CODEX OF THE HOLLOW FLAME

The dungeon held its breath.

Not silence—no, this wasn't silence. This was tension, the sort that curled around the bones and settled in the lungs. A hush so thick it made the skin crawl, like something unseen was listening, waiting, wanting.

Vaelric Thornvein stood at the base of the tree they'd found—if one could call it a tree. It rose like a twisted wound carved straight into the world, half of it slick and glistening obsidian, the other pulsing with something too alive. Veins slithered just beneath its bark, moving like breath. The Codex of the Hollow Flame throbbed in his hands like a living thing. Not hot. Not cold. Just… aware.

Behind him, Draum gave a low whistle. "Gods' hairy knuckles… is it bleeding?"

Nyshara didn't answer. She stepped forward instead, hand on the hilt of her curved blade. Her eyes scanned the tree like it might leap. "No. Not bleeding. Hungering."

Vaelric's throat tightened. "It's a dungeon."

Even he didn't believe that anymore.

The Codex shifted in his grip, pages fluttering though no wind stirred. The book wanted something. No—demanded.

They had followed the trail of screaming roots, shattered totems, and whispered omens for nearly a week. It had led them here, to this clearing on the edge of the Hollowwoods, where the very trees wept sap like old blood. And now they stood before the Hollow Gate—before a tree that was not a tree—and a book that may well have teeth.

Draum gave Vaelric a pointed look as he flipped a copper coin across his knuckles. "Still think this is just a 'scenic shortcut?' Let me remind you, we passed a bog that smelled like a troll's armpit, lost three horses to vines that screamed, and yesterday, something tried to chew through my boots. And now we're talking to demon trees?"

Vaelric opened the Codex. The pages rippled like water disturbed by a stone dropped far too deep. Strange symbols rose from the parchment, glowing faintly.

> "Where the First Flame fell, so did the Gods. What rose in their ash was not mercy—

But memory, sharpened to a fang."

Nyshara arched an eyebrow. "Oh good. Rhyming. Nothing bad ever happens when ancient spellbooks start reciting death-poetry."

Draum poked the tree with the blunt end of his axe. "If this thing bites me, I'm burning down the whole forest."

"Wait," Vaelric murmured.

The ink on the page was shifting again, the letters stretching and contorting, new words bleeding up like bruises.

> "Speak me aloud, and I shall taste your soul.

Bleed me open, and I shall feast."

Draum dropped his axe with a loud clang and stepped back. "Nope. Done. You two can flirt with the cannibal tree all night long. I'll be at the inn, drinking something that doesn't squirm."

But Vaelric barely heard him. His fingers trembled. The Codex was calling—not with words, but with hunger. The same way a storm hums before it breaks. He could feel it in his bones, in the marrow of who he was.

He flipped the page.

The glyphs shimmered again, twisting like ink caught in a scream.

And then, without thinking, he spoke.

> "Ashvel Vael drakkan."

The clearing erupted in light—amber and angry. Fire burst from the Codex, casting shadows that bent wrong and stretched too far. The tree groaned. Bark peeled away in long, wet strips, revealing soft, pulsing flesh beneath. Something black oozed from its center, slow and thick.

Nyshara took a step back, sword drawn. "You opened it?!"

"I—I didn't mean to," Vaelric said, stunned.

Draum crossed his arms, unimpressed. "Of course you didn't. You read haunted poetry from your evil diary, it explodes, and now the damn tree is leaking. Next you'll sneeze and summon a god."

The tree's inner bark split open with a squelch, revealing not a corridor—but a throat. A tunnel of muscle and shadow, damp and twitching, that breathed.

Vaelric stared into the darkness.

"It's not a gate," he whispered.

Nyshara's voice was barely audible. "Then what is it?"

He swallowed. "It's a mouth. And it wants to be fed."

---

They made camp.

Sort of.

No one really wanted to sleep next to a giant bleeding tree with a taste for poetry and blood. But the Hollowwoods stretched too far, and night had fallen thick and fast, the air heavy with tension and spores.

Draum did what dwarves do best—made noise and drew strange shapes in the dirt. He circled their fire three times, spat into the earth, and hammered iron nails into the soil. "Traditional dwarven anti-possession charm," he declared, wiping his hands. "Also works on forest squirrels. Vicious little bastards."

Vaelric barely acknowledged him. The Codex sat in his lap like a sleeping beast, warm and too still. Its cover pulsed with slow rhythm, like a heartbeat.

Nyshara crouched across from him, sharpening her blades with rhythmic care. Her eyes never left the Hollow Gate.

"So," she said finally, "are you going to tell us how you opened a living wound with a language that hasn't been spoken in a thousand years?"

"I didn't speak it," Vaelric murmured. "I felt it. It… climbed up my throat. Like it wanted out."

Nyshara narrowed her eyes. "Be careful with your throat. That's where your blood lives."

He looked down. The Codex had turned another page. Fresh text, glistening like it had been carved into skin.

> "To pass the Hollow Gate,

One must surrender what binds.

Speak the Name You Buried."

His blood ran cold.

Nyshara caught the change in his expression. "Vaelric?"

He looked up, pale. "It wants something from me. Something I gave up. A long time ago."

Draum, now roasting mushrooms over a conjured flame, didn't look up. "If it's asking for your dignity, I say give it. You've not had any since that barmaid in Drekken punched you with a frying pan."

---

That Night

Vaelric dreamed.

He stood in a desert made of bones—endless white stretching beneath a sky with no stars, only the pulse of something vast and awake.

In the distance loomed a city built from the ribs of a god long dead. Its towers rose like broken teeth. The wind whispered in voices he almost recognized—voices he thought he'd forgotten—singing backwards.

He saw himself.

Not as he was now.

But older. Or perhaps ancient. Cloaked in flame, his eyes burning with memories that weren't his. In his hand, a blade. Not held—fused. It breathed with him. It was him.

Then—

He woke, gasping.

The fire had died. The Hollow Gate still pulsed in the dark, breathing slow and steady.

He looked down at the Codex.

New words glistened across the page.

> "You are not who you think you are.

Speak the buried name.

Bleed the truth."

---

Dawn

The light came slowly, sickly pale through the skeletal trees. The Gate stood unchanged—but somehow, more awake.

Vaelric packed in silence. The Codex was already warm in his satchel, as if it had known this day would come.

"You're really going in there, aren't you?" Nyshara asked, already knowing the answer.

"I have to."

Draum bit into a strip of dried meat, watching with mild irritation. "We've survived a plague temple, a cursed widow who kissed people into skeletons, and that time you turned a river inside out. If this eats you, I'm stealing your boots."

Vaelric managed a dry smile. "I wasn't the one who killed the ghoul. That was Nyshara."

"Damn right it was," she muttered.

Vaelric stepped forward, boots sinking into soft moss.

"If I die," he said, "bury me somewhere with decent shade."

Then he placed his palm on the tree.

The world folded.

There was no sound. No wind. No breath.

Only color, pain, memory.

The scent of burning feathers. The taste of grief. A scream without a mouth.

And then—

He was through.

The Hollow Gate spat him out like something it hadn't quite decided to keep.

He stood, alone.

No Draum. No Nyshara. Only darkness, and a floor that squelched beneath his boots.

The Codex fluttered open.

Fresh ink dripped down the page, curling into words that burned.

> "Welcome home."

---