Page 42 of Hollowed

Because I saw him. Not just the enforcer. Not the ruin. Not the man who’d hollowed me.

I saw the man who hadn’t spoken aloud what he wanted since the Order stripped it from him.

And I saw how close he was to losing what little voice he had left.

I crossed the floor without sound.

The stones were cold, the air colder. The sky had darkened behind the high windows, casting the chapel in bruised light. He didn’t look up when I knelt beside him.

But he knew I was there.

I didn’t reach for his hand.

I reached for the hem of his robe.

Not to pull it away.

To hold it.

To remind him I knew where to kneel.

He shifted. Not toward me. But like he couldn’t decide if he should pull away completely.

“Why won’t you speak it?” I asked.

His jaw worked.

I waited.

And then, after too long, he said:

“Because if I do, I won’t stop.”

“Then don’t stop.”

He looked at me.

And there it was.

The thing he never let me see.

Not heat.

Not pain.

Devotion.

Not the kind wrapped in scripture. Not the kind preached through ritual.

The kind that bled.

He stood so quickly the fabric tore where I held it.

I didn’t flinch.

He walked to the wall. Pulled something from behind the altar.

A book.

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