They came at twilight, when the shadows were deepest.
Fennhollow had never known war. At most, an angry bear in the woods, or a long winter that made the bread go thin. But this—this was something from another age.
They did not knock.
The first scream rang out from the cobbler's lane. Then another, closer to the green. Aeren awoke to a sound like roots tearing stone. His body burned where the shard had entered. He staggered to the window.
Shapes moved in the mist.
At first, he thought they were people. Then he saw their eyes—hollow, like glass marbles in sockets that no longer remembered light. Their skin was cracked like clay. Their fingers were long, twisted into claws of bark and bone.
Hollowborn.
The word wasn't just a warning—it was a curse. The old tales said they were once men, long ago, who gave their hearts to the Deepwood in exchange for eternal life. They had become vessels—empty of soul, full of shadow.
And now they had returned.
Aeren barely had time to move. The creatures reached the door of his home. His father grabbed the fireplace poker, his mother a pan, absurd and brave.
Then the door shattered inward.
Everything was motion and light and blood and noise.
Aeren's mind snapped like a twig—and then, silence.
But he didn't die.
The crystal shard in his palm lit up, blinding white. The Hollowborn that reached for him froze, shrieked like splitting ice, and crumbled into ash. All sound vanished but a heartbeat—his own—and a whisper: Run.
He did.
Through fire, through screams, through the crumbling village, he ran. Others ran too, but fewer than he expected. The Hollowborn moved in silence, harvesting the night.
At the edge of the wood, Aeren collapsed. The shard pulsed in his hand again.
> "You must reach the Glimmerhall," said the voice again—hers. The woman of bark and stars. "There are others. Find the Sealed Circle."
The sky cracked. Lightning without thunder. The forest shimmered with strange light. And Aeren knew: this was only the beginning.
From the shadows, a figure stepped forward—a girl, no older than he, with a bow carved of antler and a crown of woven root.
She did not smile.
> "You brought the Hollowborn," she said. "And now you will help us stop them."