Chapter 4
Bree
I jolt awake gasping. But I’m not in my bed.
I’m standing in the chamber of mirrors, bare feet cold against stone that’s littered with ash. Gray dust swirls around my ankles with every shaky breath, and the air tastes metallic and old—like it remembers choices that turned to ruin.
This isn’t right. The chamber was whole when I was here before. Ancient but intact.
Now the mirrors that line the walls are shattered, jagged edges reflecting nothing but broken darkness. Ash piles scattered across the floor where something once stood. Where someone once stood. The space feels hollow, gutted, like a place where hope came to die.
My heart hammers against my ribs. How did I get here? I was sleeping—Stellan’s arm around me, his presence finally quieting the visions. I was safe.
I turn in a slow circle, trying to make sense of the destruction, and that’s when I notice it.
One mirror remains intact.
It stands directly across from me, tall and elegant, its silver surface gleaming despite the ruin around it. And in that glass, I see myself—but not the me that’s here, barefoot in ash and wearing a wrinkled sleep shirt.
This reflection stands in what looks like the same chamber, but whole. Beautiful. Light pools around her feet instead of dust, and the surfaces behind her glow with soft, ethereal radiance. She looks poised, confident, every gesture flowing with a grace I’ve never possessed.
She looks like a queen.
And she’s looking right at me.
My reflection shouldn’t be able to do that. Shouldn’t be able to tilt her head and smile like she’s been waiting. Like she knows something I don’t.
I take a step toward the mirror, drawn by something I can’t name. The ash crunches under my feet, but in the reflection, she moves across smooth stone that seems to shimmer with its own light.
When I’m close enough to touch the glass, I stop.
She raises her hand, pressing her palm against the surface from her side. Waiting.
I should walk away. Should find a way back to my bed, back to safety. But something in her expression—in my expression—makes me lift my own hand.
The moment my palm meets the glass, the world tilts.
Light explodes across my vision, silver and warm and impossibly bright. The sensation of falling—or flying—and then everything settles into a new kind of stillness.
I’m still in the chamber of mirrors, but everything has changed.
The air feels different here—lighter, charged with possibility instead of loss.
The mirrors around me pulse with gentle radiance, their surfaces whole and clean.
The floor beneath my feet is smooth pale stone that seems to hold its own inner glow, and delicate light drifts through the space like captured starlight.
It’s breathtaking. Sacred. Perfect.
And across the chamber, she’s waiting for me.
“Finally. You came.”
Her voice carries easily across the space, calm and sure. She steps forward, and I watch myself move with a confidence I’ve never felt. This version of me belongs here, in this beautiful place. She looks at home among the light and the glow.
I look down at myself—still barefoot, still in my sleep shirt, but somehow the wrinkles have smoothed away. Even here, though, I feel small. Uncertain.
“Who are you?” The words come out smaller than I intended.
“You already know.” She moves closer, each step deliberate and graceful. “I’m you. Without the chains.”
“You don’t feel like me.”
“Because you’ve spent your whole life being smaller than you are.” She stops just out of arm’s reach, studying me with green eyes that hold no doubt, no fear. “Do you see it now? The difference between what is and what could be?”
I gesture helplessly at the glowing chamber around us. “This isn’t real. Chambers don’t just—”
“You’re looking at the same place,” she interrupts gently. “You see it as you believe yourself to be—broken, surrounded by the ashes of failed choices. I see it as it truly is.” Her smile is soft but unyielding. “Sacred. Powerful. Beautiful.”
The mist begins to curl around my feet, hesitant and uncertain. In this place, it looks almost apologetic—like it knows it doesn’t belong among all this light.
She holds up her hands, and between her palms, something flows like liquid starlight. Not chaotic like my mist, but purposeful. Controlled. Beautiful.
“It hurts people,” I whisper, staring at the wild, unpredictable thing that follows me everywhere.
“No.” Her voice carries absolute certainty. “You’re the one afraid of being worth their hurt.”
“That’s not—I didn’t choose this.” The words tumble out desperate and raw. “I didn’t ask for the power, the bonds, the way everyone looks at me like I’m supposed to save them. I’m ruining everything.”
