The path behind Kael faded into silence.
But the bottle didn't.
It pulsed once—
then again—
then ignited in a flicker of green and silver light.
Not bright.
But focused.
Kael staggered.
The world didn't spin.
It inverted.
His sight folded inward,
like his thoughts had turned around to face him.
He was no longer in the cavern.
He was watching.
Through the bottle's lens.
A vision bloomed across his mind:
Cold corridors.
Stone wet with age.
The scent of root moss and burned herbs.
The Hollow.
His home.
His prison.
Still there.
Still dying.
He saw the central chamber—cracked.
The sleeping garden—flooded.
The trial ring—collapsed into itself.
He saw shadows moving through the ruins.
Not disciples.
Not beasts.
Outsiders.
Clad in armor that shimmered like refracted sky.
And one of them—
One held something round.
Something glowing.
Another bottle.
Kael's heart seized.
The image twisted again.
He was pulled deeper.
Faster.
The vision raced through ruined corridors until—
Elric.
Standing alone.
Barefoot.
Cloaked in white scorched by flame.
Coughing into his sleeve.
Still alive.
Still waiting.
He looked up.
Not at Kael.
At the bottle.
As if he knew.
The vision shattered.
Kael fell to one knee.
His skin burned with the weight of what he saw.
Not pain.
Memory.
The Hollow wasn't done with him.
And someone—maybe everyone—
was coming for what the bottle contained.
Kael stood slowly.
The air around him crackled.
Not with heat.
But decision.
He looked down at the bottle.
It was still again.
Asleep.
But he could feel the path it had drawn for him.
Not away.
Back.
Mara had once said the Hollow was a cage.
She wasn't wrong.
But maybe—
It was also a mirror.
And Kael finally knew what it had been showing him all along.
He turned toward the upper slope.
Toward the entrance.
Toward the Hollow.
Not because he was called.
But because he chose to go.