All Chapters of THE HEIR AND THE HOLLOW VOW: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Chapter 22 – ** Something in the Walls**The fire no longer soothed her.It still responded to her command, still obeyed her touch—but Seraphine had begun to notice a second sensation crawling at the edges of her magic.Something cold.Wrong.Watching.She stood at the window of her private chambers, far above the manor’s war rooms, overlooking the north gardens. The moonlight painted the stone silver, soft, almost peaceful.But her instincts were screaming.She turned.No one was there.But still... she *knew*.She’d always been able to sense when danger was near — a heat in the blood, a flicker in the flame. But this was different. This wasn’t heat. It was the *absence* of it.She walked slowly to the door, hand resting on the dagger at her hip. The air felt thicker, like walking through breath held too long.“Reyna,” she called softly through the guard’s wardstone. “Double the hall patrols. Quietly.”“Yes, Your Grace,” came the reply.She turned again.And that’s when she saw it:

*Chapter 24 – : Embers Beneath the Throne*POV – Commander Reyna*She had smelled the smoke before the messenger reached her.The heart-chamber was three wings away, hidden behind blood wards and flame-bound seals — but Reyna had led the Queen’s Guard long enough to know when fire changed. This wasn’t ordinary. This was *summoning fire* — the kind that didn’t just burn, but *chose*.And Seraphine had stepped right into it.Reyna stood just outside the sealed chamber now, arms crossed, jaw tight. The runes still glowed on the stone, flickering with residual power. The guards looked to her, unsure whether to be terrified or amazed.Behind the doors, they said, the Reaper had been destroyed.Behind the doors, they said, the queen had *risen*.But Reyna… wasn’t sure.She remembered the last queen who touched the crown.She remembered how her eyes had changed.> “Power always takes something in return,” Reyna muttered.And the Hollow never gave back what it stole.---**\POV Shift – Serap

Chapter 26 – [ Before the Journey] POV – Seraphine She stood before the war table, candlelight flickering over old maps and broken seals. Seven days. That was all she had. Seven days to cross the haunted pass, enter the Hollow Seat, and face the Tribunal who had once served her mother... and then helped bury her memory. Seraphine looked down at the sigil etched into the wood — the first Hollow King’s mark. It pulsed faintly beneath her palm. “I need everyone who still stands with me,” she said. Riven, at her side, didn’t hesitate. “You have them.” Vael leaned against the far wall, arms crossed. “Some of them.” Seraphine’s gaze snapped to him. “If there’s something I need to know, say it.” He stepped closer, drawing a scroll from beneath his coat — old, brittle, the seal burned away. “The Tribunal does not just rule,” he said. “They bind. Every queen of flame must kneel at the Seat or face the Reaping Clause.” Reyna’s voice was low. “Execution?” “No,” Vael said. “Erasur

*Chapter 28 – The Spark Catches** **\[ After the Fire]** **\[POV – Seraphine]** They didn’t speak until they’d ridden far from the Hollow Seat — far enough for the wind to cut through silence, for the world to feel real again. Seraphine sat slumped in her saddle, one hand resting on the crown in her lap. It was warm. Still humming. Still hers. But inside her chest, something had shifted. Not broken — no. It was something *older* than that. Something she didn’t have a name for yet. Riven finally broke the silence. > “You destroyed an erasure circle,” he said, almost in awe. “No one survives that.” “I didn’t survive it,” she replied, voice low. “I *rewrote* it.” Vael looked over, his face pale beneath his hood. > “You understand what that means, don’t you? That magic was sealed by the High Tribunal. And you burned through it like parchment.” Seraphine glanced down at the sigil the golden-robed man had passed her. It had crumbled to ash in her pocket. > “He helped me,” she sa

**Chapter 30 – Ashes, Soft and Sharp****\[ The Things We Don’t Say]****\[POV – Seraphine]**She didn’t remember running.Just the way the vault walls blurred past, her heartbeat louder than the echo of her footsteps, louder than her mother’s voice still trapped in the tome behind her.She only remembered falling — not into battle, but into *him.*Riven had collapsed after the fight. Blood soaked his shoulder. His sword hand trembled. But his eyes — gods, his eyes never left her.Now he lay stretched across the stone floor of a smaller chamber above the heart of the vault, half-propped against the wall, arm wrapped in gauze, shirt torn.Alive.But pale. Silent.She sat beside him in the firelight.Neither spoke for a long while.---He finally broke the silence.> “You should’ve opened the Vault.”“I couldn’t.”Her voice cracked.“Not while you were bleeding alone.”“You were right there. You could’ve—”> “And if I had?” She looked at him. *“If I’d opened that vault, and turned back