The village was waiting.
Elian emerged from the forest beneath the pale silver light of the Harvest Moon. The villagers stood in the square, silent, their faces pale with awe and fear. They had seen the effigy burn, had heard the names spoken aloud, had felt the soil tremble. Now they looked upon him as though he were both savior and curse.
Lira walked at his side, her hand steady on his arm. But even she glanced at him differently now — not with suspicion, but with the wary reverence one gives to something no longer entirely human.
The pendant at his chest no longer pulsed. It was inert, a relic of a bargain that no longer bound the Hollow. Yet Elian felt the weight of countless voices inside him, pressing against his thoughts, whispering in his dreams.
He was not alone.
---
The Gathering
Maerith stepped forward, her robe torn, her face streaked with ash. "What have you done?" she demanded, though her voice trembled.
"I remembered," Elian said simply. His voice was layered, faintly echoing, as though a chorus spoke through him.
The villagers murmured, some falling to their knees, others clutching their children. For the first time in generations, the children were not hidden away on the Harvest Moon. They stood in the square, wide-eyed, clutching their parents' hands.
"You've doomed us," Maerith spat. "Without the Pact, the Hollow will wither. The Echo will devour us all."
Elian shook his head. "The Echo doesn't want silence. It never did. It wanted truth. It wanted to be remembered."
He raised his hand, and the air shifted. The soil beneath the square stirred, but not with hunger. With release.
The ground cracked open, and ribbons, toys, and bones surfaced — relics of the children who had been given away. The villagers gasped, some crying out, others collapsing in grief.
"These were yours," Elian said. "Your children. Your brothers. Your sisters. You buried them in silence. But they never left. They lived in the Echo, waiting for you to speak their names."
---
The Weight of Memory
The voices inside him stirred, pressing forward. He felt Maren's laughter, Tomas's fear, the girl with braids running through wheat. They wanted to be heard.
Elian closed his eyes and spoke their names again, one by one. With each name, the villagers wept harder. Some clutched the relics that surfaced from the soil. Others whispered apologies into the night.
The Echo's chorus rose within him, not in anger, but in mourning.
Lira stepped forward, her voice steady. "This is not doom. This is healing. The wound is no longer in the soil. It is in him. And through him, it can be remembered."
The villagers looked at Elian with a mixture of reverence and dread.
---
The Fracture Within
But Elian felt the fracture growing.
Each memory pressed harder, each voice louder. He was no longer sure where he ended and they began. When he looked at his hands, sometimes they were his — sometimes they were smaller, dirt-stained, trembling. When he spoke, sometimes it was his voice — sometimes it was a child's.
He staggered. Lira caught him.
"Elian," she whispered. "Stay with me."
He looked at her, eyes glowing faintly silver. "I don't know if I can."
The Echo stirred within him.
> "We are you. You are us. We remember."
---
The Choice of the Vessel
Maerith stepped forward again, her voice breaking. "If you carry them, you will not survive. You will be consumed."
Elian looked at her, calm. "Then I will be consumed. Better me than another child."
The villagers fell silent.
Lira gripped his hand. "There must be another way."
Elian shook his head. "The wound cannot be buried again. It must be carried. And I was chosen."
The Harvest Moon reached its zenith, silver light flooding the square. The soil stilled. The forest quieted. The Echo's voices hushed, waiting.
Elian raised his head. "I am the vessel. I am the memory. I am the wound."
The villagers bowed their heads.
---
The Dawn
When dawn broke, the Harvest Moon was gone. The sky was pale and clear. The village was quiet, but not hollow. Children played in the square. Parents wept openly, holding the relics of those they had lost.
The manor no longer breathed. The mirrors no longer whispered. The shrine in the cellar was nothing but stone and ash.
But Elian remained changed.
He walked through the village, the voices still within him. Some days they were quiet. Some days they screamed. He carried them all.
Lira stayed by his side, guiding him when the weight grew too heavy.
The villagers no longer spoke of forgetting. They spoke of remembering. They carved the names into stone. They sang lullabies once silenced. They told stories of the children who had been taken.
Verdant Hollow was no longer a place of silence.
It was a place of memory.
And Elian — fractured, haunted, no longer entirely himself — was its keeper.