The Pull

Darius and friends continue the face off with Lyle.

Darius stepped closer, the wind tearing at his coat, the pulsing crystal in his hand glowing brighter with every heartbeat. Across from him, Lyle stood unmoving, his face calm, unnaturally so, as the Treaders flanked him like wolves in waiting.

“You were meant to merge with it,” Lyle repeated, voice soft, almost reverent. “Two shards, two vessels one will.”

Darius shook his head, eyes blazing. “You don’t know what it’s doing to you.”
“I do,” Lyle said, smiling. “It’s shown me everything. The Hollow isn’t destruction. It’s clarity. It’s truth. All that pain you carry? All the blood on your hands? It takes that. Consumes it. Frees you.”

He raised a hand. The Hollow above them stirred, its dark edges warping like oil over flame.

Maren hissed and took a step back. “Darius, we can’t let him finish the ritual. If the two shards are joined here”

“They won’t be,” Darius said, eyes locked on Lyle.

But in his chest, he felt it: the pull. The jade shard throbbed with heat, not from rage or fear, but from something deeper. Something answering Lyle’s call. A memory unbidden surfaced his mother’s hand gripping his, years ago, in the house after his father left. We only have each other now.

He clenched his fist, willing the shard silent.

Lyle stepped forward, and for a breathless instant, his expression changed. Not cruelty, not madness pleading.

“You don’t understand what it’s like,” he whispered. “To be left behind. To be broken and alone. The Hollow heals that.”

Darius’s voice cracked. “This isn’t possible.”

Rockford growled low. The Treaders moved as one, their steps grinding across the wooden deck. Elara took her stance beside Maren, sword gleaming. Lightning forked overhead, casting long, warped shadows of the constructs against the dockside ruins.

Then the Hollow pulsed.