Chapter 18 - The Attack of the Hollowborn

Late afternoon settled over Rowanmere Hall in a quiet way. The sun hung low enough to turn the gardens warm gold, softening the hedges and warming the old stone walls. Sheep murmured somewhere on the distant hills. The fields smelled like cooling earth. Even the sky looked unhurried, streaked with slow amber clouds.

Lucy stood on the terrace with Jason and Evan. Jason was checking the edge on a small axe Evan had handed him, turning it in the light with the ease of someone who had spent too many years around sharp things. Evan leaned on the railing, telling a story about the time Lilly misfired a hedge trimmer and nearly sent herself into a rosebush.

Lucy laughed at the image, the moment easy and light.

Then the air changed.

It slipped across the grounds so quietly she almost wondered if she imagined it. The breeze stopped. The birds stopped. Even the distant sheep went silent. Sam, grooming himself on the terrace steps, froze with his ears up and eyes wide.

A faint prickle crawled along the back of Lucy’s neck. A pressure settled in her chest, thin but firm, like the land had taken a breath and forgotten to release it.

Evan straightened. “What was that?”

Jason’s reaction was immediate. His whole posture shifted. Shoulders squared. Feet planted. His eyes scanned the gardens with sharp focus. He stepped in front of Lucy without thinking and guided her off the terrace and onto the gravel path.

“Stay with me,” he murmured.

Evan followed, his usual calm slipping.

Timothy appeared from the west path just then. The moment his foot touched the gravel, he faltered. Only a small misstep, but on Timothy it meant a great deal.

Lucy moved to him at once. “Timothy?”

He braced a hand on the nearest pillar, his breath catching as if something heavy had settled on him.

Jason tightened his grip on the axe handle.

The stillness grew thicker.

Timothy lifted his head and looked far past them toward the southern meadow. His eyes narrowed with a mix of fear and recognition. “It is coming,” he said, voice strained. “Behind me. Stay behind me, Miss Lucy.”

Jason stepped forward again, placing himself firmly between her and the field.

“What is coming?” Evan asked quietly.

“Quiet,” Jason said. His eyes never left the distance. “Something is wrong.”

No one argued.

The gardens were too still. Rowanmere was never silent like this. There was always something: wind, birds, the faint stir of small animals. Now there was nothing.

Lucy moved closer to Timothy. “What do you feel?”

He crouched slightly and touched the ground the way she had seen him do before. When he lifted his hand, his face had gone pale. “The wards trembled,” he said. “Something pressed against them. Something that should not exist.”

His voice lowered. “It is meant for you.”

Jason widened his stance. The axe hung steady in his hand.

“Meant how?” he asked.

Timothy answered without looking at him. “To kill her.”

The words dropped into the quiet like a stone.

Lucy felt a strange calm rise in her chest. Not courage exactly, but something steady. A hum warmed beneath her ribs.

“Is it close?” she asked.

Timothy’s gaze locked on the far treeline. “Yes,” he whispered. “Very.”

Across the meadow, the shadows sharpened. The trees shuddered once, though no wind touched them. Jason braced himself, knees bending slightly.

“Everyone stay behind me.”

A shape moved between the trees. It stepped into the open grass with a silence so complete it felt unnatural. Its movements were uneven, almost confused, like a body trying to mimic what walking should look like and getting parts of it wrong.

Lucy’s breath caught.

The Hollowborn crossed the meadow in the fading light, and even from a distance Lucy knew something was wrong with the shape of it. Its limbs were too long. Its chest too narrow. Its jaw sat slightly off center, like it was copying the idea of a face without ever having seen one. Its eyes were empty. Not sightless, just empty in a way that felt colder than darkness.

Frost followed its steps. Grass whitened. Leaves near the field edge curled inward.

Jason moved in front of Lucy at once, feet planted, shoulders squared, axe in hand. “Stay back,” he said quietly. His voice had a shake he tried to hide. “Lucy, behind me.”

Evan stumbled a few steps away, hands shaking. “Jason… what is that? What is that thing?”

“Hollowborn,” Timothy said. The word came out strained. “Made from void magic. Shaped with an anchor tied to the one it is meant to harm. It never should have been created.”

Lucy felt the hum under her ribs rise again, steady and warm even as cold rolled off the creature. Her fingers tingled. She wanted to step back, but something in her held still. She did not understand the feeling, but she recognized the Hollowborn’s intent the moment she saw it.

The creature paused, tilting its head toward Timothy’s voice. Its jaw cracked with the motion. Then it kept walking, its movements stiff and oddly fluid at the same time.

Jason raised the axe higher. Timothy stepped forward despite the tremor in his hand. “Stand back,” he said, though even speaking cost him strength. “This one is mine.”

Lucy caught his sleeve. “You are not strong enough.”

