The mark over Orion's eye hadn't stopped pulsing since the night he saw the sky beneath the earth.
It wasn't pain exactly–but pressure. Like something unseen was pressing a fingertip against the inside of his skull, just firm enough to remind him it was there.
Watching.
Waiting.
He sat alone at the edge of the old balcony, one knee drawn to his chest, wrapped in the Academy's tattered cloak. The morning light was dim, caught in a haze of overcast clouds that made the ruins look hollow and abandoned again, like nothing had ever stirred here. No Warden. No stars. No sky beneath the ground.
Only him.
And the echo.
He didn't realize Iris had joined him until she sat down beside him, silent. She didn't speak right away–just pulled her knees up the same way he did and leaned slightly against his shoulder.
"You didn't sleep," she said finally.
"No."
"Neither did I."
He didn't answer.
A breeze stirred her hair. She stared out at the broken rings of the Academy, eyes half-lidded, thoughtful.
"You've been somewhere the rest of us haven't," she said. "Even Serah. Even Azrael, for all his reading. I think you're scared it'll make you different from us."
He turned, startled by the accuracy in her voice.
"I'm not trying to be different."
"I know. But the thing is, Orion… none of us are the same people we were when we stepped into the Forgewarren. And maybe you went deeper–but we all came back changed."
He looked down at his hands.
"I can still feel it. The Astralum. Like it's coiled inside me now. Like it didn't close behind me."
Iris tilted her head "What did it feel like?"
Orion hesitated. "Whatever was calling me felt hollow." he spoke again "It didn't speak last night. But it pressed. Like it was… answering Selene's silence. Filling the space she left."
Iris was quiet for a long moment.
"Selene has gone quiet?" she said with a hint of worry.
"Yeah, she hasn't said anything ever since I left the Astralum."
Then she stood, smiled and offered him her hand. "Come on, Azrael found something."
—
The archive chamber smelled like old metal and colder dust that it should've. Azrael was already there, hunched over a wide table littered with ancient files and broken star-glass tablets, a glow crystal perched at the edge for light.
He didn't look up as they entered.
"You're late," he said. "I was beginning to think your prophetic unraveling would happen without us."
Orion cracked a dry smile. "What did you find?"
Azrael straightened, slid a thick folder across the table. "Fragments from the old core-ring lectures. Some marked forbidden. Mostly metaphysical theory, but a few of them reference 'mirror-space' and 'celestial inversion.' It lines up with the Astralum. Sort of."
Orion opened the folder. His brand pulsed the moment his fingers touched the parchment.
Azrael noticed. "Yeah. Thought that might happen."
"There's something else here," Orion whispered. "This ink… it's infused. Traced with starmetal dust."
Azrael raised a brow. "Didn't know that."
Orion's eyes skimmed the text. Words jumped at him like old ghosts. Echo stars. Reflection wounds. Astralum as a mnemonic plane. Projection imbalance. Veil rupture risk.
"Some of these aren't just theories," he said. "They're records. Someone's been there before. The Hollow Star.That's what I felt in the Astralum"
Serah's voice came from the doorway. "And did they make it out?"
They turned.
She stepped into the chamber, arms crossed, hair still damp from whatever cold-water ritual she'd used to wake up. Fire flickered faintly across her knuckles—habit, not threat.
Orion didn't answer.
Serah walked over, peered at the file. "Whatever this place is—if it's bleeding into your mind—it's not safe. We should seal it off. Bury it again."
"I don't think we can," Orion said quietly. "It's not coming from outside. It's inside me now."
Azrael folded his arms. "The texts describe it as responsive. Reflective. It shows you as you are… and maybe as you could become. But if something's infected it—this Hollow Star—it could mean the whole plane is compromised."
Orion's throat tightened.
He remembered the vision. The stars are collapsing. Selene's face before it was swallowed. Her voice shook, "Not yet."
"Selene's been quiet since," he said. "I think she's shielding me. Or shielding herself."
The air thickened at that.
Even Serah didn't speak.
Iris frowned. "So what do we do? If the Hollow Star is using the Astralum to reach into you…"
"…then we need to understand what it is," Azrael finished. "Before it does more than just whisper."
—
That night, Orion dreamed again.
But not of stars.
Of mirrors.
He stood in a black chamber where no light reached, only endless reflections of himself—walking, turning, screaming, silent. Each one was different. In one, his hair was white as snow. In another, he held no sword. In one, his eye was missing. In another, the brand was gone completely.
And in the center of them all… was it.
A hollow-eyed figure with no face.
No brand.
Only a void where the soul should've been.
Orion stepped forward.
It didn't move. Didn't breathe. But he felt it watching.
Then it spoke.
But not aloud.
It spoke in echoes.
A thousand layered whispers of Orion's own voice, all saying the same thing at once:
"You have already become me."
"No," Orion said aloud. "I haven't."
The thing tilted its head, and the mirrored forms behind him moved in unison—Orions with scorched skin, Orions with empty eye sockets, Orions holding blades made of flame and blood and void.
"Selene is fading," the voices said.
"You are the hollow that follows."
"You are what's left after the light dies."
He clenched his fists. "I'm not."
One of the mirrors beside him cracked.
A jagged split ran across its surface—and through the reflection's eye.
"Not yet," the figure whispered.
It rose slowly from its throne, weightless, unnatural. It reached toward him—not to strike, but to touch. To fuse.
Orion turned and ran.
The void didn't fight him. It bent around him, folded away—letting him escape. Letting him see.
And in that last second, before the dream tore apart, he saw something.
A flicker.
A different glow.
Golden.
Not the Hollow's void. Not Selene's silver.
But a warm, pulsing gold, watching from far beyond the edges of the dream.
Like a sunrise behind stormclouds.
Then—
He woke.
His breath came in ragged pulls. His palms were slick with sweat. The others were asleep around the archive room. Azrael slumped at the table, face buried in notes. Iris curled against a pile of books. Serah half-sitting, fire long dead in her hand.
But Orion couldn't sleep again.
He stepped away, hand trembling as he touched the mark over his eye.
It was still glowing.
And this time, Selene did not answer.
Only the echo remained.
And somewhere deep within that echo… something golden had stirred.