The wind shifted.
It howled not with cold, but with absence—a pulling sensation, like something vast and grieving was inhaling across the skin of the world. In Hallowmere, every door slammed shut. Every window was covered. And those who knew the old stories fell to their knees.
Because the Bride was coming.
They called her the Hollow Bride.
Some whispered she had once been a weaver's daughter, jilted on her wedding day and buried in a wedding dress by her grief-maddened mother. Others said she was a fragment of the Black Vow made flesh, a ghost stitched from broken promises and wilted flowers.
But everyone knew one truth:She always arrived during the third night of the Festival.And always wearing the face of someone you loved and lost.
Arjuna didn't sleep that night.
He sat near the outskirts of the village, watching the treeline. Tellen sat beside him, arms wrapped around a flask and a half-finished ballad.
"You ever heard the story?" Tellen asked. "About the Hollow Bride?"
"I remember... the name," Arjuna said slowly. "Not the tale."
"She appears in white," Tellen muttered, more to himself now. "Always alone. Always weeping. If she sees you, you must not speak. If she touches you, you forget who you were. And if you follow her…" He trailed off.
"You don't return?"
"Not as yourself."
Then the bells rang.No hands touched them.They simply screamed into the wind.
And in the distance, something stepped between the trees.
White dress. Black veil. Bare feet trailing ash across the snow-muddied earth.
The Hollow Bride had arrived.
Arjuna rose before he realized he had moved.
She moved slowly, step by step, toward the village well. Villagers watched through shuttered cracks. A dog howled. Somewhere, a child sobbed.
Tellen gripped his arm. "Don't, you mad bastard—"
But Arjuna had already stepped forward.
Because beneath the black veil, he saw a face.
Not Nyssara.
But Vaelin.
Soft eyes. Pale lips. Hair like smoke. The swordswoman who had saved him on the Path of Broken Names… who he wouldn't meet for several chapters more.
And yet—here she was.
Or something wearing her face.
The Hollow Bride turned to face him.
And in a voice that didn't belong to any living soul, she asked:
"Will you keep your promise this time?"
Arjuna stepped back.
Memories he didn't own crashed through him. Rain. Fire. A broken altar. Someone weeping into his chest. A red ribbon torn from a dress.
"I—"
Do not speak.
The voice came from inside him. Not his own. A buried echo. A forgotten guardian.
The Hollow Bride reached out.
Fingers of ice and shadow.
And in that moment, Arjuna remembered one thing.
A name.
Thalia.
She had died in his arms. Long before Nyssara. Before war. Before godhood. His sister.
The Hollow Bride wore her face now.
"No," Arjuna said.
He stepped back. Then unsheathed his blade.
"I've forgotten too much already."
The Hollow Bride screamed.
Not a sound—a wound. The veil caught fire. The face beneath shifted—Thalia, Nyssara, Vaelin, Lysa, all flickering like broken glass.
She charged.
And Arjuna met her in the center of the square.
Their clash made no noise. Only silence. Only cold.
His blade cut through her body—but struck only regret.
Then—she stopped.
Looked up at him.
And in a child's voice, asked:"If you remember me… will I die?"
Then she vanished.
Not into ash. Not into light.
Just… gone.
Morning came. Gray and still.
Tellen found Arjuna at the well.
"What happened?"
"She wore too many faces."
Tellen rubbed his eyes. "You realize no one has ever faced the Bride and survived. Let alone without losing a year of their life."
"I think I lost something else," Arjuna whispered. "But I don't know what it was."
He turned the sword in his hand. Along the hilt, new scratches had appeared.
Names.
All of them forgotten.
All of them his.