Liora's breath caught. "Is that...?"
"Yes," Lucien replied. "Eldhollow."
And without another word, they continued forward, toward the ghost of a place that remembered more than either of them expected.
They passed beneath the arch of twisted brambles that once formed the threshold to Eldhollow's outer lands. Time had turned the village to bones, charred beams of old homes jutted from the earth like broken ribs, and moss climbed the crumbling stones as if trying to bury memory beneath green silence.
Liora slowed her horse as they entered the hollow, the soft thud of hooves muffled by a carpet of fallen leaves. "I thought Eldhollow was lost during the uprising," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
"It was," Lucien replied. "But it wasn't empty."
