Chapter 10: Hollow Words

“It seems what we feared may be happening.” “How could that be? We have lived in unison with the dungeons for eons. Why now?” The voices were faint, blurred by the heavy oak door of the guild conference room.

Jax and Mira stood just outside it, Alexander lingering a few steps behind. The hallway was narrow and dim, torchlight trembling against carved stone.

“We cannot let them know the full truth.” Silence followed. Not the comfortable kind. The kind that meant agreement.

Mira’s jaw tightened. “They know something.”

Jax gave her a look that meant not here.

The latch turned.

An elderly man with silver hair and a spine that had never bent stepped out. His eyes swept over them once, assessing.

“You may enter.”

The room inside was smaller than Ravelin’s council chamber but no less formal. Three elders sat behind a long table etched with guild sigils. No one smiled.

“What you witnessed were anomalies,” the silver haired man said. His voice was calm, rehearsed. “The guild will handle further investigation.”

“That is all?” Mira asked.

The room went silent..

“For now.”

Jax stepped forward. “The bear that attacked us had something embeded in it.”

“We are aware,” another elder replied. “Your concern is noted,” the first man said. “However, speculation is dangerous. Leave the matter to us.”

“And if we don't?” Mira asked.

The air cooled.

“Then your standing as registered adventurers may be reevaluated.”

They were escorted out without further explanation.

The main hall greeted them with noise and warmth. Adventurers laughed near the quest board. Steel clanged somewhere deeper inside. It felt unreal after the sterile chill of the council room.

“What do we do now?” Mira muttered. “The shop owner mentioned April’s.”

“We talk to Alexander,” Jax said quietly. “He was holding back.”

As if summoned by the statement, the front doors slammed open. Alexander stumbled inside, arms full of journals, ink smudged across his fingers. “There you are,” he breathed. “I apologize. I had to smooth things over with a colleague.”

Mira crossed her arms. “You knew something.”

Alexander hesitated. That was answer enough.

“Walk with me,” he said.

They left the guild and headed toward the Hearthward district. The streets shifted from stone and sigil to lanternlight and market chatter. The scent of bread and roasting meat filled the air. It should have been comforting.

It felt thin.

“April’s inn is ahead,” Alexander said. “She will take care of you.”

“That armor merchant sent us there too,” Jax said. “Mira nearly attacked him.”

“Oh, Takeo.” Alexander allowed a faint smile. “He means well. He mentioned broken glass.”

“Let’s never speak of that again,” Jax muttered.

“You were terrified,” Mira said brightly. “He had my arms tied. I thought I was dead over a cup.”

They shared a brief laugh. It did not linger.

April stood behind the counter of the inn, broad shouldered and steady eyed. The place buzzed with evening conversation.

“Rooms?” she asked.

“And food,” Jax added. “Though coin may be light.”

“You brought the doctor back,” she said, nodding toward Alexander. “You stay free.”

Mira smirked. “One room.”

Jax flushed. “Are you sure?”

“You said I get my way.”

He stepped aside quickly. “Too close.”

They sat at a heavy wooden table near the back of the inn while evening conversation rose and fell around them. Plates of meat and potatoes were set down without ceremony, steam curling between them.

Mira leaned forward first. “The void anchor.”

Alexander did not answer immediately.

He set one journal on the table, then another, fingers lingering on the cracked leather cover of the second as though he had already decided he disliked what was inside it. When he finally opened it, the parchment looked older than anything Jax had expected him to carry around loose.

“It appears only once,” Alexander said quietly. “At least in anything I have ever found that I trust.”

Jax frowned. “Only once?”

“In a fragment,” Alexander replied. “A copied poem. The original no longer exists.”

“That is not reassuring,” Mira muttered.

“No,” Alexander said. “It isn’t.”

His eyes moved across the page before he spoke again.

“Ash across the world. Mighty beings walking the earth. The sky darkened. And at the center, a black pillar.”

The noise of the inn seemed to fall farther away.

Mira sat back slowly. “That sounds less like poetry and more like a warning.”

“The line ends there,” Alexander said.

Jax looked up. “Ends?”

“The fragment cuts off mid-thought.” Alexander closed the journal halfway, not fully, as though unwilling to put it away and unwilling to keep looking at it. “Either the writer did not survive long enough to finish it, or the ending was removed.”

For a moment none of them spoke.

At another table someone laughed too loudly. A mug struck wood. Somewhere near the kitchen a chair scraped. The sounds felt ordinary in a way that made the conversation at their table feel even worse.

“The guild told us to leave it alone,” Mira said at last.

“I would strongly consider doing exactly that,” Alexander replied.

Jax studied him. “You’re not going to.”

Alexander’s composure slipped then, only slightly, but enough.

“No.”

Silence settled again.

Outside, a cart rattled over cobblestone hard enough to make the window tremble. A dog began barking somewhere down the street.

It kept barking.

They finished eating after that, but not with much appetite.

Upstairs, the room was small and clean. One bed. One basin. One shuttered window. The inn below them still carried a low warmth through the floorboards, but it felt thinner up here, like they had climbed just far enough for the night to feel separate from the rest of the building.

Mira shut the door and leaned against it for a second, watching Jax in the quiet.

“So,” she said, softer now, “how would you like me to repay you for saving me?”

Jax glanced at her, then away. “You do not owe me anything.”

A faint smile touched her mouth. “That is not what I asked.”

His face warmed. “You enjoy making my life difficult.”

“Only a little.”

She crossed the room slowly, without the usual sharpness she carried into everything else. No performance in it now. No audience. Just the two of them and the kind of closeness that danger made impossible to misunderstand.

The warmth between them was real. Earned. Fragile, maybe, but real.

When they lay down, the mattress dipped beneath their weight and the bed creaked softly in protest. Mira settled close enough for their shoulders to touch. The room smelled faintly of soap, clean linen, and woodsmoke worked deep into old timber.

For a few breaths, the world outside disappeared.

Jax stared up at the ceiling, listening to the old boards above them. The inn shifted in familiar ways around the night. Timber settling. Distant footsteps below. Muffled voices fading one room at a time.

Beside him, Mira shifted once. A faint tension passed through her like a current. Her brow tightened. Her breathing changed.

Jax turned toward her, but she did not wake.

Something moved across the edge of her expression. Not fear. Not pain. Recognition without context.

A whisper of the past brushed against his thoughts, the impossible certainty that something ancient had noticed her.