Chapter 26 Bree
Bree
My knees are pressed into cracked stone. I can’t get up. My head splits, hands shake, and my mouth tastes like metal and copper and something else I don’t want to think about.
The crowd’s gone quiet around me. Thane’s voice still echoes off the walls from wherever he went, but all I can hear is the ringing in my ears and my own ragged breathing.
Phil was here. Phil found me. Found us. Found this place that was supposed to be safe and turned it into another nightmare. Just like the apartment. Just like everywhere else I’ve ever tried to exist.
But that’s not even the worst part.
Seth’s gone.
The thought keeps slamming into me like a fist to the chest. Over and over until I can’t breathe around it.
I keep seeing his face right before it happened.
The way he looked at me when I begged him to let go.
Not cruel. Not evil. Just… resigned. Like he was doing a job he didn’t want to do but had to anyway.
It feels like I killed him.
My stomach lurches and I have to swallow hard to keep from throwing up right here on the broken stone. There’s not even a body. Nothing to bury or mourn or apologize to. Just that burn mark a few feet away where a person used to be. Where Seth used to be.
I didn’t even know I could do that. Make someone just… disappear. Like they never existed at all. Like the Ether reached out and decided they didn’t deserve to take up space anymore.
What if it decides that about someone else? What if I lose control again and it’s Gray this time, or Wes, or Rhett? What if I hurt the people I actually care about because I can’t figure out how to stop being a weapon?
My chest tightens and spots dance across my vision. I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can’t do anything but kneel here and shake and taste metal and know that I’m exactly what Phil said I was.
Their executioner.
A shadow moves in the black glass under my knees.
I blink hard, trying to clear my vision, but it happens again. Like something’s swimming underneath the surface, trying to break through.
A fox separates from the darkness.
It’s small. Made of shadow that moves like smoke, but solid enough that I can see its eyes clearly. They burn like tiny stars in a face made of living darkness.
The crowd sucks in a collective breath. I hear someone whisper “void creature” and the fear spikes so sharp I can taste it.
I don’t know what that means. Don’t know what this thing is or why it’s here. All I know is it came from the cracks my power made, and it’s looking at me like it recognizes something.
But I’m not afraid.
I should be. Everything else about this whole nightmare should terrify me. But this little fox with its starry eyes doesn’t feel dangerous. It feels… familiar. Like recognizing something I’ve been waiting for without knowing it.
The fox tilts its head, watching me. Not afraid. Not angry. Not looking at me like I’m something that needs to be contained or destroyed or fixed.
Just curious.
Everyone’s still staring at me. I can feel it.
All those eyes waiting for me to explode again, to hurt someone else, to prove that letting me live was a mistake.
Even the guys are keeping their distance.
Even Gray, who’s never been afraid of anything, hangs back like I might burn him if he gets too close.
Only Stellan seems to have the nerve to step closer.
I reach out without thinking. My hand’s shaking so bad I can barely control it, but I extend my fingers anyway. The fox could bite me. Could dissolve back into shadow. Could reject me like everyone else probably should.
Instead, it steps closer.
Its fur is impossibly soft under my fingertips. Cold like winter morning air, but solid. Real. Like touching starlight that somehow has texture and weight.
“You’re not scared of me,” I whisper.
The fox makes a sound deep in its throat. Not quite purring, but something close. Something that sounds almost like contentment.
And the Ether responds.
Silver light starts swirling up from the stone around my knees, black threads weaving through it like careful embroidery. Some of the silver light drifts toward the fox, drawn to it like metal to a magnet.
The fox doesn’t flinch as the Ether touches its shadow-form. Instead, veins of silver begin tracing through its dark fur, not changing it but enhancing it. Making it more real, more solid, more there.
People gasp. Step back. I can practically feel them getting ready to run, to abandon this place and me along with it. But the fox just purrs deeper, leaning into both my touch and the silver light that’s weaving itself into its being.
I’m so tired of being afraid of myself. So tired of apologizing for existing.
Maybe I no longer have to.
“Fix it,” I tell the light, my voice cracking around the words. “Please. I don’t want to break things anymore. I want to make them better.”
The Ether listens.
