Chapter 56:
The Hollow Sings with Life
The divine child did not cry.
He sang.
Not with words, but with frequencies—subtle harmonies that reshaped the Hollow around him. The grass stood taller, greener. Stone softened. Rivers curled toward him like loyal pets. Time slowed, thickened.
Errin knelt before his son, unsure whether to touch or worship him.
The child's first breath shimmered gold, and the world responded.
Birds from ancient epochs returned, gliding through skies that shimmered with ancestral auroras. Old trees began to sprout new shoots, even those declared long dead by the valley sages.
The Hollow had become a temple.
The goddess approached, sweat on her brow but wonder in her heart.
> "He is not of this cycle," she whispered. "He is from the one that came before, and the one that must come again."
Errin said nothing.
But the child turned to face him, eyes wide, and for a moment—his features resembled Errin's own face from boyhood, gentle yet unyielding.
The child lifted his hand. A wave of light surged into the sky, piercing the veil of the Hollow and shining outward—into space, time, and soul.
---
WHISPERS BEFORE THE STORM
Far beyond the Hollow, deep in the folds of dark space, Errin walked alone through a realm of silence known only to creators. Here, he would face the weight of his transformation—and the truth that the vessel must also evolve.
He stared into a mirrored lake made of memory.
From its surface, versions of himself emerged—not illusions, but discarded selves: the lover who never left, the warrior who became cruel, the coward who fled before battle, the child who was abandoned.
Each version asked him one question:
> "Would you be me, if things had gone differently?"
Errin answered none. Instead, he whispered back:
> "I carry you all... but I am not only you."
From behind him, a voice spoke—the voice of the Seventh Heaven's ancient guardian, long presumed dead.
> "You walk into fire and speak like a god.
But your son may inherit your silence... or your storm."
Errin turned.
The guardian threw a shard of silver flame at him—the Trial of Fates. It hit his chest and split into twelve spirals, burrowing into his soul.
Now Errin would see the paths that lay ahead—twelve possible futures, each filled with conflict, love, betrayal, death, or transcendence.
And he had to choose only one.
---or could he not?