The entrance to the catacombs was behind a barbershop.
Not a fancy one. A place where men with heavy hands cut hair too short, and the floor was always littered with faded linoleum and clipped regrets. The owner, an old man with cataract-clouded eyes, didn't speak. He just nodded when Lena showed him the glyph burned into her palm and pointed to the backroom.
They moved through rusted hallways, past shelves filled with ancient clippers and photographs no one remembered taking. The air changed the deeper they went. The scent of pomade faded, replaced by something older.
Mildew. Iron. Blood.
"Why the hell is the entrance to hell under a barbershop?" Jace muttered.
Lena didn't look back. "Because no one thinks to look for death where people go for clean shaves."
The door at the end wasn't a door at all—it was bone.
White, polished smooth, carved with symbols that twitched when you looked too long.
Reya reached out instinctively, her fingers hovering just above the glyph at the center.
The door opened before she touched it.
Inside was only darkness.
But it welcomed them.
—
The catacombs weren't tunnels. They were arteries.
The walls throbbed faintly, like the entire underground was part of a slumbering beast. Jace felt the shard in his leg hum with recognition. The deeper they went, the more alive it felt. Like the Hollow God's power wasn't just waking—it was spreading.
Their footsteps echoed oddly, the sound bouncing in ways that made no architectural sense. Sometimes it sounded like they were walking alone. Other times, it sounded like dozens of feet followed behind them.
"Stay close," Lena said, her voice sharp.
"Do I look like I'm wandering off?" Jace grunted. He kept one hand on his blade and the other on Reya's wrist. She moved like she was half-dreaming, her violet-glowing eyes scanning the stone as if reading text no one else could see.
They descended deeper. And deeper still.
Until they reached him.
The chamber was lit by candles that didn't burn down. Blood ran through carved trenches in the floor, feeding into a large circle in the center—where he sat.
Merrik.
Lena's former mentor.
He looked like a skeleton dipped in ink and ash. Long hair matted with dried gore. His robes were stitched from old flags and flayed animal skin. But his eyes—
They were alive.
"Lena," he rasped, his grin wide and ruined. "You're late."
"I didn't promise to come."
"But you always do. You're a moth, girl. You can't help yourself."
He stood, impossibly tall, bones cracking with every movement.
"And you brought offerings," Merrik said, his gaze landing on Jace and Reya.
"I brought questions."
He chuckled. "They'll cost you answers."
Jace stepped forward, not bothering to hide the glow under his skin.
"I was marked," he said. "At Cinderspar Tower. Something's inside me. I need to know what the hell it is."
Merrik inhaled deeply, as if Jace's scent told him everything.
"Not a what, boy. A who. You carry the fang of the Hollow God."
"I thought the Hollow God didn't have a name."
"It had one. Long before it was erased from the histories. Before it was a god. Before it was a weapon."
He stepped into the blood circle and gestured for Jace to follow.
"Come, chosen. Let's see what bleeds beneath your skin."
Lena grabbed Jace's arm. "Don't. His rituals aren't safe."
"They never are," Merrik said, laughing.
But Jace stepped forward anyway.
He stood in the circle.
Merrik slit his own palm and smeared the blood across Jace's chest.
"Let the echo speak," he whispered.
The world tilted.
Jace fell—not physically, but in mind. The chamber dissolved around him, replaced by fire and bone, screams without throats, and eyes without faces.
And a voice.
"Do you fear becoming me?"
Jace stood in a reflection of himself. But taller. Covered in black veins. Horns coiled back from his skull. Wings folded behind him like draped night.
"Or do you crave it?"
"I didn't ask for this."
"Neither did I."
The world snapped back.
Jace collapsed, gasping, chest heaving.
Merrik crouched beside him, whispering.
"He knows you now."
Jace wiped the blood from his lips. "What the hell does that mean?"
"It means," Merrik said, licking the blade he used to draw the sigils, "you're no longer just a man. You're becoming."
Lena grabbed Merrik by the collar. "Tell us what's coming."
He grinned.
"There's a crack forming in the Veil," he said. "The Hollow God is waking faster than it should. It needs anchors. Hosts. Flesh that remembers suffering."
He turned to Reya.
"And she's the perfect door."
A sound echoed then. Distant. But real.
A howl.
Not an animal.
Not a man.
Something between.
Merrik's smile faded.
"That," he said, "was not supposed to happen yet."
Lena pulled her blade. "What is it?"
Merrik shook his head slowly.
"A child of the Hollow God. Born too soon. It's hunting… and it's hungry."
Jace stood, pain still pulsing through his skull.
"Where is it?"
Merrik pointed toward the deeper tunnels.
And whispered, "Everywhere."
—