Chapter 5 The Heart of the Hollow

The manor had become a storm of chaos and magic. Shadows surged like waves, twisting through corridors, cracking ancient walls, and responding to Aria's every command. She stood in the center of the ruined ballroom, surrounded by ghostlight and ash, her cloak swirling with the dark wind she had summoned.

But deep beneath her rage, something stirred-something older than vengeance and more powerful than the curse that had gripped Raven Hollow for generations.

The journal burned hot in her hands as it flipped pages on its own, revealing a hidden passage written in blood-red ink. Her eyes scanned the script, each word crawling across the page like a warning. It spoke of the Heart of the Hollow-a buried chamber below the manor, sealed by ancestral magic, said to house the source of the curse itself.

Aria's pulse quickened. If she could reach it, she could destroy the root of everything. The betrayal. The vanishing of her family. The lingering spirits that fed off her pain. This was more than revenge now. It was justice. It was closure.

Without hesitation, she sprinted down a crumbling hallway as the manor groaned and twisted around her. The walls breathed, the portraits screamed, and phantom hands reached from the shadows, trying to hold her back. But she moved with purpose, guided by instinct and fury.

At the end of the corridor, a spiraling stone staircase appeared beneath a shattered section of floor. She descended quickly, the air growing colder and thicker with every step. Below, deep beneath Raven Hollow, the stone gave way to a vast chamber, glowing with a faint, pulsing red light.

In the center stood a black altar, cracked and ancient, surrounded by chains made of bone and scorched iron. The Heart of the Hollow. The very core of the curse.

But something else waited there too. A figure. Tall, cloaked in shadow, watching her with eyes that shimmered like molten silver. A voice, smooth and cruel, echoed through the chamber.

"I was wondering when you'd come."

Aria narrowed her eyes and stepped forward. The air sparked around her. She had come for answers. She had come for blood.

And she wasn't leaving until Raven Hollow burned.