The Hollow Gods (The Chaos Cycle #1)

Chapter 48

Chapter

Forty-Eight

Miya

Miya was back in the void, wraithlike as she floated through time and space. She searched for her feet, trying to force herself lower until she touched a pathway with nothing but darkness around it. The stones were weathered, cracked, and crumbling. She sensed him nearby, waiting for her to speak.

“You were there when it happened,” she said. “When they burned the girl—your girl.”

“She was his girl, too.”

The voice remained disembodied. “You blamed your brother for what happened. But you also blamed the Dreamwalker.”

“I didn’t know this Dreamwalker while I lived. But the First knew her. I joined the First when I died.”

“You and the First share the same soul.”

“We do.”

“But the First hates the Dreamwalker,” Miya insisted. “Joining him only continues this vicious cycle. You’re just creating the same destruction that destroyed you.”

“Creation...destruction...we think of them as opposites, and yet they are like brothers—two sides of the same coin.”

“Like you and your brother? You seem to think he’s the destructive one.”

“He is. He ended me.” His words betrayed a lingering wound. “But I wished for him to lose the girl as penance for his destruction, and this desire created fertile soil for fear to grow among the villagers. My thoughts were in one place, but my heart—my soul—was in another.”

“You think your soul created this fear? But you didn’t do anything wrong,” Miya called into the void. “I was in your head; I heard your thoughts. You were jealous of your brother, but you didn’t want anyone to get killed.”

“But did I truly, in my heart of hearts?” the voice of Mirek confessed . “ I always looked down on my brother. Something in me wanted to see him punished. It was justice.”

Miya wondered: could the darkness hidden in a person’s heart—passed down from histories they didn’t even understand—be so contrary to what they believed in their mind?

“Do you think those desires were inherited from the First?”

“Was it not the First who began it all?” He laughed—a bitter, humourless sound. “If I share the same soul as the First, am I not responsible for birthing such fear?”

“You weren’t able to cope with the guilt,” she observed, “so you blamed your brother. You convinced yourself it was his fault for being destructive, but deep down, you believed you created this. You thought she died because of you.”

“I did it. I wished it, and it happened. It was my will. It was the First’s will.”

“You overestimate your importance,” she hissed, repulsed by his narcissism. “History is bigger than you and your feelings.”

“Feelings are all I had. Even after so many lifetimes, I could not best them.”

Miya never imagined one of Abaddon’s incarnations to be so self-deprecating. Yet what was it worth when the self-loathing became an excuse to loathe others? His guilt was meaningless.

“What happened after you died?” she asked.

“I returned, unified with the First,” he told her . “We awoke as Abaddon. And together, we created madness. The villagers set fire to the forest—burned it all to the ground just so they could find the black wolf.”

It was crippling; to think an emotion could be so overpowering, that it could birth a collective driven by a singular purpose. “And did they?”

“My brother and I always find each other.”

“But it brought you no peace.”

“I have forsaken peace. The First and I—and all those between—will remain here forever. Our axis is long broken.”

Miya whirled around, trying to find the source of the voice. “So the First is the author of all this? The one who set the village against the Dreamwalker?”

“We are her enemies, yes.”

“But that’s insane!” Her voice echoed through the hollow chasm. “Can’t you see that the woman you loved was burned to death because of the choices you made in a past life? Your first incarnation set this in motion. You’ve merely lived the consequences of that. Now you’re wilfully choosing to continue doing the same thing?”

“Do you think reason matters to the cursed, girl? I only came here to tell you of what I lived. As for the First—his story is his own.”

“Why does the First hate the Dreamwalker so much?” she interrogated him, but he only dwelled on his own loss.

“My brother took her from me. And she took my brother from me.” There was a pause before he continued. “In the end, I was alone. The First understood this. He lived it.”

“I want to meet the First.”

“For that,” the voice rumbled, “you will need to go deeper.”

