Varelis Rayne – The Hollow Sky

They dressed me like a bride.White silk clings to my skin like the breath of ghosts—pure, cold, and cruel. My face is hidden beneath a sheer veil, embroidered with starlight thread, as if even now, they wish me beautiful for him.For it.For the Dragon-God who watches from the Spire of Wings. The walk is long. Each step up the cliffside path echoes with drums and mourning flutes—the music of sacrifice disguised as celebration. A gift, they call me. An honor. A holy offering to the Hollow Sky. But my hands tremble around the flowers I hold—pale blue lilies, soft as death. I dare not cry.The veil would cling to wet skin and reveal my shame. The cliff winds upward through mist and silence. My feet bleed beneath the white—no one told me how steep it would be. No one warned me how quiet it would feel to die like this.Only the wind speaks now.And it speaks of him. They tie me at the altar like all the maidens before.My wrists are bound with ceremonial silk—too soft to fight, too sacred to question. It doesn’t cut, but it bruises. I do not struggle. I am not here to win. I am here to be chosen…and devoured. The priests murmur their rites, their voices trembling beneath ritual composure. They smell of incense and fear. One of them drops the prayer blade. None of them pick it up. Their eyes flicker like cowards. They don’t stay. None ever do. The moment my hands are secured, they flee—scurry—down the mountain like rats abandoning a drowning soul.They don’t even look back.They never look back. And then…The silence comes. Not empty. Never empty.It is thick with breath.Heavy with presence.The air bends—not from pressure, but from reverence. Something old is here. Something aware. The sky darkens—not with cloud, but with memory. A wrongness in the light.The wind curls around me like fingers. Not gentle. Curious. Possessive. I smell starlight and ash. The cliffs shudder beneath my knees.The altar stone warms beneath my bound wrists.The veil dances without breeze. The air shifts. He is coming.The Dragon.The cursed god of Syr’Nhaal.The Hollow Sky incarnate. My pulse hammers in my throat. I feel it in my mouth, like a swallowed scream. My heartbeat isn’t mine anymore. It moves to his rhythm.A low hum thrums in the stone.My breath catches—held by something that doesn’t breathe.And then… I feel his gaze. It doesn't fall on me—it enters me. Like moonlight in deep water. Cold. Quiet. Knowing.He sees through the veil.He sees the blood in my knees.He sees the flicker of doubt behind my stillness. I do not dare look up.But I feel him—tall, divine, sorrow-wrapped and wicked—stepping from illusion into flesh. The air does not stir.It bows. A voice stirs the silence—low, lyrical, and utterly unholy.His voice. “They veil you in silk and call it sacrifice...But silk burns.”