Page 5 of Hollowed

My eyes lifted before my breath caught. Before I could pray to something—anything—that he was just a shadow. A mistake. A hallucination formed from flame and fear.

He was none of those things.

He was real.

And he was watching me.

The fire cast gold along the stone floor but did not touch him. Not truly. It danced near him but never dared climb. His robes were black, darker than the smoke, frayed at the edges, and too still—like the air around him was afraid to move.

He was tall. Towering. Not like a man. Like a judgment. Shoulders broad enough to cast a shadow across the altar. Hands at his sides like weapons unused, not because they were dull but because he was patient.

His face was carved. Harsh. Silent. Not beautiful. Not broken.

Brutal.

One scar split his lip and dragged down his jaw like a forgotten vow. His cheek was marked, not slashed, but branded—some ruined echo of the sacred. And his eyes?—

They weren’t eyes.

They were void. Endless and black and depthless. No whites. No light. No pity.

I couldn’t look away.

My first instinct was to crawl back. Not to escape him. But to make space between us. Because I wasn’t sure what part of me he saw first—my shame or my survival.

But I didn’t crawl.

I knelt.

Not because I was told.

Because something in the way he watched me made it impossible to do anything else.

The smoke coiled around us like incense at a false mass. The flames hissed near the rafters. Something wooden cracked above. Dust fell from the ceiling like old breath. Still, he didn’t flinch.

He took one step forward.

And the fire bent away from him.

I gasped. Not because of him. Because of me. Because my thighs trembled when he moved. Because my mouth opened without command. Because some small, shivering girl still buried inside me whispered?—

He’s the one they meant.

They one who didn’t speak.

He didn’t have to.

His presence was language. His silence was scripture. His body, still and looming, said all the things the women never dared write down.

I was not meant to be saved.

I was meant to be seen.

He took another step.

I braced myself. For a blow. For a blessing. For a verdict.

He knelt.

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