The War Within

 

There is a war.
You don’t remember why it started. But you wake to its echo every time you close your eyes.

The sky is stitched with cracks.
The ground flickers — charred wood, marble, blood.
Aren wakes, trembling.

He doesn’t know where he is.
He doesn’t know who he is.

Ashen crows drop feathers whispering his name:
“Aren.”
“Aren.”
But that’s not his name anymore.

A child waits in the Hollow.
Masked. Still. Watching.

“You burned them,” the child says.
“No, I was trying to—”
“You always say that.”

Drums. Flags. War is coming from both sides.

Because he is the war.
He always was.


Read chapter 1 here