Kael's muscles still burned from the Gauntlet, his mind raw from the visions it had forced him to relive. Yet as he walked away from the training grounds, the weight of unseen eyes prickled the back of his neck. The hooded figure had vanished, but their presence lingered like a half-remembered nightmare.
Eris fell into step beside him, her voice low. "You lasted longer than most."
"Did I pass?" Kael asked, though he already knew the answer.
She smirked. "You survived. That's all the Order ever guarantees."
Before he could press further, a horn blared—sharp, urgent. Initiates and seasoned warriors alike snapped to attention as a rider thundered into the courtyard, his mount lathered in sweat.
"Breach at the Black Hollow!" the man shouted. "Shade-touched swarm the ruins!"
A ripple of tension passed through the crowd. Shade-touched. The word alone was enough to tighten Kael's grip on his sword. Creatures warped by dark magic, neither dead nor alive, their very presence poisoning the land.
Eris turned to the gathered initiates, her earlier amusement gone. "Consider this your second trial. Those who prove themselves tonight earn their steel."
No Gauntlet, no illusions—this was real.
The ruins of Black Hollow loomed ahead, the skeletal remains of a forgotten fortress. Moonlight bled through the broken arches, casting jagged shadows. Kael moved with the others, his breath steady despite the dread coiling in his gut.
Then came the screams.
Shade-touched poured from the darkness—twisted figures with too-long limbs and eyes like smoldering embers. Kael barely had time to raise his blade before one lunged. Steel met corrupted flesh, the impact jarring his bones. He fought with brutal efficiency, each strike fueled by memories of the Gauntlet's taunts.
You are nothing.
Not anymore.
Beside him, an initiate faltered, his arm raked by blackened claws. Kael hauled him back just as another creature sprang—only to be impaled mid-air by a thrown dagger.
Eris wrenched her blade free from the fallen monster. "Eyes open, Kael. The real danger isn't the Shade-touched."
Before he could ask what she meant, a new horror emerged from the ruins: a figure clad in tattered Order robes, its face a hollow mask of shadow. The other initiates recoiled, but Kael froze.
He knew that face.
It was the missing initiate from the year before—the one they'd said deserted. Only now, his eyes glowed the same sickly green as the creatures he commanded.
The corrupted initiate raised a hand, and the shadows themselves seemed to writhe in response.
"Kill them all," he whispered.
And the night erupted into chaos.
The ruins of Black Hollow breathed decay.
Kael's boots crunched over brittle bones—some animal, some not—as the Shade-touched closed in. Their ember eyes pulsed in the dark, their twitching limbs moving with unnatural hunger. But worse than the creatures was the figure leading them.
The corrupted initiate.
Once one of the Order's own, now a hollowed-out puppet of shadow. His tattered robes flapped like funeral shrouds as he raised a skeletal hand.
"Kill them all."
The command slithered through the air, and the night erupted.
Kael barely dodged the first attacker, its claws raking his shoulder. Hot blood seeped into his gambeson. He spun, driving his sword through the creature's ribs. Black ichor sprayed, sizzling where it struck stone.
Poison in their blood. Of course.
To his left, a scream cut short—another initiate dragged into the dark.
Eris fought like a storm, her twin daggers carving arcs of silver. "Stop gawking and move!" she snarled.
Kael forced himself forward.
Mid-swing, a flicker of movement caught his eye.
There.
High in the crumbling fortress, the hooded figure stood silhouetted against the moon. Watching.
Kael's grip tightened on his sword. Who—?
A Shade-touched slammed into him, knocking him back. Rotted teeth snapped an inch from his throat. He jammed his dagger into its eye, kicked it off, and rolled to his feet—just as the corrupted initiate lunged.
Faster than anything human.
Cold fingers closed around Kael's wrist. The thing's breath reeked of grave soil as it leaned in.
"You don't belong here, Kael of Valreth," it rasped. "The Order doesn't save lost boys. It consumes them."
How the hell does it know my name?
Kael headbutted it. Bone crunched. The thing staggered but didn't bleed.
Behind him, Eris cursed. "Stop playing and kill it!"
The corrupted initiate struck like a viper.
Kael blocked, but the force sent him skidding back. His arms trembled. Too strong.
Eris lunged, her dagger aimed for its heart—and screamed.
The thing caught her wrist, twisted. Bone snapped. Before she could react, its other hand raked across her face, leaving black-streaked gashes.
Venom.
Eris collapsed, her skin already graying.
"No!" Kael charged, but the initiate backhanded him into a pillar.
Ribs cracked. Vision swam.
The thing loomed over Eris, grinning. "You'll join us soon, sister."
Kael's hand closed around a fallen torch.
Burn.
He drove the fire into the creature's face.
It shrieked—a sound like glass shattering—as flames devoured its flesh. The remaining Shade-touched convulsed, their movements jerking like marionettes with cut strings.
Kael didn't wait.
He butchered them.
Silence.
Smoke curled from the charred corpse of the corrupted initiate. Around them, the wounded moaned.
Kael crawled to Eris.
Her breath came in shallow gasps. The venom's black veins crept toward her heart.
"Don't," she wheezed. "It's... too late."
Like hell. He tore a strip from his cloak, tied it above the wounds. "You don't die here."
Her fingers clutched his sleeve. "You saw... him."
The hooded figure.
Gone now. But his presence clung like frost.
Eris's voice dropped to a whisper. "They're coming for you, Kael. The Hollow King... wakes."
Her eyes rolled back.
The survivors limped back at dawn.
No victory songs. Just silence.
Kael sat beside Eris's cot in the infirmary, watching the healers work. The venom had slowed, but not stopped.
A shadow filled the doorway.
Master Draven, the Order's gaunt-faced spymaster, studied him. "You fought well."
Kael didn't answer.
Draven tossed a blackened dagger onto the bed. "Recognize this?"
Kael stiffened. The blade matched the one that had saved him earlier.
The hooded figure's weapon.
Draven's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Someone wants you alive. Pray you never learn why."
That night, Kael dreamed.
A throne of bones. A crown of screaming faces.
And the Hollow King's voice:
"Find the traitor, little blade. Before I do."
He woke to a knife at his throat—and a note pinned to his wall:
"The Order lies. Ask Eris about her scars."