One Step Closer

Darius and Lyle try to reach an understanding.

“It wasn’t luck I found you in the Shamrock,” Lyle went on, eyes burning. “I followed rumors. Stories of a smuggler captain with a past he wouldn’t talk about. And when I saw you...older, rougher, but still you...I knew.”

Darius lowered his gaze. “Lyle, if I’d known...”

“You didn’t want to know,” Lyle snapped. “You never reached for the past. You buried it. Left me to climb out alone.”

He raised one shaking hand toward the Hollow, its tendrils writhing like smoke above the waves. “But I found a ladder out of that pit. I found this.”

“That’s not a ladder,” Darius said quietly. “It’s a noose.”

Lyle faltered.

Darius stepped closer. The wind tore at his coat, but he didn’t stop. “You’re right. I ran. I was scared, and I made myself forget. But I remember now. I remember us. And I remember who you were before all of this.”

Lyle’s jaw clenched. “That boy is gone.”

“No, he’s still here. Reaching through all this pain. I see him.” Darius extended his hand, the shard in his palm glowing softly, not pulsing with power, but light. Warm. Familiar.

“We can end this. Together.”

Lyle looked at the hand. Looked at the Hollow. For one flickering second, something in him shifted.

And then the Treaders stepped forward; grinding, creaking, metal wrapped monsters sensing weakness in their master.

The Hollow surged.

Lyle’s face twisted with grief and fury. “I can’t.”

“Yes, you can,” Darius said. “You just have to choose us. Not him. Not the Hollow. Us.”

Thunder cracked above. The dock shuddered.

Lyle stared at Darius’s hand.

Then, slowly...trembling...he reached.

But the Hollow screamed.

And the storm broke.