THE ASHBOUND

They put Aren in a cage with four criminals and one corpse.

The corpse had the best manners.

It occupied the far corner of the prison wagon and made no attempt to speak to him.

The others compensated.

“So that’s him?”

The question came from a narrow-faced man with silver rings in both ears.

He sat cross-legged despite the wagon’s violent jolting, rolling a copper coin across his knuckles.

Corin Thorne.

Aren recognized him from wanted posters.

Thief.

Forger.

Occasional impersonator of minor clergy.

Once stole the ceremonial boots of the Lord Treasurer while the man was wearing them.

Aren had wondered for years how.

Corin caught the coin.

“He looks smaller.”

Aren stared through the barred window.

Rain covered the countryside in gray sheets.

Across from Corin sat a broad man with a beard braided around iron beads.

Hadrik Vol.

Deserter from the western armies.

Multiple counts of insubordination.

One count of striking a superior officer.

The superior had apparently required three healers afterward.

Beside Hadrik sat a young woman with spectacles whose left sleeve was covered in handwritten symbols.

Lyssa Quill.

Unlicensed Heartwright.

Illegal memory construction.

Desecration of a Crown archive.

Seventeen years old, if Aren remembered the arrest notices correctly.

She kept staring at him.

Aren ignored her.

The final prisoner sat nearest the door.

Seris Aven.

Former physician of the royal hospice.

Convicted of assisting twelve terminal patients in ending their lives before the Crown could extract their final Resonance.

Aren knew more about her than the others.

Elara had once admired her.

The memory arrived like a knife.

He pushed it away.

Corin leaned forward.

“Is it true?”

Aren continued watching rain.

Corin waited.

Aren sighed.

“Is what true?”

“That you have no heart.”

“I have one.”

“Can we check?”

“No.”

“Shame.”

Hadrik grunted.

“Leave him.”

Corin glanced at the corpse.

“I asked him first. Terrible conversationalist.”

“He’s been dead since dawn.”

“So you admit he lacks commitment.”

Lyssa finally spoke.

“What does Severance feel like?”

The wagon went quiet.

Aren turned.

She looked genuinely curious.

Not cruel.

That almost made it worse.

“Have you ever had a tooth removed?”

“Yes.”

“It feels nothing like that.”

Corin snorted.

Lyssa pushed her spectacles higher.

“I mean magically.”

“I know what you meant.”

“Can you still produce Resonance?”

“No.”

“Can you perceive thread structures?”

“Apparently.”

“Do old emotional pathways remain cognitively accessible?”

Aren stared.

Lyssa reached for a charcoal stick.

“May I take notes?”

“No.”

She took notes.

Seris looked up.

“Leave him alone.”

Her voice was soft.

Everything about her seemed soft until one saw her eyes.

Those were not soft.

Those belonged to someone who had watched too many people die while others called it duty.

Lyssa reluctantly lowered the charcoal.

Corin smiled at Aren.

“Congratulations. The doctor likes you.”

Seris did not look at him.

“I don't.”

The smile vanished from Corin's face.

Seris continued.

“I simply know what pain looks like when people are using questions to avoid seeing it.”

Aren turned back toward the window.

For several miles nobody spoke to him.

That kindness frightened him more than Corin’s jokes.

The wagon traveled north.

Toward Blackhold.

At noon they passed beyond the Crown roads.

Villages became smaller.

Then rarer.

Heartlamps hung from posts every hundred paces, their flames burning gold whenever travelers approached.

At least they should have.

The farther north they went, the weaker the flames became.

By dusk, half were dark.

Hadrik noticed too.

“That’s wrong.”

One of the guards riding beside the wagon struck the bars with his spear.

“Quiet.”

Hadrik leaned toward the window.

“The wardline’s dying.”

The guard ignored him.

Aren studied the dark lamps.

Heartlamps fed upon communal Resonance.

A settlement did not need trained Heartwrights to sustain them.

Only people.

Families.

Friendships.

Promises.

Enough human connection produced the small miracles most people never noticed.

Warmth in winter.

Roads monsters avoided.

Crops that resisted rot.

A dying wardline meant the villages nearby were empty.

Or worse.

Aren smelled smoke.

“Stop the wagon.”

The guard laughed.

Aren stood.

Chains ran from his ankles to the floor.

“Stop the wagon.”

“What are you going to do if we don’t?”

Aren looked past him.

Something moved between the trees.

Too tall.

Too thin.

Walking on four limbs until it remembered humans preferred two.

“Hollow.”

The guard’s face changed.

He looked toward the trees.

Too late.

The creature hit him from the side.

His horse screamed.

The wagon lurched.

Everyone slammed against iron bars.

The dead prisoner toppled face-first onto Corin.

“Oh, excellent.”

The driver shouted.

Another Hollow dropped from the trees.

Its skin looked like wet parchment stretched over a human skeleton.

Where its face should have been were dozens of mouths.