It spreads out from where I’m kneeling in waves of silver shot through with black, and this time it doesn’t destroy anything. This time it builds.
The cracks in the courtyard stone seal themselves, but not just sealed—stronger.
The fractures fill with veins of silver that pulse like a heartbeat, like the sanctuary’s learning to heal itself.
The walls around us don’t just repair—they grow.
Stone flowing upward like water, adding height and thickness until they’re more fortress than building. Protective. Defensible.
The shattered windows don’t just piece themselves back together. They reform larger, clearer, with glass so pure it’s almost invisible. But I can feel the wards woven into them, magical barriers that will keep out anything that means us harm.
Watchtowers emerge from the corners of the walls, graceful spirals of stone that reach toward the sky. Places to watch for threats. Places to see danger coming before it arrives.
The main gates thicken and strengthen, ancient wood becoming something that would take an army to breach. But they don’t look forbidding. They look welcoming to anyone who comes in peace. Deadly to anyone who doesn’t.
I don’t fix everything, though. The flowers that grew from the cracks during my explosion—I leave those. They’re beautiful. Crystalline petals that catch the light and throw it back in rainbows. They’re proof that maybe I can make something good happen, even when everything goes wrong.
The fear in the crowd shifts, slowly, like ice beginning to thaw. I can hear whispered conversations, voices climbing from terror toward something else. Wonder, maybe. Or at least the possibility of it.
But there’s something else. Something the Ether wants to build that I don’t understand at first.
In the center of the courtyard, where the worst of the destruction was, a fountain begins to rise. Not water, but something else. Light that flows like liquid silver, pooling and cascading in patterns that hurt to look at directly but somehow comfort the soul.
At its base, words appear in the stone. Carved deep, filled with that same liquid light.
May Mirrors Weave The Way They’re Meant
My throat closes up. The words don’t make sense to me, but they feel important. Like a promise or a prayer carved in stone.
But the fox presses closer to my hand, and somehow I understand this isn’t really about blame or forgiveness.
Seth was caught between things bigger than him, forces he couldn’t control.
Whatever hold Phil had over him, whatever threats or promises or lies—Seth was as trapped as I was.
Maybe more trapped, because at least I knew I was in a cage.
The memorial isn’t for the spy who sold us out. It’s for the person who deserved better than being trapped between impossible choices.
I blink, suddenly aware that I’m still kneeling by the fountain, one hand trailing in the liquid light. The courtyard comes back into focus around me—the strengthened walls, the watching crowd, the weight of all those eyes on me.
“She made it stronger,” someone says behind me. Zira, I think. Her voice is soft with something like awe.
The fox nuzzles my palm once more, sparkling eyes meeting mine for a long moment. Then it starts fading, its edges blurring until it’s just shadow again, then nothing.
“Don’t go,” I whisper, but it’s already gone.
My hand feels empty where it was. Cold.
I force myself to stand up, using the fountain’s edge for support. My legs shake like a newborn deer’s, and I have to concentrate to keep from falling over, but I manage it.
The sanctuary looks… different. Better. Like a castle that could weather any storm. The walls rise high and strong around us, watchtowers keeping silent vigil. The gates stand ready to welcome friends and repel enemies.
It looks like a place that could keep us safe. All of us.
Seth’s still gone. The fountain flows with its liquid light, beautiful and sad and permanent. Still proof of what happened, what I’m capable of.
But maybe… maybe if I can build things too, that counts for something.
Maybe I don’t have to be just the person who breaks everything.
The Ether curls around me like a protective cloak, warm and comforting. Still silver shot through with black, but it doesn’t feel wrong anymore. The black threads look like completion. Like the Ether needed both parts to be whole.
Like I need both parts to be whole.
I look up at the people gathered. The crowd is staring at all of it with expressions I can’t read—fear and wonder and something that might eventually become trust.
They’re still afraid of me. I can feel it. But they’re not running.
And maybe that’s enough to start with.
Maybe building something beautiful from the wreckage is enough.
That’s what I thought I was doing with my life after all.
The Ether hums softly around me, patient and waiting. Ready for whatever comes next.
I’m still afraid of it. Still afraid of what I might do. But for the first time since this all began, I’m not afraid of myself.
Not entirely anyway.