Chapter 34 · Hollowborn - Chapter 34: The Hollowborn Wakes

The dream didn't collapse.

I waited for it—walls caving in, ground splitting open, the whole thing folding into itself like every other time a soul fragment burned out. But the cavern just stood there. Silent. The altar still glowed faint purple where Mom's blade had cut through, those last few threads of the pact dangling from my ribs like torn cobwebs.

Cole's arm was tight around my waist. I could feel his chest rising and falling against my back, each breath coming too fast. He was shaking. Or maybe I was. Hard to tell when you've got two soul fragments rattling around inside you and your dead mother just sacrificed herself for the second time in your life.

"Ivy." His voice cracked. "We need to move."

"Where?" I didn't look at him. Couldn't. If I looked away from the spot where Mom had been standing, it would make it real. "She's gone. Again."

"I know." He turned me around, hands on my shoulders. His eyes were still that wrong silver-blue, but something in them had shifted. Steadier. Less like he was about to vanish.