What Grows in the Hollow
Day Two Hundred and Twenty-Seven.
The hollow did not remain empty for long.
At first, it was only scaffolding.
Engineers reinforcing the redistributed weight. Surveyors confirming subsidence had stabilized. Structural monitors humming softly along the rim where the Obsidian Court once pressed like a fist into the earth.
But emptiness, in a city built on density, is never neutral.
People came.
They stood along the perimeter and looked down—not at ruin, not at loss—
At possibility.
Blake arrived just after dawn to find children already there, leaning over the railing while a pair of civic architects argued softly over projection grids.
"What is it today?" he asked one of the guards.
The guard suppressed a smile.
"Public proposals."
Blake arched a brow.
"They're early."
"They're invested."
—
By midmorning, the hollow floor shimmered with layered holographic designs.
A memorial garden.
An open forum amphitheater.
A research nexus.
A marketplace.
A sky-well—a vertical shaft widening upward, designed to draw natural light deep into the lower tiers.
That one made Iria pause.
"You're considering it," Blake murmured.
"Yes."
"It would change airflow across three districts."
"It would equalize it."
He studied the model.
"And symbolically?"
She met his gaze.
"It would mean the light reaches everyone."
—
The Assembly session that followed was unlike any before it.
No factions seated in opposition.
No rigid alignment of Old Guard and reformists.
Instead—
Civilians invited to present.
Engineers debating openly with artists.
Outland envoys offering structural insights learned from exposed terrain settlements.
Sereth stood at the chamber's edge, arms folded but expression unreadable as proposal after proposal shifted from abstract to feasible.
Karys Venn attended too.
She did not speak.
She listened.
When the sky-well projection expanded again across the chamber ceiling, illuminating even the shadowed upper arches, murmurs spread—not fearful.
Awed.
"It would require partial removal of sublevel reinforcement," a councilor warned.
"Which we can replace with lattice-based load distribution," Iria replied.
"Cost?"
"High."
"Risk?"
"Moderate."
Blake leaned forward.
"Return?"
Iria didn't hesitate.
"Long-term atmospheric stability. Psychological integration. Symbolic cohesion."
A pause.
"And?" Blake pressed quietly.
She looked at the chamber—at faces that no longer divided along predictable lines.
"It tells the city we are not afraid of openness."
—
The vote passed.
Not unanimously.
But decisively.
—
Day Two Hundred and Thirty-Four.
Excavation began again.
This time not to dismantle—
But to carve upward.
The sky-well's core shaft was mapped through structural voids left by the Court's removal. Engineers installed adaptive light diffusers. Atmospheric regulators adjusted to account for the new vertical exchange.
As the uppermost barrier panel was cut away, sunlight spilled through the hollow for the first time.
Not diffused by lattice.
Not filtered by canopy.
Direct.
It struck the lowest tier stone and scattered in fractured brilliance.
Gasps rippled through the gathered crowd.
For generations, Noctyrrh had known light as managed.
Measured.
Controlled.
This was different.
Alive.
Blake watched the glow reach Iria's face.
"You did this," he said softly.
"We did," she corrected.
He shook his head slightly.
"You pushed."
She allowed herself a faint smile.
"Yes."
Below, children stepped into the illuminated space cautiously at first—
Then fully.
Hands outstretched.
Laughing.
The hollow no longer looked like a wound.
It looked like a beginning.
—
But growth does not come without friction.
Two nights later, sabotage struck—not the lattice.
The sky-well regulators.
Minor damage.
Containable.
But intentional.
Security detained three individuals—former lower-tier industrial workers displaced during the power redistribution weeks earlier.
Not extremists.
Not Veil loyalists.
Angry.
"We weren't asked," one of them said during interrogation. "You change everything and call it progress. Where do we stand in it?"
Blake watched through the one-way barrier, jaw tight.
Iria stood beside him, quiet.
"They weren't wrong," she murmured.
"They endangered lives."
"Yes."
"And you're sympathizing?"
"I'm listening."
—
The following Assembly session did not begin with reprimand.
It began with acknowledgment.
Iria addressed the chamber—and the city beyond.
"We have moved quickly," she said evenly. "Perhaps too quickly for some."
Murmurs of discomfort.
She continued.
"Change without inclusion breeds fracture. Structural or social."
The projection behind her shifted—not to architectural diagrams—
But employment displacement statistics.
Retraining proposals.
Community oversight councils.
Blake felt the shift immediately.
Not defense.
Adjustment.
The three detainees were not quietly imprisoned.
They were publicly assigned to the sky-well construction oversight board.
Under supervision.
With accountability.
And voice.
The decision drew criticism.
It also drew something else.
Trust.
Fragile.
But real.
—
That night, Blake stood at the rim of the growing sky-well as work lights dimmed and true starlight filtered down its widening throat.
"You're exhausting yourself," he said.
"Probably."
"You don't have to hold every fracture alone."
"I'm not."
She looked down at workers from every tier laboring together beneath suspended beams of light.
"For the first time," she said quietly, "I'm not."
Blake stepped closer.
"When this is finished—what then?"
She considered.
"Then we build outward."
"And if something else fractures?"
"It will."
She turned to him fully.
"And we will answer it."
The sky above Noctyrrh shimmered—not hostile, not gentle.
Open.
The hollow was no longer empty.
It was becoming a conduit.
For air.
For light.
For dissent.
For possibility.
And as stars began to appear in the deepening well of sky, the city did not look upward in fear—
But in recognition.
It had once believed strength meant holding everything in place.
Now it was learning something far more dangerous.
And far more powerful.
Strength could also mean letting something in.