The stone path beneath Miya’s feet crumbled. In the distance, she saw a speck of light, like a firefly, floating amidst the darkness. Gradually, it grew larger, ascending like the sun as she fell into the abyss beneath her. As her body tilted with the pull of gravity, Miya found herself upside down, the sunrise turning to sunset. The great orb disappeared, and her feet found the ground.

Up ahead there was a hill covered in dozens of scattered lumps, but Miya couldn’t make out what they were.

As she approached, she realized the protrusions were comatose bodies, lined up in perfectly symmetrical rows that stretched to the horizon’s edge. They were unmoving, lifeless as gravestones. And like gravestones, they all looked the same—similar in size and build with blurry faces and plain, grey garments. Still, Miya knew them; her soul reverberated with recognition. They were her previous incarnations—the victims of the spirit she sought: the First.

He was sitting on a large rock at the top of the hill, staring down at the women as though he was their king. His face was obscured in shadow, but his presence was distinct; it was the same as the king of spades who referred to himself as Abaddon.

“Come here,” he crooned, his voice inviting.

Miya wanted to meet him, but she remained guarded in her approach. At first, the climb seemed endless, like no matter how far she walked up the hill, she couldn’t get any closer. She heard him laugh before he extended an arm, pulling her to him as though he was a magnet.

As soon as Miya was in front of him, she realized he was the one who looked like Kai—the man with cold, yellow eyes. She could see him clearly now—the lines of his face identical to those of the man she’d grown close to.

“Are you—”

“I am the First,” he answered, his voice smoother and less gruff than Kai’s.

“Does the First have a name?”

“You don’t remember my name, girl?” He seemed disappointed.

“Like I said before, we’ve never met.”

“Ah—that again,” he chuckled, then spread his arms out towards the mass of bodies before them. “Why not lie down and rest?”

His offer was surprisingly tempting. He must have known how exhausted Miya was, how badly she wanted to sleep. She reckoned he was the one draining her.

“Is that what you told these other people?” she challenged. “I already know that if I fall asleep here, I’ll never wake up.”

“You will,” he smiled, “if you know where to stop.”

The words meant nothing to Miya. He was trying to seduce her, to distract her from her purpose. “You’re the reason Kai’s in so much pain. You’re also the reason this village hasn’t been able to move on from its bloody past. You keep bringing it back. You’re the reason Elle’s dead.”

“I don’t make the villagers kill their women.” He sounded offended by her insinuation. “They do it themselves. Sometimes alone, sometimes as a community. Even when warned by the Dreamwalker, your Elle fell prey to Black Hollow’s madness.”

“You push them to it.” Miya swallowed, something tart and astringent oozing down her throat. “I’m not trying to absolve them of their sins by blaming you. They’re accountable for their actions. But you’re also accountable for your intentions.”

“You would judge someone for their intent alone?”

“You’re a spirit,” she told him. “Intent is all you have.”

“Do you believe that intent has power, girl?”

“You’ve already proven it does,” she said. “But what’s the point of this? Endlessly repeating this miserable cycle? You’ve condemned your soul to an eternity here just so you can carry out some vindictive scheme a million times over. What does any of this prove?”

He pulled back and looked at her with eyes that bled pure malevolence. “It proves that I have control.”

“Who the fuck do you think you are? God?” Miya glared down the phantom. He was so unlike the man lying next to her back in the physical world. “Having control over someone else doesn’t make you free.”

He said nothing, but smiled bitterly, his cold eyes faltering in the brief second it took her to blink.

“You would say that, wouldn’t you?” he mocked as though he knew her, then sighed once the irritation had washed over him and passed. “But it has always been you I despise most.”

“What did I ever do to you?” Miya demanded. “Why’d you turn so bitter?”

“There is no pleasure in exiling someone who wants to be exiled,” he spat. “And there is no sense in talking about reasons. They’re like quicksand. The past is the past, and it cannot change the present.”

Miya didn’t understand his meaning. Had he confused her with someone else? “But it has changed the present,” she insisted. “And it continues to. Haunting changes things.”