“They’ve already chosen.” She steps closer, and the light between her hands grows brighter. “You’re the only one still refusing.”
“Chosen what? To get hurt because of me? To have their lives turned upside down?”
“To love you.” The words hit somewhere inside I didn’t know existed. “To follow you. To build something new with you.” Her expression softens with something that might be pity. “You think you’re destroying them? No. You’re what they’ve been waiting for.”
I shake my head, backing away until I hit solid mirror. But this one doesn’t shatter—it holds firm, reflecting my face back at me with startling clarity.
“I don’t want this. I don’t want to be responsible for—”
“For what? Their happiness? Their power? Their choice to stand with you?” She moves closer still, until I can see myself reflected in her eyes—but not the me that’s here, uncertain and afraid. The me she sees is steady. Strong. Worthy.
“You call it ruin,” she continues, voice carrying the weight of absolute truth. “I call it rebirth. You think this power is a curse. I’ve always known it’s a gift.”
The beautiful chamber seems to pulse around us, responding to her words. The light grows warmer, more welcoming, and for a moment I can almost feel what she feels—the rightness of power claimed instead of feared.
“A bond isn’t a burden,” she says softly. “It’s loyalty sworn. Strength, not weight.” She tilts her head, studying me. “Do you still believe you’re too small for this?”
My knees buckle, and I slide down the mirror at my back until I’m sitting on the glowing floor. “I don’t know how to be what they need.”
“I lead because I never doubted I should.” She kneels in front of me, close enough that I can see the certainty in her expression. “You’ll be me, one way or another. The only choice is how long you fight it.”
“I don’t want to be you,” I whisper.
She smiles then—gentle but implacable. “Then you don’t want to be yourself.”
The beautiful chamber starts to flicker around the edges, the light wavering like a candle in wind. My vision blurs as something pulls at me—the Ether backlash, too much power with nowhere to go.
“You’re not weak,” her voice echoes as everything begins to fade. “You’re just afraid of how strong you truly are.”
The last thing I see before the light takes me is her reaching out, as if to touch my face.
“When we become whole, you won’t have to question being worthy of anything.”
The words follow me as I fall backward through silver light, through the sensation of glass breaking and reforming, through the cold shock of reality rushing back in.
I wake on my bedroom floor, whole body shaking like I’ve been struck by lightning. The sanctuary’s curved walls spin around me, silver script pulsing too bright, too fast.
Voices. Footsteps. The door slamming open.
“Bree!”
Someone drops to their knees beside me—Gray, his hands hovering like he wants to touch but doesn’t know if it’s safe. Behind him, the others crowd in the doorway: Rhett with heat radiating from his skin, Jace’s knives already in his hands, Theo’s eyes wide with Seer-panic.
Wes pushes through, falling to my other side. “What happened? You screamed—”
“I was there,” I whisper, still tasting light on my tongue even though it doesn’t make sense. “The chamber. But it was different. All ash and ruin, then—” I stop, not sure how to explain crossing through a mirror into a world that felt more real than real.
“Where?” Thane appears behind the others, silver eyes sharp with something that looks like recognition.
I struggle to sit up, my whole body still trembling with aftershock. Gray helps me, his hands steady and warm.
“Through the mirror,” I manage. “To the other side. Where everything was beautiful. And she was there—” I stop, not sure how to describe meeting yourself and finding a stranger.
The silence stretches, heavy with questions none of us know how to ask.
I close my eyes, but I can still see her—confident, whole, looking at me like I’m the shadow and she’s the light.
When I open them again, everyone’s watching me with expressions I can’t quite read.
“Riley,” I whisper, the name slipping out before I can stop it.
Because somehow, impossibly, I know that’s what she calls herself.
The silence that follows feels heavy, loaded with questions none of us know how to ask. But it’s not the others’ confusion that makes my skin prickle—it’s the way Stellan goes completely still.
Not the casual stillness he usually wears like armor. This is different. Predatory. Like he’s just heard something that changes everything.
When I look at him, his gray eyes are fixed on me with an intensity that makes me want to shrink back into the floor.
Like he’s just seen a ghost step out of legend.