Chapter Eleven:

  “The Hollow Court”

  The gate behind them vanished without a sound.

  They stepped into a hall that wasn’t a hall at all—no walls, no ceiling. Just space. Vast and black and humming like something alive beneath the skin of the world. They’d been walking a long time—too long. No landmarks. No way to measure time. Just steps and whispers.

  Below them, a stone floor slick with old polish and cracked with new fractures, as though a thousand feet had passed through and none had stayed.

  And all around them: thrones.

  Dozens. Maybe hundreds. Set in a ring wider than any coliseum, carved from obsidian and bone, each one filled. The figures in them didn’t move. Hooded, robed, featureless. Not statues, not corpses. Something else.

  Floating between the thrones were lanterns—suspended in midair, drifting like jellyfish through smoke. Each flickered with a cold white flame.

  John slowed to a stop.

  RW stared ahead, tail flicking once. “The Hollow Court,” she said.

  The floor beneath them lit once with pale light.

  A circle formed in the center of the hall, wide enough for one person.

  Then a voice spoke.

  Not loud. Not cruel.

  Just… knowing.

  “You are known. Step forward and be seen.”

  No one moved.

  Dorian looked around. “Is it weird that I’d rather deal with another blood maze?”

  “No,” Helen said.

  The voice spoke again. “This court does not weigh action. It weighs intent. The truth of why you chose.”

  And then the circle began to glow.

  No one answered. They only stared at the light.

  The circle flared brighter.

  A voice, low and unplaceable, echoed through the space: "Rai."

  She hesitated.

  Just for a breath.

  Then she stepped forward, slow and quiet. She entered the circle with doubt in her heart, the memory already waiting for her.

  The moment her foot crossed the boundary, the air changed—thicker, electric, like standing too close to a storm. The thrones leaned forward. Not all. Just enough.

  Lanterns drifted lower.

  A war fan appeared at the center of the circle. Hers. Untouched, unfolded. No rust. No blood. Like it had never tasted death.

  Then came the voice—not the one from before. This one was closer. Familiar.

  “Why did you kill him?”

  Akira’s voice.

  Rai flinched—just a tad, like a muscle twitch you try to pretend never happened.

  The court did not echo. The question hung there, like a blade waiting to fall.

  “I didn’t want to,” she said.

  Silence.

  “You did it anyway.”

  “I had to.”

  “No,” the voice said. “You chose to.”

  The war fan lifted from the ground and spun once in the air.

  “Would he have done the same to you?”

  Rai looked down.

  “Yes.”

  “Then why do you still carry it?”

  She stepped closer to the fan. Her voice didn’t waver.

  “Because it hurt. Because it always will. Because it should.”

  The fan dropped.

  But before it could hit the ground, Rai caught it.

  Her hand closed around the hilt without hesitation, steady and sure.

  The court was silent.

  Then the war fan glowed faintly, its edges clean, whole. Not a weapon reclaimed—but a burden accepted.

  The lanterns dimmed. The thrones leaned back.

  And Rai stepped out of the circle.

  John let out a low breath, half-exhale, half-laugh. “She caught it.”

  RW blinked once, slowly. “Reflexes like that shouldn’t be legal.”

  Dorian whistled under his breath. “Damn. That’s what I call a reckoning.”

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  The platform remained lit.

  Waiting.

  The platform pulsed again.

  “John.”

  He stepped forward slowly. The light from the circle flickered, casting long shadows from his boots as he entered.

  The moment he crossed the threshold, the Court reacted.

  The thrones leaned in—all of them this time. Not just a few. Lanterns dipped so low they hovered just above the ground. The air grew hot, dry.

  The circle transformed.

  The floor beneath his feet became a cracked street, familiar. Firelight danced across shuttered windows. A child screamed in the distance. Then another. Kagemura.

  He turned in place slowly. The village burned around him.

  And no one called his name.

  They only stared.

  Old men. Young parents. A girl in a half-scorched kimono. A boy missing half his arm. Faces he recognized. Faces he had failed.

  Then another appeared.

  Yumi.

  She stood on the far side of the circle. Whole. Not broken. Not bleeding. Just... quiet.

  “You promised,” she said.

  John looked at her, then down.

  “I know.”

  “You left them.”

  He nodded. “I know that too.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  The fire didn’t roar. It just stayed, licking at the edge of the scene.

  John inhaled. His voice was low.

  “I thought if I could find Roland… maybe I could undo it. Go back. Change something. Anything.”

  He looked up.

  “But that’s not why I started. That’s not why you would’ve done it.”

  Silence.

  “I didn’t come here to save him,” John said. “Not really. I came here to try and save you.”

  Yumi didn’t smile. Didn’t frown. She just waited.

  “I stopped seeing the people in front of me,” he said. “I kept chasing the one behind me.”

  He stepped toward her.

  “I’m sorry. But I’m done trying to change the past, or the future, or whatever it is.”

  He looked past her, to the Court.

  “I’m here to save everything, everyone.”

  The fire vanished.

  Yumi gave him one last smile, soft, full of something he didn’t deserve but would carry anyway.

  Then she was gone.

  The platform flickered, then went still.

  John stepped out of the circle.

  The next name hadn’t been called yet.

  But the Court had heard him.

  John stepped out of the circle.

  The light dimmed.

  Then flared one last time.

  Something shimmered on the stone before him.

  Two blades—crossed.

  The Twin Fangs. Clean. Balanced. Waiting.

  John stared at them for a moment. He didn’t reach for them immediately.

  When he did, it was slow, deliberate. Like he was greeting old friends.

  He strapped them across his back, then murmured under his breath, "Missed you, too."

  The platform remained quiet.

  But the Court had spoken.

  And it had returned what he’d laid down.

  As John returned to the group, he stood a little straighter.. Rai offered him a quiet nod. “You earned that,” she said..