Not teeth.

Mouths.

Each whispering a different name.

“Mother.”

“Ellin.”

“Please.”

“Daro.”

“Come back.”

The creature seized the driver.

His scream lasted three seconds.

Then stopped.

The wagon overturned.

Metal shrieked.

Aren struck the ceiling, then the floor.

Pain burst through his shoulder.

Someone yelled.

Glass broke.

The Hollow crawled onto the wagon.

Its mouths whispered faster.

Hadrik roared and kicked at the door.

Locked.

Seris checked Lyssa, whose forehead bled.

Corin had somehow acquired a knife.

Aren decided not to ask.

The roof bent downward.

Claws pierced the metal.

“Can anyone use Heartcraft?” Aren asked.

Lyssa raised one shaking hand.

“Technically.”

“Meaning?”

“The court burned out my legal sigils.”

“Illegal ones?”

“Several.”

“Useful ones?”

“Define useful.”

A claw tore through the roof.

Aren pointed.

“Against that.”

“Potentially.”

“Good enough.”

He looked at Hadrik.

“Can you break the door?”

“Eventually.”

“We have three breaths.”

“Then no.”

Aren turned to Corin.

“Knife.”

Corin clutched it to his chest.

“I barely know you.”

“That apparently puts you ahead of everyone else.”

The roof ripped open.

The Hollow looked down.

Every mouth opened.

Aren heard Elara’s voice.

Not truly.

The creature pulled memory from its prey.

It whispered with whatever sound would hurt most.

“Aren?”

His heart stopped.

Elara.

Blue dress.

Summer wind.

Come back to bed.

The Hollow smiled using twenty stolen mouths.

“You promised.”

Aren froze.

That was how they killed.

Not claws.

Not teeth.

The Hollow found the person you could not abandon.

Then it became them.

But the sentence had taken Elara from him.

Not his love for her.

That remained.

Severance destroyed the road traveling toward Aren.

It did not destroy the road leading away.

He still loved all of them.

His mother.

Mara.

Elara.

His soldiers.

That was the true cruelty.

A life without being loved was not the same thing as a life incapable of loving.

The Hollow reached inside him.

Searching for a reciprocal thread.

There was none.

Its body jerked.

Confusion rippled across its stolen faces.

Aren understood.

“You can’t taste me.”

The creature recoiled.

Aren smiled.

For the first time since the bell rang, he felt something resembling satisfaction.

“Good.”

He seized the claw protruding through the roof.

The Hollow shrieked.

Where Aren touched it, its pale flesh blackened.

Lyssa stared.

“You’re nulling it.”

Aren pulled harder.

The creature crashed partially through the opening.

“Hadrik!”

The deserter understood immediately.

He grabbed the Hollow around the neck.

Corin stabbed one of its mouths.

Seris picked up the dead prisoner’s chain and wrapped it around an arm.

Lyssa drew a symbol in her own blood against the wagon floor.

Light exploded.

The Hollow screamed.

Aren dragged it close.

Its mouths began speaking faster.

His mother.

Mara.

Elara.

Captain Pell.

Men he had watched die.

Children from Orison.

“You left us.”

“You ran.”

“You killed us.”

“You were supposed to save us.”

Aren tightened his grip.

“I know.”

The Hollow stopped.

For one impossible moment every mouth fell silent.

Aren leaned closer.

“I hear them every night.”

Then Hadrik twisted.

Something broke.

Lyssa’s sigil ignited.

The creature collapsed into ash.

Nobody moved.

Outside, more screams sounded from the guards.

Aren looked through the torn roof.

Shapes moved among the trees.

Six.

Maybe eight.

Corin wiped black blood from his cheek.

“Any brilliant plans, former captain?”

Aren tested his chains.

“No.”

“Wonderful.”

“I do have a bad one.”

“Even better.”

Aren pointed at the dead Hollow.

“When it died, the others hesitated.”

Lyssa nodded rapidly.

“Your Severance disrupts collective grief structures.”

Corin stared at her.

“In stupid people language?”

“He scares them.”

Aren looked toward the door.

“Hadrik. Break it.”

“You said three breaths.”

“We bought more.”

The big man braced both feet and pulled.

Metal groaned.

Seris studied Aren.

“You knew touching it might kill you.”

“Yes.”

“Why do it?”

He looked at her.

Outside, someone screamed again.

Aren remembered telling Rhest to let the kingdom fall.

He had meant it.

He still wanted to mean it.

But wanting strangers to die while sitting safely beneath a courthouse was different from listening to someone die ten feet away.

Aren hated that some piece of him remained exactly what the kingdom had accused him of failing to be.

A protector.

“Habit,” he said.

The door tore open.

Cold air flooded the wagon.

Aren stepped toward it.

Corin blinked.

“Where are you going?”

Aren looked at the shapes circling the surviving guards.

“I've been sentenced to life.”

He jumped into the rain.

“Apparently I should start serving it.”