Kael's POV
The rain hadn't touched Hollowveil in three weeks. But tonight, the skies bled. The first drops hissed as they met the cursed soil—evaporating into steam like whispered warnings from the dead.
I watched it from the cliffs—alone, as always.
The others feared the surface, feared the ghosts of Hollowveil and what they might awaken if they wandered too far from the tunnels. But not me. The surface is where I saw her.
The girl in the fog.
At first, I thought she was one of them—a shadow twisted into human shape. But then I smelled her.
Not rot. Not ash.
Something… alive.
Blood. Real blood. Hot, stubborn, defiant.
She stumbled through the mist like a ghost reborn, her cloak torn and soaked in sweat and rain. Her lips were cracked. Her skin bruised and caked in mud. But her eyes—gods, her eyes. They burned like coals trapped in frost. Even through unconsciousness, they fought.
Then she collapsed.
I didn't think. I ran. I caught her before her skull cracked against the jagged stone.
And the moment my hand touched her—
—I remembered.
A painting. Oil on canvas. Hidden behind six layers of cloth and dust. A girl with eyes like war. A face I've memorized a hundred times without ever knowing why.
Her.
The painting was made fifty years ago.
And yet… she hadn't aged a day.
I should've left her. Every instinct screamed it. She's from outside. She doesn't belong here. She could be cursed. A trap.
But my soul—it moved.
Something I thought long dead stirred beneath my skin. The wolf inside me—the one that had gone silent since the Binding—twitched, whimpered… watched.
So I carried her.
Through the dark forest and into the ruins I now called home—a cathedral swallowed by time and bone. Her weight in my arms didn't bother me. What shook me was the way she clung to me in her unconsciousness, fingers curled into my tunic like I was the last branch above drowning water.
When I laid her on the stone altar, I could barely breathe.
She didn't wake for hours.
But I didn't leave her side.
---
When she finally stirred, the world itself seemed to shift.
Her lashes fluttered. A quiet gasp escaped her lips, followed by a cough, then a groan—wounded, but alive.
Her eyes found mine.
And for a moment, the entire cathedral stood still.
She sat up quickly, too quickly, and cried out in pain. "Where—"
"You're safe," I said, kneeling beside her. My voice came out rougher than I intended. I hadn't spoken to anyone in days. "You passed out in the outer woods. I brought you here."
Her gaze darted around—wary, like a wolf in a trap. "Are you one of them? The shadows?"
I shook my head. "Not anymore."
She studied me—gaze sharp, analyzing everything. "Who are you?"
"Kael." I hesitated. "And you?"
Her lips parted. Then closed. Like she didn't know whether to lie or tell the truth. Eventually, she said, "Elowen."
Gods. Even the name matched.
I stood slowly and crossed the room. Pulled a cloth from the far wall. Unwrapped the painting.
When I turned it around, her reaction told me everything.
She gasped.
That painting… it was her. Her face, her eyes, even the crescent birthmark behind her ear.
"What… what is that?" she whispered.
"I've had it for fifty years," I said quietly. "Painted by a man who died before I was born. He called her the Harbinger."
Her face paled. "Why do you have it?"
"Because I was born to wait for her."
The words sounded mad, even to me. But they were true.
Elowen turned away from the painting and looked at me again. "You don't seem cursed."
I snorted. "Looks can lie. I'm more curse than man."
She tilted her head. "You saved me."
"You looked like you needed it."
A silence bloomed between us—not awkward, but taut. Like a string pulled between two hearts and neither daring to pluck it.
Then she did something I didn't expect.
She reached out.
Not to fight. Not to defend herself.
To touch me.
Her fingers brushed the side of my jaw, feather-light. Her eyes searched mine, not with fear, but curiosity. As if trying to remember something forgotten.
"I've seen you before," she murmured. "In dreams I was never supposed to remember."
My breath caught.
"I've seen you, too," I confessed. "In the smoke. In fire. Always watching. Always falling."
Her hand lingered against my skin. My pulse stuttered.
Then she pulled back, frowning. "You're cold."
I nodded. "The soul burns out first. I haven't felt warmth in a long time."
She tilted her head again. "May I try something?"
I didn't answer.
But I didn't stop her.
Elowen placed her palm over my chest—bare skin over my heart. Her hand was trembling.
And still.
Still…
The moment her skin touched mine—
I burned.
Not fire. Not pain.
Warmth. Life.
A jolt tore through me. My wolf howled inside my chest.
I stumbled back, gasping.
She looked just as shocked.
"I felt it," she said. "You… you have something left."
"No," I rasped. "I had nothing left. Until now."
---
That night, we didn't sleep.
She sat curled near the hearth while I patched the leaks in the ceiling.
"You live here alone?" she asked.
I nodded. "Safer that way."
"And yet you brought me."
I met her eyes. "I didn't want to. I had to."
Something flickered in her gaze. "Why?"
I hesitated.
Then I said it.
"Because you're the only thing in this land that doesn't reek of death."
She went quiet.
Then smiled—just a ghost of it. Small. But enough to wound me sweetly.
She stood. Walked toward me. Her presence was heavy and light all at once, like rain soaked in fire.
And when she stopped in front of me, she asked the last thing I expected.
"Will you let me touch you again?"
I nodded.
Her hands cupped my face—gentle, reverent. My hands rose, slow, unsure, and cradled her hips like something forbidden.
And in that moment…
I wasn't alone anymore.
We didn't kiss.
But we were closer than skin.
---
Dawn crept through the cracks in the cathedral ceiling like bleeding light.
She was asleep now, finally—her head resting on my lap, her breath slow and even. I hadn't moved in hours, afraid even the slightest twitch would wake her.
I watched her sleep and tried to understand what the hell was happening to me.
I was born soulless. Raised by the Keepers of Hollowveil to be a vessel for silence. My wolf died in the Binding. My heart had been still since my thirteenth winter.
But now?
Now she had touched me—and I felt.
Now she had looked at me—and I burned.
Now she slept beside me—and I feared losing her more than dying.
I brushed a strand of hair from her face.
She sighed in her sleep.
"Kael…"
My name. From her lips.
It broke something in me I didn't know was still whole.
---
Later, when she awoke, she looked at me as if she'd known me for centuries. Maybe she had. Maybe we were echoes reborn into flesh.
And just as I opened my mouth to tell her everything—
A howl tore through the sky outside.
Not a wolf.
Something older.
Something hunting.
I jumped to my feet, pulling her behind me. Her hand found mine again—without hesitation, without thought.
Like it belonged there.
I didn't need to look to know she felt it too.
The shift in the air. The blood pulsing through the bones of Hollowveil.
Someone—or something—was coming.
And they knew she was here.