The Hollow Vale - Burton Alexander Paul

Act II of Book One of the Tharion Cycle

In the mist-veiled ruins of a crumbling empire, the Bell tolls-and the world begins to unravel.

As Caelwyn ventures deeper into Tharion, where memory dissolves and the Wyrd sings in silence, the path leads her to the Hollow Vale. There, the ground forgets its shape, the air erases names, and the ancient Bell waits beneath fractured stars. Accompanied by a soldier burdened by lost oaths, a smith who hears the stone's sorrow, and a girl untethered by time, Caelwyn must face the cost of remembering a land that is trying to forget itself.

"Sulen noeth vethar: what is forgotten whispers still."

The Hollow Vale: Act II continues the mythic saga of Tharion, where starlight, prophecy, and silence collide in a battle not of swords, but memory itself. For fans of Tolkien, Le Guin, and Susanna Clarke, this is a story where sacrifice hums through every breath, and the Bell's toll reshapes the threads of time.

The Hollow Vale (Acts I, II and III) is the first book in The Tharion Cycle, a mythic fantasy saga steeped in folklore, lyrical prose, and the quiet magic of things that were meant to be forgotten. For fans of Tolkien, Le Guin, and Tamsyn Muir, this is a story where memory is sacred, silence is dangerous, and language is the last line between the world and what waits beneath.