Page 18 of A Voice of Silver and Blood (Crown of Echoed Dreams #1)

HEARTLINES AND HOLLOWLANDS

T he storm has passed and left quiet in its wake. But this isn’t a peaceful quiet. It’s a vast, empty silence that feels like a held breath.

I jerk up, curled on the couch, my guitar resting against my thigh, one hand draped over the strings.

I don’t remember falling asleep. A prickling sensation runs up my spine, a cold echo of what I felt at the warehouse last night.

I try to replay the melody from last night, but it’s not there.

The notes fall apart when I try to recreate them, the chords refuse to form. The Dream is quiet.

I place the guitar carefully aside, uncertain fear that the wrong note might fracture the moment.

My shirt is clinging. I must’ve been sweating in my sleep.

Bad dreams, maybe, though I don’t remember what they were.

The impression of them had teeth. Shadows, and a voice not my own whispering in a language I somehow understood.

As I pull the shirt away from my skin, a phantom scent of decay and ozone clings to me, sharp and wrong .

Milo’s scarf lies in a crumpled heap on the table. I grab it and press it to my chest hoping it might anchor me, but it doesn’t. I stand, grab the garbage bag I forgot to take out yesterday, and head for the back door. My limbs feel too light, like I’m not fully inside my body.

The alley is damp, glistening. Water beads on the overflowing dumpster. The bricks are darker from the rain. Somewhere nearby, a dog barks once, then falls silent. The clouds above are breaking apart, pale gray veined with streaks of gold.

I breathe in and try to settle myself, but then I feel it. The hairs on the back of my neck rise. A pressure, not cold exactly, but a thinning sensation—like the air is less. A vacuum waiting to be filled. I turn.

The alley stretches behind me the way it always has, but… the corners don’t look right. There’s a section past the fire escape where the light doesn’t touch. Shadows hang there like drapes. And the concrete there doesn’t reflect water. It’s matte. Like it’s soaking light into itself.

I take a slow step forward, the garbage bag slipping from my fingers unnoticed.

Static builds in my ears. A faint ringing, like the moment before a microphone shrieks with feedback.

The pressure climbs behind my eyes and my vision.

..twists. The walls of the alley elongate, the bricks breathing in and out.

The air tastes of rust and old, forgotten dreams.

I try to back away—but I’ve already stepped too far in. The world lurches then the shadows swallow me.

Not a metaphor. Not an illusion. One step too far and the world collapses inward like a lung exhaling its last breath.

Sound disappears first. The wind, the rustle of plastic against brick, the city’s distant hum—all gone. Not replaced by silence, but by a vast absence . A silence so deep it felt violent. My ears ring with it.

Then gravity unthreads.

My feet are on the ground—or maybe not. I float, or sink, or stagger in place.

I can’t tell. The alley is there but it isn’t, walls flicker, stretch, ripple like heat rising off asphalt.

The bricks shimmer between red and gray and something darker than shadow.

The sky above is wrong, colorless, blank. No clouds. No stars. No light.

And the air…

I try to breathe, but nothing fills my lungs. I panic. Fear overwhelms everything.

I reach for the wall—but my fingers blur. I see my hand, but I don’t feel it. My skin is there, but it’s detached, like I’m watching a puppet controlled on a delay. The weight of my body is wrong—off-center, dissolving.

Shapes flicker.

Movement in the corner of my eye—just at the edge. A child running past. A woman weeping into her hands. A man digging a grave with a knife. None of them touch me, none of them look at me, but the feeling of them presses in.

Memories. Not mine. Not quite real. Replays from something starved.

I spin, disoriented.

I’m slipping . I know it instinctively, the way you know you’re falling in a dream. The ground tilts. My vision fractures. My heart must be racing but even that feels distant, dulled.

And then—a voice cuts through the rot .

“Skye.”

I turn. Light rips into the twisted space—not sunlight, but something cooler. Silver-edged. The veil thins.

Faelan stands at the edge. One hand outstretched to me, his katana in the other. Hair still damp from the rain. His coat fluttering unnaturally in rebellion against the stillness, like it reacts to a different breeze. His eyes blaze with silver—not glowing, but reflecting something I can’t see.

“You have to come back. Now. ”

I try to move toward him. My limbs drag like I’m caught in honey. My vision doubles, then triples. The scene fractures again—half a dozen versions of him flickering like bad reception.

