[POV: Captain Renarth, Imperial Guard, Post 37, Southern Skyfissure]
The cliffs always made him uneasy.
They weren't like normal terrain—these southern ridges didn't just drop into nothing, they bled into it. The way the air folded near the edges, the low hum under your boots, the taste of old metal on your tongue—it made men feel like trespassers, even when they were sent by the crown.
Captain Renarth hated the duty. But this was an emergency.
Seven noble children had entered the fissure site yesterday. Only one was reported returning, by a half-dead scout who babbled about screams swallowed by stone. That report got a "direct summons" to the royal floor. Now Renarth and his squad had been ordered to retrieve "any living remains."
He'd seen the first few bodies already.
They weren't whole.
They weren't even mostly.
And the cave still whispered, even now.
Like it was chewing.
Then he heard the footsteps.
Soft.
Too soft.
He raised a hand.
"Hold."
His men froze behind him.
The mouth of the fissure glowed faintly in the low sun. Morning mist drifted around its edge like curtain silk. And from within that light—
A figure emerged.
A boy.
No.
Not a boy.
Something in the shape of one.
Renarth didn't breathe as the thing stepped forward.
Barefoot.
Pale.
Black hair matted to one side, the other streaked with a color that didn't belong to hair—not white, not silver, but something between them, like the light before thunder.
His left arm pulsed faintly beneath torn sleeves. Not glowing. But humming.
And his eyes—
"By the Great Flame…" whispered one of the younger guards. "His eyes…"
Silver.
Both. Not gray. Not metallic.
Pure lawless silver, like something that had never known warmth.
The boy looked at them.
Didn't blink.
Didn't raise his voice.
Didn't ask for help.
And every man there—
Kneeled.
Not out of discipline.
Not training.
Not loyalty.
Out of something else.
Something they didn't understand.
---
[POV: Ezekiel]
He didn't remember walking out of the cave.
He remembered the feeling of sunlight.
Not warmth—he didn't register that anymore. Only the concept of warmth, the ghost of a memory his skin hadn't caught up with yet.
The guards dropped to one knee.
That confused him.
He hadn't asked.
He didn't even want them to look at him.
He didn't want to see himself reflected in their faces.
But their eyes—those wide, flickering, frightened eyes—told him what he already knew.
He had not returned from the cave.
He had brought something back with him.
---
A voice inside him stirred.
Not a thought.
A pressure.
A weight behind the lungs.
> "You are noticed."
He flinched.
Azrael.
The name hadn't been spoken yet.
Not by anyone.
Not even by the voice itself.
But Ezekiel knew it now. Like knowing your own heartbeat. Like a word you'd always been afraid to say because deep down you knew once you said it, it would answer.
> "This is your trial. This is not your throne."
> "Not yet."
---
Renarth's voice broke the fog.
"Your Highness… Prince Ezekiel, Third of Name…"
He hesitated.
Swallowed hard.
"…you are to be escorted to the Imperial Court. Immediately. The Emperor has summoned witness."
Witness.
Not reunion.
Not welcome.
Just…
Scrutiny.
Ezekiel nodded once.
And followed.
---
The walk back to the citadel was dreamlike.
The city above had not changed.
Sky-harbors floated with glimmering banners. Winged guards circled. Crystalline elevators spiraled downward like serpents made of gold and light. The upper nobles hadn't even stirred yet—too early in the day for those who thought themselves eternal.
But Ezekiel felt it.
Every breath of the empire trembled.
Not in fear of him.
But in confusion.
In disbelief.
Because something impossible had happened.
And no one could explain it.
Not yet.
---
[POV Shift: Lady Meradelle, The Empress]
The boy lives.
She stared down at the court below from her private observatory—fingers steepled, lips faintly parted.
A child had returned.
Not just any child.
Him.
She watched from behind a screen of white veils as the guards led him through the east bridge. The other nobles hadn't arrived yet. But the moment the rumors spread—
It would unravel.
She turned to her attendant. A boy of twelve, trained in silence.
"Fetch the twins," she said, her voice like velvet over ice. "Have them dressed in mourning. We will bury the others before sunset."
"And the Hollow Prince?" the attendant asked.
She smiled.
That rare, delicate, poisonous smile.
"Let him speak. If he still knows how."