Hollowborn

-Liv

The forest swallowed her whole.

Branches clawed at her arms as she ran, and her body screamed with every step. Her bare feet slammed against roots and stones, splitting already-raw skin.

This wasn’t just a forest. This was a forgotten edge in Tharien. A world where’s the moste regions ruled by coin, collar, silence and a thirst for power. Where mercy was taxed, and names like hers weren’t meant to be remembered.

Muscles burned with the deep, grinding fire of starvation. Her lungs dragged in damp, heavy air that did little to ease the stabbing in her chest. No food and water for two days. Nearly five hours without rest.

She had run—because there was no other choice. Foolish or not, it didn’t matter anymore. She knew what they did to those who tried.

She had overlived worse.

She no longer feared death. That had been beaten out of her, one chain-link at a time. But freedom? Freedom was the one pain she welcomed.

It was her rebellion. Her prayer.

The slavers called her a markling, like branded cattle, but no care to keep her alive, let alone whole.

In most of the Tharien, being bond-marked meant more than being owned. It meant being erased. No family, no future, no name—only the will of the one who held your brand. The distinct scar around her neck, a cruel reminder of iron shackles, encircled her throat like a jagged ring. It was a permanent brand of captivity, a testament to the chains that had bound her to a life of silence and suffering.

Her stomach clenched uselessly. Each breath scraped her throat like rusted metal. Still, her legs moved—of a desperate, need to put as much distance as possible between her and the men behind her.

“Find her! The bitch can’t have gone far!”

Behind her, the slavers’ voices rose—sharp, mocking. She pushed harder.

Thorns tore at her sides as she ran, snagging the hem of her tunic and ripping the already threadbare fabric wider. The coarse cloth clung to her sweat-soaked skin, stained from hours of flight. A jagged branch caught at the fraying rope cinched around her waist, yanking her off balance before she wrenched free.

Her tangled blonde braid whipped across her face, slapping her cheeks, catching twigs in its knots.

A broken iron shackle rattled at one ankle, crusted with old blood, its weight pulling at her like a dead hand clamped to her leg.

The forest grew thicker, darker. The air was too still. No birdsong. No breeze. A presence hummed beneath the towering oaks, their gnarled branches clawing at the bruised twilight sky.

This was no ordinary woods. It was alive.

Watching. Waiting.

Roots shifted subtly underfoot, just enough to trip her, to test her. A vine brushed her ankle—light at first, almost accidental—then tightened. She stumbled, nearly falling, yanking her leg free with a gasp. When she looked back, the vine lay still. As if mocking her.

Something ancient lived here, Liv felt it—not with her eyes, but under her skin.

Every instinct screamed to turn back, but behind her were chains and cruelty. Ahead? Unknown.

She shook her head. Hallucinations, surely. No food. No water. No rest. Of course the trees felt alive—because she was dying.

Some whispered that this forest still remembered the old gods—those buried before men carved borders into the world. That certain bloodlines stirred something in the roots. Something that did not forget.

She stumbled, legs giving way for a moment, knees slamming into wet moss and soil. Her arms shook as she pushed herself up, gasping, shivering, her vision swimming.

Her pulse roared in her ears. She forced herself onward.

Freedom was the only thing that still burned inside her.

She leapt over a fallen trunk. This time, she would not die.

A root snagged her ankle. She hit the ground hard, biting back a cry as pain lanced up her leg.

No time.

She scrambled up, wiping blood from her split lip. Her blue eyes, sharp with defiance, scanned the shadows.

They were closing in.

Just ahead, the forest dipped into a shallow hollow where the moss grew thick and tangled over the fallen trunk of a massive tree. Its roots clawed upward in a gnarled arch, and beneath them, a small pocket of darkness yawned open—just wide enough for a body to curl into.

Her body was done pretending. Each step wobbled. Each breath scraped.

She collapsed beneath the roots, chest heaving.

Voices neared—too close.

She didn’t move.

Her heartbeat thundered.

If someone found her out here, help was out of the question. The black collar stitched into her tunic was a sentence. In Tharien, kindness could get you killed.

But it wasn’t the destination that frightened her most. It was the road they’d chosen to get there. To save time—or maybe to avoid paying tolls—the slavers had steered them straight through the Whispering Hollow.

An ancient forest at the far edge of the Eastern Reaches, where the trees were said to whisper old names at night, and the ground shifted when no one looked. No king had ever claimed it.

They used to say the Whispering Hollow swallowed entire warbands whole. That the trees whispered names of the dead, or the damned. Liv hadn’t believed the tales as a child. Now, she wasn’t sure.

And these fools? They laughed as they rode into it, as if legends were for children.

She’d sworn she’d never be desperate enough to run into a place like this.

So, naturally, that’s exactly what she did.

She’d known the risks the moment she slipped free. Her back still bore the memory in lash-shaped scars.

But the moment their wagon had neared this accursed forest, something inside her had twisted—deep and sudden, like a string pulled taut behind her ribs.

It wasn’t fear. Not panic. It was something she had no name for—a pull so fierce and intimate it felt like it came from her very bones.

Her breath had caught because some part of her forgot how to breathe unless she turned toward it. Toward that pull.

