. His lashes were wet. I wiped his forehead the way Mama used to do to me when I had fevers. I didn’t know if it helped. But I did it anyway.Sari was the first to sit beside me.He looked tired. Like, way more tired than after training or sneaking out to eat sweets. His shoulders drooped. His nose was red like he wanted to cry
Johanis’ POVThe world didn’t end that night.But it did fall silent.The shapes retreated—not with a scream, but a sigh. Like old wind pulling back into deep places. One moment, they were all around us, hungry and terrible. The next, they were… gone. Scattered into the wind, like ash and memory.I don’t know what did it. Maybe it was Lily. Maybe it was all of us together. Maybe the guardians—the ones we named—finally stirred and remembered who they were long enough to drive the dark away.All I knew was that the ground had stopped shaking. The screaming had faded. And the only sound left was Lily’s breath against my cheek and the faint hum of Brinn’s sigils glowing in the dirt like cooling embers.I was still lying there, half-conscious. My bones felt heavy. Hollow. My fire… dimmed. Not gone, but resting. Maybe for good reason.“Joha,” Lily whispered. She was crying, but softly now. Like she was afraid even her tears might break whatever fragile safety we’d bought. “It’s over. For no
Johanis’ POVThe night didn’t stay still for long.A breeze stirred the ash at our feet. I could feel it—soft at first, then sharper, as if the air itself was cutting through the quiet. The trees whispered in a language I couldn’t understand, their branches clawing at the stars like they were begging for help.But no help came. All adults are still stuck in time.Lily’s small hand clutched mine, and I could feel her heartbeat racing—too fast, too fragile. Mr. Bumble dangled from her other arm, one button eye missing, stuffing peeking through his seams.“Joha,” she whispered, voice shaking, “..they’re not gone. They’re just hiding.”I knew it. I felt it in my bones, in the fire that refused to die down inside me. The cracks beneath our feet hadn’t sealed. The air still smelled wrong, like wet earth and something old, something rotten.“We have to go,” I said. “We can’t stay here.”Brinn’s face was pale as the salt scattered around us. He looked like he wanted to argue, but he didn’t. S
Johanis' POVWe froze.There, just at the mouth of the smokehouse, stood shapes that weren’t shapes at all. They were too long, too bent, too many hands dragging along the ground—hands that looked so much like the ones we’d glimpsed clawing up through the cracks earlier.And yet their faces were human.Too human.I recognized them.That was the worst part.Each one had my father’s brow. My mother’s lips. Even Lily’s eyes — sharp and serious, like they’d been looking at me forever. Except these weren’t my family. Couldn’t be.Couldn’t.No..Still, my breath caught all the same.“Joha,” Lily whimpered against my back, pulling at my shirt like it was the only thing keeping her anchored.“They wear our names,” Brinn said, his voice trembling. “That’s what we feared, isn’t it?”I wanted to tell him to hush, to not give them power by saying it aloud, but it was too late. The shapes already moved toward us. Smooth as water. Too smooth, like they glided just above the ground instead of steppi
Johanis' POVThe screaming didn’t stop.At first, I thought it was just in my head again. Another echo from the dreams. A cry laced into the wind, a leftover from whatever Hollowroot thing we had named last.But then Lily stood.Her face had gone pale. Not the way you go pale from fear—but like something inside her had been pulled thin. Like her name was being spoken somewhere else, dragged across stone."Do you hear that?" she whispered.Aya jerked upright. She and the others were here on the pretense (although it is also true) of a sleepover. Her hand reached for the bone chalk she always kept looped on a string around her wrist. Brinn's eyes snapped to mine, and I didn’t need words to understand—this wasn’t one of us.It was the others.Real screams.High. Shrill. Some of them barely formed words. Some couldn’t be words.Toddlers.Pups.Babies.I bolted.The salt lines we had laid around the root cellar crackled as we passed them, a faint hiss like breath being sucked through teet