A hint of a smile coloured his sinister lips before he asked, “Why are you here? How did you get so far in?”

He didn’t need to know the truth.

“I had help.”

The First threw his head back and laughed—the sound vacant. “Or you are not who you think you are.”

His words rattled her until she lost awareness of her feet. Looking down, Miya saw thorny roots coiling around her ankles.

“Sleep with these people,” he tempted her again. “Dream with them. If you wake up, I will show you what you wish to know.”

“There is no waking up from this,” she rebuked, certain he was trying to trick her.

Again, he smiled, his teeth shining like pearls as he repeated his earlier condition. “You will wake up if you know where to stop.”

“You’ll have to do better than that if you want me to risk my life,” Miya challenged. This monster had chipped away at Kai for years—a dark taint that followed him wherever he went. The First had a singular goal: to create misery no one could escape, least of all Miya and her black wolf. Even if Miya didn’t care for the townspeople, she cared for Kai deeply enough to risk everything to free them both. “Giving me information won’t be enough. If I win this wager, you have to break the cycle. Leave Kai, and Black Hollow, forever. Promise me that, and I’ll take you up on your offer.”

At first, he appeared stunned she’d bargain with him, but his expression quickly soured. “Greedy woman,” he accused, his mouth twisting into a grimace. “Your death is not worth that risk.”

“Fine,” she held her ground. “What would make it worth the risk? If I lose, what do you want from me?”

He took pause and weighed her words. It was like he’d never considered it because no one had ever asked him. For a moment, Miya felt something other than disdain towards him—pity, perhaps—but it vanished when she saw that cold smile spread over his face.

“You,” said the First. “I want you. Here. Forever. Willing and aware—a living spirit in my own personal hell.”

“You...don’t want to be alone?” Miya staggered, amazed that an entity who kept the company of corpses would desire the companionship of his enemy. “Why would you want that?”

“A living trophy is far more appealing than a dead one.”

“Didn’t realize you were in the market for a new toy.” Miya wondered—if she failed, if she ended up trapped with him forever, would she ever be reincarnated in the physical plane again?

“Accept my challenge,” he cooed, “and you may be the first to survive the flames. You may even break this wretched cycle. I will bring you home, and this will all come to an end.”

“And if I don’t?”

His lips pulled back. “We both know you are well beyond the white wolf’s reach. You will never find your way out, little lamb. And if you do, death by fire awaits you.” He waved his hand through the air as if sweeping aside a partition to the next world.

Smoke filled Miya’s lungs; she could smell the char. She heard Mason’s cries as he ducked into cover while Ama fought off a man twice her size. She saw Kai, blood-soaked and backed into a corner. He was clutching his arm—limp from a wound to the shoulder. And behind him, she saw her own body lying unconscious, helpless, useless.

“You could be lying,” Miya refuted, but she could still feel the flames licking her skin. She knew the villagers were on their heels. There was no reason to doubt they’d burn everything in their path. If she didn’t stop this, they’d keep coming until she, Kai, Ama, and Mason were dead.

“That is your risk to take,” he replied with a mild shrug, the vision dissipating with another wave of his hand. “Even if you die, there will always be another. And another. And another.”

He had a point.

Battered by doubt, Miya lay down on the hill with the rest of the bodies. “I don’t trust you,” she said to the figure looming over her.

“A fair prerogative,” he chuckled.

Just as Miya was about to close her eyes, she remembered a burning question. Mirek and the black wolf were brothers, so what of the First and Kai? She looked up and asked him, “Who is the black wolf?”

Still sitting on his throne, the king of corpses leaned over, shadows enveloping his face as those two golden eyes gleamed at her—drawing closer until his lips pressed against her forehead and he whispered, “My brother.”

The reiteration of this bond and the violence it inspired—reincarnated through the ages—sucked the air from Miya’s lungs. She was all at once pulled into the earth and buried into darkness—sinking deeper into the dreamscape until she was certain that she was lost.