The deeper they went, the more the city above felt like a memory.
Jace walked in front, boots crunching over gravel and bones long forgotten. The Hollow pulsed against his back—not in warning, but in anticipation. Like it recognized the path.
Reya walked beside him, steadying herself on the crumbling walls when her legs gave out. She was healing slowly. Too slowly. The power she'd drawn from the shard had left something broken inside her. Something fraying.
Lena followed behind, silent. The usual flirt in her stride was gone. She hadn't spoken since they left the bunker.
This place… it didn't allow noise.
It swallowed sound.
The hallway narrowed, walls pressing in, then opened into a chamber that shouldn't have been there.
A cathedral, buried under a city that didn't know it was built on top of a grave.
Jace stopped cold.
The ceiling arched fifty feet above them, ribbed with black stone veined in silver. Columns lined the sides, but they weren't carved by human hands. They curved like bone, twisted and elegant, humming with energy that tickled his teeth.
And at the center of it all—an altar.
Low. Wide. Cracked down the middle like a heart split in two.
Carved into the walls behind it were runes.
Old ones.
No language he'd ever seen, but somehow… he understood them.
Lena stepped forward slowly. "What the hell is this place?"
Reya didn't answer.
She was staring at the runes, lips moving.
Then she turned to Jace. "They're not just runes. They're memories."
Jace blinked. "What?"
She motioned toward the altar. "Sit there. Just try it."
He hesitated.
The Hollow pulsed—hard.
Then he stepped forward.
The second his skin touched the altar—he was gone.
Flashes.
The same cathedral—but alive.
Lit by blood-red lanterns and chanting voices.
A woman stood at the altar, her dress black, her smile cruel. Her hair was tied in gold rings, and her eyes…
Gods, her eyes.
The same as the girl from the dream.
But she was older here.
Wiser.
And in love.
With him.
"You promised," she whispered. "You said we'd be together, even if the world burned."
Jace tried to speak but his mouth wasn't his.
The man she spoke to—his past self—just smiled.
"I meant it."
He raised a blade. It shimmered with a hundred souls screaming beneath its surface.
And then—
Fire. Screams. Betrayal.
Everything shattered.
Jace jerked back, gasping.
Blood dripped from his nose.
Lena rushed to him. "You okay?"
He nodded slowly. "Yeah. I just remembered… something I shouldn't."
Reya had gone pale.
"You saw her, didn't you?"
Jace looked at her. "You know who she is?"
"I don't know how, but yeah. I think she's the first wielder of the Hollow. The original. The one who sealed it."
Lena narrowed her eyes. "So, what, she's your psycho ex-girlfriend from a past life?"
Reya looked at Jace. "If she is, then she's still down here. And if she remembers you…"
"She's waiting," Jace finished quietly. "And the Hollow knows it."
The walls around them trembled, ever so slightly. The runes glowed faintly.
Like they were listening.
Or watching.
Lena stepped closer to the altar and squinted. "There's something under this…"
She pushed.
It groaned open.
A staircase spiraled downward—impossibly deep, lined in red stone that pulsed like flesh.
The air pouring out smelled like ancient blood.
Jace didn't hesitate.
He stepped forward.
"This is it," he said. "Whatever the hell this is, it's been buried for centuries. Maybe longer."
Reya looked nervous. "There's no turning back after this."
"I'm not turning back."
Lena cracked her knuckles. "About time. Let's see what kind of crazy your ex buried under here."
Jace didn't laugh.
Because he wasn't sure this was her doing at all.
He was starting to think—this was his.
And the deeper they went, the more it felt like he was coming home.