Hollow Stones Novels & Stories

The hollow whistle in her throat turned into a soft human sob. One by one the other Hollowed reached the top. They did not attack the warriors. They gathered around me a sea of silver ghosts seeking the sun. I felt Ronans hand on my shoulder his strength pouring into me to keep me from fainting as the Hollowed drained my energy. I was a living bridge, between the Moon and the abandoned. Kael whispered, "Look," and pointed to the center of the pit.

Then entered them both. Aria collapsed to her knees, her body trembling. Kaelion rushed to her side, his mark blazing. “It’s starting,” he said. Aria nodded, her voice thin. “The child is coming.” Luna knelt beside her. “We’ll protect you.” Aria gripped her hand. “Protect them.” The Hollowed arrived at dawn. Cloaked in ash, crowned in silence. Their marks were inverted, their eyes hollow. They didn’t speak. They simply moved. And the Grove responded.

A slab of pale grey stone just over four feet tall, fractured by age and scarred by symbols so badly worn that they resembled natural cracks more than deliberate carvings. Koa frowned. "The rock?" Zenith nodded slowly. "I knew it mattered." She looked almost embarrassed. "I just didn't know why." The First Hollowed crossed the hall with slow, uneven steps. His hand lifted. Then stopped just short of touching the stone. Tears filled his silver-flecked eyes. "We called them Memory Stones." No one moved. "They weren't built to preserve words." His voice trembled with reverence. "They preserved witness." Eamon approached cautiously. "I've never seen writing like this."

The Dawn Pack had tracked the eastern echo beyond the Frosted Echo, their pursuit leading them to the Crimson Hollow, a sunken expanse at the farthest reaches of the Emberfall Woods, where the forest floor dipped into a bowl-shaped clearing, the ground a hardened crust of blood-red clay, cracked and veined with rivulets of frost that shimmered faintly under the late afternoon sun, its pale light casting a cold, golden sheen across the hollow, the shadows long and jagged, stretching across the clay like claw marks. The air was frigid, biting at the skin, carrying the scent of frost, ash, and a sharp, coppery tang of blood, a whisper of the marrow god’s kin stirring once more, the Crimsonborn—

By noon, the news spreads through Silverpine like wildfire: the south is breaking, and we are all the refuge left. Elowen’s voice is soft at first, but it fills the hall. The witches from the south speak not only in words but in tremors that seem to pass through every floorboard, every wary heart listening. She describes the Hollowing—a devourer, ancient and without true name or shape. It is not a demon and not a spirit, but something that eats the world’s heart quietly, leaving nothing behind. No bodies, no bones. Only the hush of something erased, the faint, acrid scent of a scorch mark in the grass, or, in the coldest dawns, a rim of white frost swirling in unnatural spirals around the ru

The Hollow was feeding. By dusk, we reached the ruins. The air there was heavier, charged with the kind of power that made your skin crawl. Half-buried stones jutted out of the earth and were etched with old carvings. I brushed my fingers over one, tracing the shape of a wolf kneeling before a tall figure with eyes carved like suns.

“If this is about Mira No. Mira remembered. But only pieces. You bring shape to her echo. She was not the first. You are not the last. Kaima reached out. The ghost stepped forward. And then it opened the core beneath them. The floor dissolved into translucent light, revealing a chamber far below a vault of memory. Hundreds of suspended glyphs hovered in midair runic systems older than any Pact, some formed from pure tone, others from physical motion, and one that shifted shape as it was observed. Ari whispered, “This isn’t from our world.” Kaima pointed downward. The ghost guided them both. The Hollow is not a place. It is a memory. A resonance discarded by early shapers. Too unpredictable.

(Aeryn) I landed in silence. No wind. No sky. Just a cold, deeper than winter, bone-deep and sterile. The stone beneath my boots was familiar: Frostfang marble, cracked and rimed with ice. The training yard. Only... wrong. The compound was in ruins, buried beneath snow and broken columns. Red flags snapped in the wind, but no sigil marked them — only a burn, as if clan identity had been stripped by fire. “Aeryn.”

“Aiden’s alive. He’s not hiding anymore. He’s planning something bigger than the Peak.” “I figured,” she said. “But you know more.” Micah nodded. “He’s found something. Something old—called the Hollowpact. It’s not a weapon in the way we think of it. It’s… ancient, forbidden magic. Something that was locked away when the god-wolves still walked freely. He’s bent it into a form—something he can wield. And it works.” Vivianne’s spine straightened, tension sharp as wire. “What does it do?”

We walk back to the house. There is a small stairway on the other side of a large, empty room. We descend into a room where a pool resides. There are no windows, but stones in the wall seem to glow. I approach one, my fingers gently glide over it. The stone flickers. I hear music. The stones seem to be humming. All the stones flicker one by one, playing a melody that seemed so familiar, but I couldn’t place. “Now they are going to show off for you,” Taran says with amusement.