Chapter 3

I spent the next weeks burying my kin.

I dug each grave by hand. 1,512 graves. I laid each body to rest in the soil they had tended for generations. My hands blistered, then bled, then grew numb. The work was my only solace, a final act of love for my murdered family.

When the last grave was filled, I knelt in the center of the newly made cemetery. I stayed there for three days and three nights, without food or water. I was preparing for the Homecoming. It is our most sacred night, when the souls of the newly departed return to their ancestral land one last time before their final journey into the spirit world. I had to be here to guide them.

On the third evening, as the sun bled across the horizon, a convoy of black SUVs drove up the mountain road. They stopped at the edge of the burial ground.

Sabrina' s aide, a young man with a permanently nervous expression, got out. He was flanked by armed officers.

"Ethan Lester," he called out, his voice tight. "Governor Clarkson sends her regrets."

He didn' t look regretful.

"Mr. Fuller has purchased this land. He plans to build a luxury resort here. A wellness retreat."

I didn' t move. I just stared at him.

"The... bodies," the aide continued, stammering slightly. "They have to be removed. Mr. Fuller wants the area cleansed. They' ll be exhumed and cremated."

My blood ran cold. To burn the body of a Hollow Keeper is the ultimate desecration. It severs the soul' s connection to the earth, trapping it between worlds, unable to find rest. It is an eternity of torment.

"No," I said, my voice a raw whisper.

The aide took a step back. "It' s not a request. If you resist, the official death certificates for your entire... clan... will be permanently sealed. Classified. There will be no record of their deaths. No legal recourse. It will be as if they never existed."

He was threatening to erase them from history. To deny them even a name on a stone.

I was trapped. I had no power, no allies, no legal standing. They had thought of everything.

I slowly got to my feet. The officers tensed, their hands on their weapons. But I just stood there, defeated. I watched as the bulldozers rolled in, their engines a deafening roar.

They tore into the earth. They ripped my family from their graves, dumping the coffins into large, unmarked trucks.

I was forced to stand and watch as they desecrated the sacred ground, as they stole my family from me all over again. The Homecoming was tonight. And my kin would have no home to return to. They would be lost.