He did not argue. He kept his eyes on the Hollowborn. “You cannot face it,” he said quietly. “And Jason is human. It will break him.”

Jason’s jaw set. “Let it try.”

“You do not understand,” Timothy said. “It was made for her. It will tear through anything in its path.”

The Hollowborn slowed. It leaned forward slightly, its focus settling on Lucy. She felt the air tighten around her, thin and cold.

Jason stepped in front of her again. “Lucy, if this goes bad, you run.”

She shook her head. “I am not leaving you.”

“You will,” he said. “I will drag you if I have to.”

The creature stepped closer. Grass shriveled beneath its feet.

Jason inhaled sharply. Timothy lifted a shaking hand and traced a sigil in the air. A thin line of light sparked to life between them and the Hollowborn.

The creature struck.

The impact hit the ward with a sound like stone on stone. A dull shock rippled through the grass. Timothy stumbled back, breath catching as the sigil flickered hard, fighting to hold.

Jason stepped through the fading light and swung the axe. The blade hit hollow flesh with a jolt that shook his arm. It was not like cutting skin. It was like striking something brittle that refused to break. The Hollowborn jerked sideways but made no sound. It only turned toward Jason, as if now understanding he was in the way.

Jason swung again. The second blow cracked through its shoulder, twisting the form before it snapped back into alignment with a sickening jerk.

Evan backed farther down the path. “Lucy, stay close,” he said, voice shaking. “Do not go near that thing.”

Timothy drew another sigil. This one wavered the moment it appeared.

The Hollowborn hit it. The light shattered like thin glass.

“Timothy!” Jason shouted. “Fall back!”

Timothy did not. He forced another ward into place, though his hands shook badly.

The creature surged. Jason met it head on, ramming a shoulder into it and stabbing with a knife he’d pulled from his belt. The blade sank an inch, then hit something hard and unmoving inside the Hollowborn.

The creature grabbed Jason by the shirt and lifted him off the ground with sudden force. Jason braced, but he was thrown across the lawn. He hit the grass hard, rolled, and groaned. A cut above his brow bled freely.

Lucy took a step toward him, but Evan held her arm. “No,” he said. “Stay with me.”

Jason pushed himself upright again, shaky but determined.

The Hollowborn turned toward Timothy. Timothy forced a final sigil into the air, the light shaking constantly. He shaped it into a blade made of sigil craft. It flickered along the edges.

He swung with practiced accuracy, but the strike barely cut. A thin line opened across the Hollowborn’s chest. Dark dust drifted out, then pulled itself back in as the wound knit shut again.

Timothy gasped. The effort nearly dropped him.

The creature hit him square in the chest. Timothy fell to his knees with a pained breath.

“Timothy!” Lucy cried.

He tried to stand, but his legs gave.

Jason staggered forward again, ignoring the pain. “Stay behind me,” he rasped. “Do not move.”

“You cannot stop it,” Timothy whispered.

“Then it will have to kill me first,” Jason said.

The Hollowborn shifted its attention fully to Lucy now. The emptiness in its eyes deepened. Its purpose sharpened.

Lucy stepped around Jason before he could stop her.

“Lucy!” he shouted. “Run!”

She did not. She stepped forward onto the grass, breath steady, the hum in her chest rising like something waking.

The Hollowborn lunged.

Its jagged arm swung down with killing force.

It never touched her.

A sharp sound cracked the air. Its limb hit something unseen an inch from her skin. The air rippled in a thin shimmer, like heat on stone.

Lucy stood still.

The Hollowborn reeled back. Cracks raced along its arm. Dust fell from the breaks.

The warmth inside her spread through her ribs and outward. She did not command it. It simply moved.

The Hollowborn lunged again. The second strike shattered its entire arm against the unseen barrier. More breaks split across its torso.

Lucy stepped closer. Her voice was quiet.

“I see you.”

Not a threat. A truth.

The creature trembled. Its legs collapsed first, crumbling to dust. Its torso followed, folding inward. Its head dropped as its form broke apart. Within moments, the entire shape dissolved into ash.

The last of it drifted to the ground. The air settled.

The hum inside Lucy softened back to a steady warmth.

She stood still for a moment, breathing with care, while the field slowly remembered how to move again.

Behind her, Jason let out a long, shaky breath and dropped to both knees in the grass. His hands trembled as the last of the adrenaline left him. Timothy bowed his head, the small amount of strength he had left flickering in his eyes. He watched Lucy with something that looked like awe, and something that looked like grief.

Rowanmere felt different now. Lighter. The pressure that had sat on its boundaries all day was gone, leaving only the regular quiet of approaching night.

Ash was scattered across the lawn where the Hollowborn had collapsed. Lucy walked toward it slowly, careful not to disturb anything. The air around the spot felt strangely normal again. No wrongness. No pull. Only cold earth and faint char.