“I—can’t—” I manage to gasp. My voice barely carries. It sounds like I’m speaking through layers of water.

Faelan steps in .

The space instantly reacts, hungrily.

The walls pulse. A long, low sound—a groan not of any creature, but of place . Like the space itself resents him.

The air thickens. The shadows rear like smoke, furious. His light dims. He drops to one knee, hand pressed against the ground as if anchoring the world to himself. It works.

The warping stills. The static backs off. His presence burns like a flare in the dark, giving shape to the unformed.

“Take my hand,” he grits out. “Now. Before it sees you.”

My heart stutters. “What sees me?”

He doesn’t answer .

Behind me, something moves . Not a person or a dream. Not memory. Something this negative space made .

I lunge toward Faelan. Our fingers touch—and the world snaps .

Sound crashes back in. Wind. Rain. Distant traffic. The slam of my body hitting wet pavement. Faelan’s arm around my waist, holding me steady.

We’re out.

Back in the alley. The real alley. My vision takes a second to realign. My skin buzzes like I’ve been electrocuted. I stumble back from him, gasping.

“What the hell ?”

Faelan exhales shakily.

“A Hollowland. A place where the Dream goes to die.”

I stare at the place I just escaped. The shadows that were there are gone. The alley looks normal. Empty. Real. Normal. But it isn’t. I know it isn’t.

Faelan sinks against the brick wall, his face pale, eyes dimmed.

“You shouldn’t have been able to slip in,” he says, voice thin. “Unless it wanted you.”

His eyes meet mine—haunted. Scared, but I don’t think it’s of the place he pulled me from. I don’t know why, but the fear behind his eyes is there when he looks at me.

I crouch with my back against the wall, hands braced on my knees, heart thundering like it still thinks I’m in that place. The air feels thin and unsatisfying. Real, but wrong. Or maybe I’m what’s wrong. I can’t tell .

Faelan kneels a few feet away, pale under the streetlamp, his wet, silky white hair clinging to the sharp lines of his jaw. His breathing is steadier than mine, but only just. His coat is soaked through, and his silver eyes are dimmer, as if something inside him has been leeched away.

“What was that?” I ask, repeating the question because nothing makes sense.

He doesn’t answer right away, staring at the alley, but not like he’s seeing it—like he’s sensing whether it’s still safe.

“It’s over,” he says at last. “We’re clear. For now.”

“That’s not what I asked.” A flicker of something crosses his face—guilt, maybe. Or fatigue. He stands slowly, offering me a hand. I don’t take it. I push myself up and face him. “What was that…place?”

I press again, quieter now, but sharper.

“A Hollowland,” he says.

“You said that. It doesn’t help. Try again.”

“You know so little,” he says, frowning and shaking his head. He sighs then continues. “A place where the Dream has been drained. Where nothing lives. Not even memory.”

“I saw things,” I say, staring.

“You always see things,” he says.

“No, I mean I saw people, places, like it was…like memories that weren’t mine.” I search for the words to describe or define what happened. “Like I was slipping into someone else’s death.”

Faelan looks away .

“That’s what happens in Hollowlands,” he says. “They pull at you. Break you apart from the inside out. You stepped into a place where a Freehold once lived—and died. That death left a wound in the Dream—an emptiness, a scar, a hunger.”

“Why did it want me?”

His jaw tightens. He doesn’t answer. I take a step closer.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know.”

He exhales, and the sound is all exhaustion.

“Because you’re a Shaper. And Hollowlands… hate Shapers. You’re the only ones who can survive the border without unraveling.”

“But I was unraveling.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t go deeper.”

I swallow. A shiver trails down my spine that I can’t suppress. I blink, look at the space one more time, then back to him.

“What happens if I had?”

His gaze cuts to me. Flat. Unflinching.

“You’d have forgotten your name.”

The answer lands hard. Not dramatic. Not poetic. Just terrifyingly matter-of-fact . A chill creeps over me, colder than the rain.

“How many things are you not telling me?” I ask.

Faelan runs a hand through his wet hair. He looks older, worn raw. He doesn’t look directly at me, staring down the alley as if he’s seeing some future or some other place .

“Too many. And I wish I could stop it. Tell you everything, but the more you know, the more you’ll be noticed. And the more they’ll try to use what you are.”

My jaw tightens. “So I’m safer being ignorant?”

“No,” he says. “You’re never safe. But knowledge has its own cost.”

