Eleanora’s POV

The Dead Hollow didn’t feel like any forest I’d ever walked through.

It was… silent. Not in the way the world goes quiet before a predator strikes. No, this silence felt like the earth was holding its breath, waiting for something to wake.

Trees grew in sharp angles, bark blackened as though scorched from the inside. The moonlight didn’t touch the ground. Even Nova, usually steady and quick-footed, walked beside me in stiff silence.

We reached the first set of ruins by midnight.

A stone gate carved into the cliffside loomed above us. Symbols older than Sapphire or Emerald pack records glowed faintly in blood-red ink. The gate...