Something pale shifted beneath the ash. A small piece of cloth fluttered free and settled by her foot. Lucy crouched, lifted it, and brushed ash from the edges.

Dove gray. Fine fabric. The corner carried two stitched letters.

LP.

Her breath caught. Everything inside her narrowed to that small square of cloth. “This is from my aunt’s robe,” she said quietly. “The one in the London house.”

Jason pushed himself upright with effort, hand pressed to his ribs. He limped closer. “What is it?”

Lucy showed him the initials. “I wore it the morning we left for Rowanmere. It hung in the guest room.”

Evan stepped up beside them, face pale. “Then how did it end up inside that thing?”

Lucy looked down at the cloth again as the truth settled in her chest. “Someone took it,” she said softly. “After we left. The townhouse was empty that night.”

Jason’s expression hardened. “Who would take it? And why?”

Timothy moved closer, eyes on the monogram as if it held a message. “They were there,” he said. “The moment you and I left with Stephen, the wards in London thinned. They would have felt the disturbance of your arrival in England. They would have traced it to the house. And once inside…” He nodded at the cloth. “They would have searched for anything that carried your presence. A garment is ideal.”

Lucy swallowed. “You said they. Who are you talking about?”

Jason turned sharply toward Timothy. “Yeah. Who?”

Timothy closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them again, there was no softness left. Only truth.

“They call themselves the Circle.”

The name dropped into the quiet field like a weight. Even the house behind them seemed to creak in response, as if Rowanmere itself was listening.

Lucy felt a cold line trace her spine. “The Circle,” she repeated. “What are they?”

“A coven,” Timothy said. “Old. Patient. Twisted from what they once were. They began as seekers of knowledge, but now they work only with void. Their loyalty is not to balance but to power.”

Jason frowned. “Who leads them?”

“Three,” Timothy said. “Corvin Thorne. Maedra Coil. Thalen Morvane. They guide the Circle’s rituals. They shaped the Hollowborn.”

Lucy looked down at the piece of cloth again. “They used my aunt’s robe to make it.”

“Yes,” Timothy said. “Once they had your garment, the ritual began. Three days. Three witches. Every hour binding more void into the shape they sent here.”

Jason clenched his jaw. “To kill her.”

Timothy nodded once. “To kill her before she became a threat.”

Evan swallowed. “But they do not even know her name.”

“They do not need it,” Timothy said. “When Lucy stepped onto Rowanmere soil, the wards awakened. The Chronicle stirred. That surge reached them. To the Circle, it meant one thing.”

Lucy said it before he could.

“That the Pendragon heir is alive.”

“Yes,” Timothy said. “And awakening.”

Evan let out a quiet breath. “So they sent that creature to stop her before she could become unstoppable.”

Timothy looked at Lucy with gentle gravity. “Tonight they revealed themselves. The anchor guided the Hollowborn here, but once it reached you, the creature could not survive. The void cannot hold where balance is strong.”

Jason looked at the ash, then at Lucy. “This is all that is left of it,” he said. “Their weapon failed.”

Lucy held the cloth tighter. “They were inside the house where I slept,” she said. “Hours after I left.”

Evan nodded. “Now we know they were close.”

Timothy lowered his gaze. “And when they learn that their Hollowborn dissolved the moment it reached you, they will realize something they have never faced.”

Lucy looked up. “What?”

“That you are beyond their reach as they understand it,” Timothy said. “And that frightens them.”

Jason stood still for several heartbeats. Then something changed in his expression. Color drained from his face as a memory clicked into place.

“I think…” He swallowed. “I think I know who I was working for.”

Lucy blinked. “Jason, what are you talking about?”

He raked a shaky hand through his hair. “I never knew their names. They never gave me anything real. No company. No badge. Just instructions and money. The job was to find the Chronicle. I broke into your shop because I thought you had it. When I didn’t find it, I followed you to London. I thought you would lead me to it.”

Lucy’s chest tightened. “Jason…”

“I did not know about magic,” he said, voice rough. “I did not know about the wards. I did not know Timothy was there. I had no idea any of this was real.” He drew a breath that shook. “When I got arrested, a lawyer bailed me out. Said my employer was giving me another chance. Then they sent me to the Highwayman Inn. To Silas.”

Timothy’s face shadowed.

“I thought Silas was just a criminal,” Jason said. “Someone hired to pressure me. But if the Circle were the ones who wanted the Chronicle… if they were the ones tracking you…”

He looked at Lucy, shaken.

“Then I was working for them,” he said. “Without even knowing it.”

Lucy stepped closer. “Jason… you did not know. You had no way to know.”

He shook his head, jaw tight. “Maybe not. But I know now.”

He straightened, ribs protesting the movement, but his resolve held.

“And if the Circle thinks they can use me, or hurt you, or take what belonged to your family…” He shook his head. “They chose the wrong man.”