It wasn’t death that scared her. It was the thought of losing whatever was calling to her—something closer than breath, older than memory.

Something that knew her.

And so—without plan, without thought—she ran.

Now, the forest’s unnatural silence pressed against her like a weight. Just the sound of a distant, mocking laughter of men who thought her nothing but meat on legs that had slipped its yoke.

She curled tighter beneath the tangled roots, trying to shrink into shadow. Her body begged for stillness, for rest—a breath, no more. Her eyes fluttered closed. She wouldn’t sleep. Just gather strength. Just disappear.

If she was still enough, quiet enough, maybe the forest would take her in. Shield her.

The scent of damp earth filled her nose, and for a moment, she thought of the cellar in her first master’s house—where they’d locked her for a week for speaking out of turn.

Same dark. Same silence.

But this time, she wasn’t locked in. She had chosen it.

But the darkness behind her eyelids tugged her down. Her limbs slackened. The ache in her chest dulled to a slow, distant drumbeat. She drifted near the edge of sleep—

—when rough fingers clamped around her arm and yanked.

She cried out in shock as her body was hauled from the roots like a snared rabbit, her shoulder scraping against bark and stone.

“Got you, bitch—”

Before she could move, two of them had her by the arms. Her feet dragged over the moss.

“Elarion’ll pay well for this batch,” one of them muttered—Garrin, by the rasp in his voice. “That one’s got that wild look. They’ll love that in the brothel rings.”

Merek spat on the moss. “She bites. Took a chunk out of Kellan’s arm. You sure they’ll want her?”

Garrin snorted. “They want fire. Makes the price higher, as long as she’s still got her teeth and most of her face.”

“City’s built on slaves,” Merek growled. “Doesn’t matter how pretty the lords talk—‘Noble Decree’ this, ‘Sanctioned Labor’ that. Still meat markets behind velvet walls.”

“Not just meat,” Garrin said, squeezing Liv’s chin harder, his grip bruising. “Elarion’s got buyers who pay in coin, favors… even land, if you bring something rare.”

“You believe that?”

“I’ve seen it. Ravan brought in an old blood with Archive ties. Walked out with a deed and a contract stamp.”

“Old blood, huh? Think this girl’s got any?”

Garrin leaned in, his breath sour. “Don’t know. But she speaks like a scribe and fights like a feral cat. Maybe this markling got more in her than dirt.”

“Or maybe the Archive’ll pay to carve it out.”

She twisted free, her hand diving to her belt where a rusted dagger lay hidden beneath the frayed edge of her tunic. She had stolen it two nights prior from a drunken handler passed out by the fire.

The blade came up fast.

She slashed.

A sharp cry split the trees as blood sprayed across the leaves, dark and hot. But before she could spin, another set of hands closed around her from behind—rough, unclean, soaked with the stink of rancid odor and man-sweat. They yanked her backward, off balance, feet scrambling in the dirt.

This time, she couldn’t break free.

A fist connected with her temple. White light exploded behind her eyes. The world tilted. She fought—kicking, biting—but the blows kept coming. Darkness crept at the edges of her vision.

No. No.

But her body was done. Her limbs no longer answered. The fight drained from her like water through cracked stone.

Maybe this was always how it would end—on her knees, in the dirt, one breath from nothing.

She let go. Not out of peace—but out of exhaustion. Out of certainty.

Her knees hit the earth.

The slaver’s grin loomed above her, his yellowed teeth close enough to smell.

So this is it, she thought distantly, her mind slipping beneath pain’s tide.

But just as the dark claimed her, something changed.

The air around her shifted—not colder, not warmer, but heavier. Thicker.

The forest held its breath.

And then—

Screams.

Not hers.

Men’s voices, breaking. Bones, maybe.

And through the blackness swelling in her vision, something shifted.

The air around her thickened—too still, too dense. The ground beneath her spine cooled, as if touched by something not entirely of this world.

Shadows pooled, not like fading light, but like liquid drawn to her skin. A weight settled just behind her ribs, subtle but immovable, as though something vast had leaned in close and was listening.

The hairs on her arms lifted. Not from chill—but from awareness.

Branches above her ceased swaying. Even the leaves seemed to tense.

And then—something moved that shouldn’t have moved. Not in sight, but inside the silence. Deliberate. Measured. Watching.

Something had arrived.

Silence, and then—

Something touched her.

Not skin. Not hands.

Shadow.

A breath of darkness, cool and soundless, wrapped around her gently and silent.

As she lay there, feeling the presence of whatever had found her, she sensed a comforting warmth spreading through her body. It was as if a long-forgotten friend had returned to her side, offering solace in her time of need.

With a gentle touch, the entity lifted her from the darkness that had clouded her mind for so long. In that fleeting moment, she felt a sense of peace wash over her, replacing the fear and uncertainty that had plagued her for years.

As the light enveloped her, she finally understood. She wasn’t alone; she had never been alone. And as she let go of her earthly worries and fears, she embraced the newfound sense of tranquility that surrounded her.

And in that final breath, she whispered a quiet thank you to the presence that had found her, grateful for the peace it had brought her in her final moment of awareness.