  Then she turned to John. “So did you.”

  John gave a tired smile.

  “She would’ve been proud,” Rai added.

  RW flicked her tail. “Understatement of the year.”

  Dorian gave John a single, solemn clap on the back. “Heavy stuff, man. But it landed.”

  The circle's light grew brighter once more.

  “Helen.”

  Helen inhaled sharply—just once—and stepped into the circle.

  As she crossed into the center, the floor shifted. The vast, empty blackness was replaced by narrow, cracked stone. Tall buildings loomed in tight alleys, their walls stained with age and desperation. The sound of coughing echoed down from high balconies. Athens.

  Not the city of legends. The real one. Her home.

  The thrones around her fell silent.

  She stood in the middle of a soup line—faded awnings above, hungry eyes all around. She was younger here, dressed in threadbare layers, her hands rough from labor and weather—signs of work, not war. They trembled as she stood in line.

  To her right, someone cried out.

  A girl. Younger than her. Thin, too thin. Cornered by a trio of older boys.

  Helen turned.

  The moment stuttered.

  The girl looked right at her.

  “Help me,” she whispered.

  Helen didn’t move.

  Then another figure appeared.

  It was her.

  But not the version that stood in the circle now—not the warrior. This one was different.

  Full armor. War paint. Blood on her blade.

  “You got strong,” the other Helen said, “so you’d never have to feel that helpless again.”

  Helen didn’t answer.

  The warrior Helen stepped closer.

  “You think being strong makes you worth something. That if you’re not the fiercest, you’re nothing. Just a girl who watched.”

  Helen clenched her jaw.

  “I didn’t help her,” she said. “I was scared.”

  “And now?”

  “I’m still scared,” she said. “Every time. But I don’t walk away anymore.”

  The warrior Helen stared.

  Then she nodded—once—and vanished.

  The street disappeared.

  Helen stood alone again in the circle.

  And the court said nothing.

  But it didn’t need to.

  A shape appeared beside her—her sword, resting upright in the stone. The hilt was clean. The blade unbloodied. Waiting.

  Helen reached for it slowly, fingers brushing the leather grip.

  It didn’t resist.

  She drew it free, and it felt lighter than she remembered—lighter, but hers.

  Helen stepped back to the others.

  She said nothing. Neither did they.

  RW flicked her tail once. “That wasn’t just honest.”

  Dorian nodded slowly. “That was brave.”

  John gave her a look—not a smile, but something heavier. Respect.

  The light of the circle pulsed again.

  But the court stayed quiet.

  Waiting.

  The circle lit again.

  “Dorian.”

  He didn’t move right away.

  Then he sighed. “Alright. Let’s get judged.”

  He gave the others a crooked grin—part smirk, part apology—and stepped forward. The circle closed behind him with a hum.

  The space changed.

  Mountains. Snow. Smoke in the distance.

  The sky was twilight purple. A single road snaked down a hill toward a village half-swallowed in flame. The air smelled like pine and ash.

  He stood on a ridge above it all, a younger version of himself visible just ahead—running.

  Below, someone screamed.

  “Dorian!”

  A child’s voice. Female. Small.

  The boy version of himself didn’t turn back.

  He kept running.

  A shadow stepped into the snow beside him.

  His Echo.

  This one looked polished. Hair tied back. Vest spotless. Hands clasped behind his back like he was about to sell you something important.

  “You ran,” the Echo said, calm as a lecture.

  “Yup,” Dorian replied.

  “You lived.”

  “I did that too.”

  “You call that survival?”

  Dorian’s smile didn’t quite hold.

  “She told me to go,” he said. “She said she’d catch up.”

  “But you didn’t wait.”

  “She told me not to.”

  “But you didn’t go back.”

  Dorian looked down at the village. Flames curling around the rooftops. No more screams.

  “I wanted to.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No,” he said quietly. “I didn’t.”

  The Echo’s expression didn’t change.

  “And you’ve spent every day since pretending that makes you clever, instead of scared.”

  Dorian’s jaw shifted. “Better to laugh than drown in it.”

  “Then laugh,” the Echo said. “Right now.”

  Dorian didn’t.

  “I ran because she asked me to,” he said. “That doesn’t make it right. It just makes it mine.”

  The village burned.

  The Echo vanished.

  A single object remained in the snow—his axe. Blackened, scorched along the edge, but whole. Waiting.

  Dorian picked it up.

  “Still does the job,” he muttered.

  He turned and walked back to the others, resting the axe across his shoulders like an old friend.

  The thrones rose.

  Not in unison, not fast—just a slow, creaking ascent, as if the gravity of what they’d heard pulled them upright.

  No words. No fanfare.

  But something had shifted.

  And Dorian felt it.

  They all did.

  The circle faded.

  The platform vanished.

  The thrones stood motionless now—still risen, still silent. As if waiting for something only they could hear.

  Then the voice returned.

  Not loud. Not cruel. But final.

  "Truth is not purity. It is permission."

  A pause.

  "You may pass—but carry nothing false with you."

  A line tore through the darkness ahead of them—thin, vertical, and glowing with pale, heatless light. It widened slowly, opening like a door. Beyond it, there was no hallway. No floor. Just more blackness.

  The dark beyond rippled—not like water, but like a sheet pulled tight over something breathing. Something big. Something waiting.

  Dorian gave a low whistle. “That doesn’t look like a shortcut.”

  “Not everything good is,” RW said, and walked through.

  "No," John said. He followed her. Then Rai.

  Helen hesitated for a breath, then crossed the threshold.

  Dorian was the last to move.

  He looked once at the thrones. One of them had turned to face him.

  He didn’t look back again.

  The Court said nothing more.

  But the light swallowed them all.

  And the Hollow faded behind them.