I let that hang between us, bitter and heavy. Then he looks at me again—really looks. The way someone does when they think they’ve run out of chances and still hope for one more.

“I came for you,” he says. Simple. Steady. “Even though it meant stepping into that place.”

I blink. I didn’t ask him to come after me. I didn’t ask for any of this. All I want is to save my brother and keep on… what? Surviving? I choke down my protests. His words shouldn’t matter, but they do. They settle somewhere in me, under the fear and fury.

There’s a long pause. A breath between us. He reaches like he might brush my shoulder—but doesn’t. His fingers graze my sleeve instead. Just barely.

It’s nothing. It’s everything. The streetlamp flickers. The shadows shift. We both feel it—the current. The pull. And neither of us moves. Not forward. Not away. We’re… suspended. Orbiting one another.

“Don’t go wandering into the dark alone,” he says at last, softly.

“I didn’t mean to,” I say. My voice still feels thin. The Hollowland’s residue prickles my skin, but Faelan’s presence is a solid, grounding weight. He gives a crooked half-smile.

“That’s worse. ”

The rain has eased to a whisper. Everything smells like rust and asphalt and ozone.

The Hollowland is gone, but I feel its echo in my bones.

I’m still shaking, but I’m trying not to show it.

Faelan’s hand brushes mine again. Intentional this time.

It’s the faintest contact, like he’s asking a question without words.

I should pull away. I don’t. Instead, I feel the lingering ghost of the Freehold’s hum in my fingertips, and his touch feels like a circuit closing.

“You’re not okay,” he says quietly.

“No,” I admit. “But I’m still here.”

He studies me, rain sliding down his cheek like a tear he’d never allow.

His silver eyes are darker than the sky above us, full of questions he won’t ask and truths he doesn’t want to say.

There’s a longing in his gaze, a vulnerability that makes my chest ache.

You shouldn’t be here, my head says, but my body refuses to move.

“You could’ve died in there,” he murmurs. “I shouldn’t have let you get so close.”

“And how were you going to stop me?” I meet his gaze. He doesn’t argue. “But you did come for me.”

That gets a reaction—a flicker of emotion too fast to name. He leans closer, not touching me, but the space between us is charged, thick with whatever this is. The air thickens with a silent question that hangs between us. He raises his hand, not to touch me, but it hovers near my face, uncertain.

“You don’t know what you’re asking for.”

I don’t answer with words. I just hold his gaze and tilt my chin up slightly, a silent dare. He looks at me like I’m the answer to a riddle he’s been trying to forget. The distance between us shatters. His forehead presses to mine—barely, barely there .

“I can’t be what you want,” he breathes. “And I can’t walk away.”

My pulse stutters. “I don’t want you to walk away.”

The rain picks up again, soft and steady. It runs in cold rivulets down my back, but I don’t move. Neither does he. The world around us fades, leaving only the two of us suspended in the space between the Waking and the Dream.

“I have to find Milo,” I whisper.

“I know.”

“I’ll do anything to get him back.”

“I know that, too.”

The moment hangs—so full of all the things we’re not saying it could drown us.

He pulls back before I do, eyes lingering on me like a final promise.

The quiet ache in his expression mirrors the one in my own heart.

He turns away into the mist and the wet and the hum of streetlights, leaving me alone.

But I’m not alone. Not anymore. I stand for a long time in the alley, letting the rain soak through my clothes, breathing like I’m learning how all over again.

Something shifted tonight. Not just the way the world warped and breathed around me.

Not just the hollow pull of the Dream curling at the edges of what’s real.

Something in me is shifting. Splitting. Waking.

The part that’s still Skye—sister, survivor, the girl who refuses to break.

And the part that answers when Faelan looks at me like that.

Like I’m not just a key. Not just power.

Like I’m wanted. When he stands so close I can feel his heat, the weight of everything unsaid between us.

It’s a dangerous feeling, a distraction I can’t afford.

My duty is to Milo. My will is to find him.

But Faelan... Faelan is the ache I can no longer ignore.

He is the song I can’t recreate. He is the quiet hum that resonates against my skin.

And gods help me, a part of me aches for him.

For this. And for the first time since my brother disappeared, I find myself with two different kinds of resolve.

Whatever this is between us, it’s real. It’s dangerous. It’s not going away. And whatever’s coming next—I won’t run from it. Not if he’s with me. Not if he looks at me like that again.