The moment Evelyn touched the core, it did not burst with light.
There was no shattering sound, no beam into the sky.
Instead, everything went silent.
No birds. No wind. Even the breath in her lungs stilled.
Then, with unbearable gentleness, the world cracked open inside her.
"Do you remember the ember-song?"
A voice. Not hers. Not quite her mother's either—but kin to it.
"No?" A pause. "Then I will sing it for you."
The voice sang without sound.
It unraveled into memory—woven and strange.
Evelyn stood in a field of white ash. Beneath her feet, scorched soil. Above, a sky of fractured glass. Hundreds of cores floated overhead like dying suns, each cracked and humming softly.
In the center stood the woman from her dreams.
Silver eyes. A smile like fire. Skin traced with glyphs that moved.
She reached out, and her touch burned through Evelyn's illusion of self.
When Evelyn gasped awake, she was kneeling in the chamber again, one hand still pressed to the hovering shard.
Her fingers were smoking, yet unburned.
Torren stood across the room, sword halfway drawn—but frozen. His mouth worked without sound.
"Time…" she whispered. "Did it…?"
Torren rushed forward, grabbed her shoulders. "You were gone. Hours. Just—gone. I couldn't reach you, Ev. What happened?"
She looked at her hand. The sigils from her vision shimmered faintly across her skin—glowing, then fading into invisible ink.
"I… I saw her again. The one who sings."
That night, they did not sleep in the upper chamber.
Instead, they moved their meager supplies below, into the warded chamber beneath the trapdoor. The core now floated silently in its cradle, as if sated for the moment.
Evelyn sat across from it.
Torren watched the door, his back to the wall.
"You were humming," he said quietly.
Evelyn blinked. "What?"
"When I found you. While you touched it." He shook his head. "It wasn't your voice."
Evelyn wrapped her arms around her knees. "I think it was hers. The one inside."
Torren stiffened. "You mean the thing in the dream?"
Evelyn looked down at her palm. She could still feel the warmth from where her skin had touched the core.
"No. I mean… me. But from before."
Later, while Torren dozed, she opened her mother's sealed journal.
The one she had buried in her pack, hidden deep.
The one her mother had always warned her to leave untouched.
Its glyph-lock was already fading. The seal had weakened since her first Binding.
And inside, handwritten notes fluttered like dead leaves—some illegible, some glowing faintly with protective ink.
But one entry burned brighter than the rest:
She dreams of the Hollow.
Not like the others. Not like them.
If she sings, the world will hear again. Gods help us if it remembers the words.
The last line was smeared.
Evelyn shut the book and stared at the ceiling.
Outside, the sky rumbled—thunder without storm.
Something had changed.
Something had awakened.