They buried gods in the soil of Blackhollow.
No gravestones. No hymns. Just earth, silence, and the promise that no one would ever dig too deep.
Corin never cared much for promises.
He crouched low in the graveyard, breath fogging in the cold morning air. The iron spade in his hands trembled, more from guilt than chill. Behind him, the village bells rang the sixth hour. Everyone else would be at morning prayers.
Perfect.
He drove the spade into the soft dirt beside the oldest grave in Blackhollow. No name. No date. Just a rusted ring of bones around the mound, the remains of the first gravekeepers who'd ever tried to disturb it.
Corin hadn't told anyone what he saw last week. Not Father Merek, not Old Tamsin, not even Leora — especially not Leora. She'd only beg him to stop.
But he saw it. Late one night, when the mists were thick and the moon was hollow, something had moved beneath this grave. The dirt breathed. He was sure of it.
He had to know what was buried here.
The first few layers came up easily. Old roots. Damp stones. Worms wriggling blindly. Corin worked in silence, his sweat mixing with the chill air until his shirt clung to his back.
Then — clang.
He hit something.
Not a coffin.
Something harder.
Something… carved.
Corin knelt, brushing away dirt with trembling fingers until he uncovered the edge of a stone slab. Symbols were etched into its surface — circles within circles, bound by thorns and crescent moons.
He didn't recognize them, but they burned his skin when he touched them.
Still, he gripped the slab's edge and pulled.
And the earth exhaled.
A whisper spilled from the hole, like a hundred voices speaking the same word too softly to understand. The trees bent toward him. The light dimmed. Somewhere in the distance, a crow screamed and fell dead from the sky.
Corin should've run.
Instead, he looked down.
There was no corpse beneath the stone — only a mask. Smooth, bone-white, with no eyes and no mouth. But as he stared at it, something stared back.
The mask called to him.
Before he could think, his hand moved toward it.
The moment his fingers brushed the surface, everything changed.
Light collapsed.
The air roared.
His mind split in two — part of him still kneeling in the grave, and another part spiraling into something far older, deeper, wronger. Visions slammed into him: black towers rising above endless fields of ash, a sky weeping blood, a city made of teeth. He heard drums of war and the cries of dying stars. He felt something… ancient. Trapped. Watching.
And then — silence.
Corin gasped awake, sprawled beside the grave.
The mask was gone.
He blinked hard. His body felt distant, hollow. Something inside him had cracked open, and the thing that filled it wasn't him.
He stood, but his shadow didn't follow.
Instead, it spoke.
"Graveborn."
Corin staggered back, heart pounding.
"What—what are you?"
The shadow tilted its head, mimicking his every twitch. But the voice came again — not from it, not from anywhere.
"You dug into the hollow of the world. You unsealed what should have stayed lost."
Corin swallowed hard. "I didn't mean to."
"No one ever does."
Behind him, the wind shifted. Leaves rustled like whispers.
Corin turned just in time to see a figure appear at the edge of the graveyard. A woman in dark robes, her face obscured by a veil of crows' feathers. She held a staff made of twisted iron and bone. The ground withered beneath her steps.
"You touched the mask," she said, voice like silk over razors.
He backed away. "Who are you?"
"A servant of the ones below. A Warden of Sleep." She stopped a few paces away. "You should be dust right now. You should have bled from every pore and turned to ash. And yet you live."
Corin clenched his fists. "I didn't do anything—"
She raised her hand.
The ground beside him burst open. A skeleton crawled out, eyes burning with green fire, its jaw unhinged in a soundless scream. Another one followed. Then another. Hands clawing up from beneath the graves.
"Stop!" Corin shouted.
The corpses froze.
Not because of her.
Because of him.
Corin looked down. His veins glowed faintly, like cracks in old stone leaking silver fire. The same symbols from the grave now pulsed across his forearms.
The Warden's expression shifted. Fear. Just a flicker.
"You bear his mark," she whispered. "You woke him."
Corin didn't understand, but he knew one thing: he couldn't stay here.
The earth was moving. The dead were watching. The Warden raised her staff, and the air screamed.
Corin ran.
Through the graves. Over the wall. Down the hill. Into the forest, where the trees whispered secrets and the mist swallowed sound.
Behind him, he heard no footsteps.
Only the laughter of crows.
He didn't stop until he collapsed by the riverbank, gasping, heart pounding like war drums.
The world had changed.
He could feel it.
The mask had vanished, but part of it remained inside him — the weight of ancient eyes, the echo of ruined thrones, the taste of godblood on his tongue.
Corin looked up at the gray sky, rain starting to fall.
He didn't know what he'd become.
But something was coming.
And it was coming for him.
He could still feel its presence in his chest — a low thrum, like the aftershock of a bell that had been rung in a forgotten temple. Whatever slumbering thing had stirred beneath that grave, it wasn't asleep anymore. And he had its attention.
As the rain thickened and the trees around him darkened into silence, Corin whispered the only truth he knew now:
"I should never have dug."
He could still feel its presence in his chest — a low thrum, like the aftershock of a bell that had been rung in a forgotten temple. Whatever slumbering thing had stirred beneath that grave, it wasn't asleep anymore. And he had its attention.
As the rain thickened and the trees around him darkened into silence, Corin whispered the only truth he knew now:
"I should never have dug."
A branch cracked nearby.
He sat up sharply, heart spiking.
A figure emerged from the mist — not the Warden, but a girl, no older than him, wearing a patchwork cloak soaked through by rain. Her bow was drawn, arrow notched, aimed straight at his chest.
"You're him," she said flatly. "The graveborn."
Corin raised his hands. "I don't know what that means."
She didn't lower the bow. "You brought the silence. The crows are screaming, the forest won't sleep. You've stirred something old."
"I didn't mean to," he said, voice shaking. "I just wanted to know what was buried."
"You should've let it rot."
They stared at each other — two strangers caught in something vast and wrong.
Then, slowly, she lowered her weapon.
"If you want to live," she said, "you're coming with me."
Corin hesitated, soaked to the bone, heart still trembling.
But what choice did he have?
He stood.
Together, they vanished into the woods.
Behind them, across Blackhollow, the bells cracked and fell silent.
End of chapter