Page 8 of Hollowed

Out of inevitability.

My hand lifted before I knew I had made the choice. My fingers trembled in the space between us, caught on the last breath of who I was before him. I paused there—barely touching, barely real—and waited to be struck.

He didn’t strike.

He didn’t even flinch.

He simply closed his fingers around mine.

And the world dropped.

Not into pain.

Into silence.

Not the silence of the convent. Not the obedient hush they wrapped around our throats like veils. This was different.

This silence saw me.

This silencepulled.

He rose, taking me with him. Not forcefully. Just inevitably. Like he was gravity and I was a body too tired to pretend I belonged to anything else. I stood because he did. I breathed because his body made the air around me feel like something I could take in.

And when he turned, I followed.

He led me deeper into the chapel.

Past the altar. Past the crumbling pews. Past the places where girls before me had knelt and wept and been named or forgotten. I didn’t know where we were going. I didn’t care. I only knew the warmth of his hand, and the way it didn’t pull or push.

It held.

He stopped before a stone slab at the far end of the room. It wasn’t dressed like an altar. No cloth. No candles. Just cold stone, cracked and scorched at the edges. He turned to me. And for a moment, I thought he might speak.

He didn’t.

He let go.

And still, I didn’t run.

He gestured.

I understood.

I climbed onto the slab.

It was cold. My skin protested. My thighs shivered. I lay on my side at first, curled into the ache in my stomach, unsure if I was meant to kneel again or wait. But then?—

“Lie on your back.”

The words were quiet. Rough. Spoken like a man remembering how to speak for the first time in years.

I obeyed.

The stone stole my breath. My spine arched. My hair spread across the surface like ash, what little the fire left me. My arms trembled as I laid them by my sides.

He reached for something behind him. I didn't see what it was. But I heard it. Cloth. A thick, heavy piece. He draped it over me. Not to hide. To anoint. A wool blanket, scratchy against my skin, smelling of old fire and something darker.

The roughness was a different kind of touch. Each coarse fiber scraped against my burns like a tongue, like a thousand small prayers being written on my skin. It hurt. But the hurt felt sacred. Like penance turned inside out.

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