The Hollow Choir did not build strongholds.They hollowed them out—like worms through bone.
Beneath the mountains east of Duskvale, Caelan crouched in the snow-shadow of a blackened cliff, watching flickers of torchlight slither across the ruin below. The old fortress had once belonged to the Grey Wardens, guardians of ancient gates. Now it was a husk—its watchtowers crumbled, its walls etched with glyphs of silence and rot.
Beside him, Elira adjusted her vambrace, eyes narrowed. "You sure the Widow's lead is solid?"
"She gave me a sigil," Caelan murmured. He pulled the small talisman from his cloak—a fragment of bone wrapped in ember-thread. "Said it would resonate near Choir activity. It's been burning since dawn."
Below, figures in dark robes moved with mechanical rhythm. They weren't patrolling. They were chanting—low, guttural phrases that echoed through the stone like prayers to something beneath language.
Elira grimaced. "They're weaving bloodlines into bindings. That's... sacrificial magic."
Caelan's hand drifted to the hilt of his sword. "Then we go quiet. Fast. In and out."
The plan was simple: infiltrate the stronghold, find evidence of what the Choir was after, and vanish before the Hollow Prince noticed.
But nothing about this place felt simple.
The Descent
They entered through a broken aqueduct half-covered in ice, moving like shadows between frost-covered pillars. The deeper they crept, the warmer the air grew. Too warm. The walls dripped. The stone pulsed faintly.
Magic was being worked here. Old magic.
Caelan touched the walls. "The Veil's thin. Like something tore through it."
Elira nodded. "This isn't just a base. It's a conduit."
As they reached the main atrium, they stopped dead.
A statue loomed in the center—twenty feet tall, faceless, cloaked, arms outstretched. It was made of fleshstone, veins of pulsing Weave-light crawling through it like roots in a dying tree.
Beneath it, robed figures knelt in rows. Chanting.
And in the center, on a raised dais of bone, stood a man in silver-plated robes—the Seer of the Hollow Prince.
They couldn't risk going through the ritualists. Caelan gestured to the left. A side passage.
They slipped past into the archives—an old hall of cracked tablets, shattered mirrors, and books bound in memory-skin.
It was there that Elira stopped cold.
"Caelan… look at this."
She held up a cracked slate. Upon it, an ancient prophecy glyph, barely stable.
"When the fire-born Heir bleeds upon hollow stone, the gate will remember its name."
Caelan's pulse kicked. "It's about me. Or the Hollow Prince."
Elira's eyes locked with his. "They're trying to wake the Gate of Nharos."
Caelan felt something stir in the pit of his soul. The Gate of Nharos—the first Veilgate, sealed after the Sundering. It was said to lead to the origin of the Weave itself.
But it was cursed. Forbidden.
Suddenly, a voice echoed behind them.
"You shouldn't be here."
They turned—blades drawn.
A girl stood in the shadow of the archive doorway. No older than fifteen. Dressed in Choir black, but barefoot. Her eyes were entirely white, and in her hand, she held a locket.
"I know who you are, Ashborne," she whispered. "He dreams of you. Every night."
Caelan stepped forward. "Who are you?"
"I was his sister," she said. "Before he forgot names."
A chill ran through him.
"You're alive?"
"Not exactly." Her form shimmered—flickered. An echo bound in place.
"They're using my soul to anchor the ritual," she said. "But I've seen what's coming. He plans to take the Ember Cradle next."
Caelan's jaw tightened. "Then we stop him."
She stepped closer, offering him the locket. "You'll need this to reach the central chamber. It's sealed to bloodlines… and lies."
He took it. "Why help me?"
"Because I remember the real him," she said softly. "Before he became Hollow."
And then she vanished. Just—gone. Like smoke pulled into the Weave.
The Choir Awakens
The return path was not quiet.
As Caelan and Elira crossed the atrium again, the chanting halted.
A single voice rose.
"Ashborne."
The Seer stood atop the dais, eyes glowing white, hands lifted.
"You trespass on sacred ground. The Hollow Prince sees you."
The choir turned.
Caelan didn't wait.
He pulled the locket from his cloak, slammed it into a glyph-lock on the chamber gate—and pushed through.
Inside, the Veil bent.
They entered a hollow sanctum where the Weave didn't behave. Gravity was soft. Time had seams. Voices whispered truths Caelan didn't remember knowing.
In the center: a Weaveheart relic—a sphere of suspended threads, glowing with forbidden memory.
"It's a map," Elira gasped. "Of the original Gate network."
But something else pulsed behind it.
A name.
Scorched into the walls.
AURION.
Caelan's true name.
Elira stumbled back. "That's… your soul-signature. It predates you."
Suddenly, the chamber trembled.
The Seer had entered.
"You were born of fire," he said. "But Aurion was forged in it."
He raised his hand—and the room screamed with Weave energy.
The Escape
Caelan acted on instinct. His blade snapped forward—Threadfire igniting along the edge. Elira wove a warding weave around them, deflecting the first arcane blast.
"Take the relic!" Caelan shouted.
Elira grabbed it. The sphere pulsed in her arms—searing hot.
Caelan turned and drove his sword into the glyph-seal, shattering the chamber's anchor.
The Veil buckled.
Everything fell sideways.
They didn't run. They collapsed into the Weave—flung through a fracture in space, landing outside the fortress in a burst of black smoke.
Breathing hard. Bloody. Alive.
Aftermath
They camped in the high vale that night.
Caelan sat by the fire, the relic cradled in his hands. It pulsed softly, like a second heartbeat.
"'Aurion,'" he murmured.
Elira nodded slowly. "That's who you were. Before you were Caelan."
"And the Hollow Prince?" he asked.
She looked toward the horizon. "Maybe he was your brother. Or your killer."
Caelan stared into the flame.
"I'll find out."
The wind howled through the peaks.
Far below, in the ruin of the stronghold, the Seer began to rebuild the song.