Page 17 of Hollowed

He looked down at me. Then, with both hands, he undid the clasp at his throat.

The robe fell.

Not to the floor.

To his waist.

And I saw.

Not his body.

His history.

His chest was carved.

Lines. Curves. Marks I didn’t understand. Some fresh. Some faded. Some raised in thick welts like they’d been reopened over and over until the skin no longer remembered smoothness.

Symbols.

Sigils.

Ritual script.

It didn’t look like ink.

It looked like blood that refused to wash away.

I stared.

He let me.

Between his collarbones was the deepest one. A circle, broken at one end. Split open like a mouth. Or a wound. Lines radiated from it like a sun. Or a curse.

Beneath that, across his ribs, were smaller glyphs. I didn’t know the language. But I felt it.

Felt what it cost him to carry them.

Felt what it meant to show them to me.

I slid off the slab.

The blanket fell.

I didn’t care.

He didn’t flinch.

He just waited.

I stood before him, bare.

Burned.

Named.

My hand rose. Slow. Unsteady.

I hovered just above the circle on his chest.

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