Chapter 39. The Hollow Ridge

It took her nearly a day and a half to reach the outer basin of Hollow Ridge, and even then, she approached from above—not through the main road, but by cutting across the shale-lined bluff where old watchfires had long gone cold. The wind was stronger here. Wiser, somehow. Like it had been carrying stories down from the peaks longer than anyone still living could remember.

Aria paused on the ridge just before dusk, scanning the valley below.

Hollow Ridge wasn’t a city, or even a village in the proper sense. It was a fractured collection of houses and bunk shelters, strung together by old mining paths and firewood trails. Most of it had grown out of the ruins left behind after the last surge of the eastern fault. Everything here leaned, twisted slightly off-center—roofs bowing under wind-stress, fences built from mismatched scraps, windows with shutters held by bone clasps. It was a place that had survived, not flourished. A place that still bore teeth.

She descend