Timothy nodded once, firm. “Knowing their name places you on the field.”

Jason’s answer came without hesitation. “Then that is where I stand.”

Night settled outside, but the darkness felt ordinary again. No pressure, no weight. Just evening. Rowanmere’s old stones seemed to hold a quiet warmth, as if the house itself was paying attention.

The walk back across the lawn was slow.

Timothy’s legs shook with every step. Lucy slid her arm through his without thinking, steadying him. Jason stayed close on Timothy’s other side, limping and holding his ribs. Evan hovered near them too, glancing back at the meadow every few seconds, as if half expecting the Hollowborn to pull itself back together.

They reached the terrace steps and stopped. The lantern by the door cast a soft circle of gold across the stones, making the hall beyond look steady and safe.

“Inside,” Jason said, voice rough but firm. “Everyone gets patched up before anyone falls over.”

Timothy let out a small breath that almost passed for a laugh. “Bossy.”

“Alive,” Jason said. Even that small word seemed to cost him.

Sam appeared in the doorway, tail flicking in a slow, judgmental arc. He gave them a look that seemed to say they were late, messy, and inconvenient, then turned and walked back inside. Apparently, they were forgiven.

They followed him.

The front hall felt like a different world. Warm wood. Cool stone. The faint smell of herbs and onions from whatever Mrs. Hughes had cooked earlier. Lucy’s stomach tightened at the reminder she hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

Timothy lowered himself onto a bench, shoulders sagging. His skin looked pale, almost thin.

Lucy knelt in front of him. “What did that thing do to you?” she whispered.

“It wasn’t the creature,” Timothy said. His voice was frayed, almost worn through. “It was the effort. Fighting with what strength I have left.” He drew a slow breath. “My power is nearly spent, Lucy. I’ve carried it farther than it was meant to go.”

Fear rose in her chest, but steadied before it could settle. “You’re not dying.”

“Not yet,” he said. “But tonight reminded me that borrowed strength doesn’t last forever.”

Mrs. Hughes gasped when she rounded the corner and saw them. In seconds she had blankets in her arms and was muttering under her breath, moving with the focus of someone who had tended Pendragons her whole life.

Jason leaned against the opposite wall, one leg stiff, his hand pressed hard against his ribs.

“Then we get you rested,” he said. “And figure out how to keep you from burning out.”

Timothy gave him a tired smile. “Practical as always.”

Footsteps hurried down the corridor.

“I’ve got it!” Evan called, skidding into the hall with a dented first aid kit. “And Sam only sat on it twice.”

Jason huffed a laugh and immediately winced. “Careful. I’ll start thinking he likes me.”

“He doesn’t,” Timothy said without opening his eyes. “He tolerates you.”

Evan dropped beside Jason and started sorting through the kit with more determination than skill.

Lucy turned back to Timothy, the scrap of cloth still warm from her palm. “You still have to teach me,” she said quietly. “Not how to fight. Not how to be a Guardian. But how to understand what I am.”

Timothy opened his eyes. The softness there almost undid her. “And I will,” he said. “As long as I can. But Guardian craft was never meant for you.” His gaze flicked briefly toward Jason, as if seeing something she couldn’t yet. Then he looked back at her. “Your path is with your birthright. The Chronicle will show you what words cannot. After tonight, it won’t stay quiet much longer.”

Lucy opened her hand. The dove gray scrap rested across her palm, the silver initials still clear. “They touched this,” she said. “And now I know it.”

Jason watched her, something settled in his expression now, something steady. “They built that thing to kill you,” he said. “And it fell apart the second it reached you.”

Lucy closed her hand. “They think I’m something they can break.”

Jason shook his head. “They’re wrong.”

Timothy nodded. “Where they walk, things wither. Where you stand...” He paused, letting the truth sit between them. “Things pull toward balance.”

He didn’t talk about power. He didn’t need to.

Outside, night settled fully over the grounds. An owl called somewhere beyond the fields. The old house creaked as the air cooled, like it was acknowledging what had just happened.

Lucy slipped the scrap into her pocket. The small monogram rested over her heart.

“They found me once,” she said quietly. “Without even knowing who I was.”

Jason straightened with a sharp breath. “They won’t get another chance like that.”

Lucy met his eyes. “No. They won’t.” She looked toward Timothy too. “But not tonight. Jason needs to heal. And Timothy even more. We face whatever comes next when all of us can stand.”

Timothy leaned back, eyes drifting closed, breath thin but steady. “The Chronicle waits,” he whispered. “And after tonight, it will not wait much longer.”

Lucy stood in the center of the hall, Rowanmere warm around her, the truth in her pocket, and the future beginning to press close enough to feel. The Circle had reached for her. They had failed.

Next time, she would not be caught unprepared.

She would be ready.