Chapter 2: A Stranger at Hollowmere

Chapter 2: A Stranger at Hollowmere

The sun peeked reluctantly over the hills as Hollowmere began to stir, its morning air crisp with the lingering chill of early spring. Smoke rose from stone chimneys, and the scent of peat and damp earth hung thick in the air. Horses clopped along the cobbled road, their hooves echoing off the worn facades of timber-framed cottages.

The townsfolk spoke of little else that morning—a stranger had arrived.

No one saw him enter. No one heard the approach of his carriage. Yet at first light, it stood beside the old inn, black as pitch and glistening with dew. The coach was marked with no crest or insignia, its wheels unsoiled by mud despite the season’s thaw. Its driver, gaunt and silent, wore a wide-brimmed hat that shadowed his face and took no coin for his service.

The stranger had stepped out alone, tall and sharply dressed, his dark overcoat sweeping the ground like shadowed wings. He carried no luggage, only a slim leather-bound book tucked beneath one arm and a silver amulet around his throat—etched with runes no one recognized.

Behind the glass of her aunt’s apothecary, Amara Elwood watched the town buzz like a disturbed hive.

Her aunt, Hilda, ground dried sage with a mortar and pestle behind the counter, mumbling under her breath. “Mark me, child. Nothing good comes from Hollowmere drawing outsiders. It stirs things. Old things.”

Amara half-listened, but her thoughts were far away. Sleep had offered her no rest. The images from the night before—the forest, the voice, the glowing tree—clung to her like ivy around the ribs. She could still hear the man’s voice whispering her name as if it had been carved directly into her memory.

“Are you even listening, girl?”

Amara blinked. “Yes. I mean—no, sorry. What did you say?”

Hilda snorted, shaking her head. “Just like your mother. Always chasing shadows. Mind my words. He may look proper, but his kind bring ruin. There’s always a price.”

Amara turned her gaze back to the window just as the stranger emerged from the inn. He stepped into the sunlight without flinching, his presence quiet but commanding. His eyes swept the square slowly, until—

—they found hers.

Gray. Not like stone or sky, but like the stormed sea before a ship is torn in two. Cold, ancient, and oddly familiar.

Amara’s breath caught.

He held her gaze for what felt like forever. Then, with slow, deliberate steps, he walked across the square, the crowd parting for him without a word.

Amara stepped back as the door to the apothecary opened with a soft chime.

Up close, he was even more striking. His coat was embroidered at the collar, tailored in a style at least fifty years out of fashion. The amulet against his chest shimmered faintly in the light, as if made of moonlight instead of silver. He looked at her like someone searching a face they hadn’t seen in centuries.

“You dream of the forest,” he said.

It wasn’t a question.

“I—” Amara hesitated. “Who are you?”

He inclined his head. “Lucien Virell.”

The name struck her like a bell tolling in her chest. It meant nothing, and yet everything. As if it had always belonged to a part of her she'd forgotten.

“I’ve come,” he said softly, “because time is running out. For you. For me. For everything that binds us.”

Before she could speak again, he turned and stepped back into the fog that rolled in from the trees.

She stood frozen in place. Not with fear—but with recognition.

Though she’d never met him before, a part of her knew she had waited her whole life for this moment.

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