Chapter 13
Bree
The kitchen felt too small after everything Thane and Stellan revealed. Too many eyes watching, too many questions I don't have answers for. I told them I needed to lie down—not entirely a lie. My head throbs with the weight of names I don't understand: Scarborne, Council, sanctuary.
But instead of going to my room, I find myself in the upstairs hallway, drawn to the place where everything changed.
I don't mean to go back to the door. My feet take me anyway.
The door looks ordinary now. Just painted wood and tarnished brass, hiding cleaning supplies and cobwebs like it always has. Like the impossible room beyond never existed. Like I imagined the crown, the voice, the way the mist sang when I touched ancient metal.
But I didn't imagine it. I can still feel the echo in my chest—not pain exactly, but awareness. Like something sleeping has cracked one eye open and is watching.
The second my fingers brush the wood grain, the air shifts.
Something remembers me.
And something responds.
The sigil blooms to life beneath my palm, glowing faint as breath fog on glass, then brighter.
Silver lines trace patterns that hurt to look at directly—not because they're harsh, but because they're familiar in a way that makes no sense.
Like trying to remember a song from childhood that you've never actually heard.
The Ether slides down my arms, drawn to the mark like iron filings to a magnet. I watch, fascinated and terrified, as tendrils of mist rise from my skin to dance around the glowing symbol.
I did this. Somehow, without thinking, without trying—I called it back.
"Do you know what that is?"
The voice cuts through the stillness, quiet and unreadable. I spin around to find Thane at the top of the stairs, silver eyes fixed on the sigil—not on me. His usual controlled composure has cracked slightly, revealing something I don't fully recognize.
Hunger, maybe. Or fear.
"No," I say, pulling my hand back. The light fades but doesn't disappear entirely. "I don't know what any of this is."
He moves closer, each step deliberate. "That mark... I've seen drawings of it. Sketches in books older than kingdoms." His gaze flicks to mine. "But never real. Never responding."
"Responding to what?"
"To you." He stops just out of arm's reach, close enough that I can see the sharp angles of his face in the sigil's dying light. "You shouldn't be able to reveal that. That magic is sealed to bloodline."
"I didn't reveal it," I say, defensive. "It responded."
Something flickers across his expression—surprise, maybe, or recognition. "That's what makes it dangerous."
The word sits heavy between us. Dangerous. Like I'm something to be contained, controlled, eliminated.
"Is that why you're really here?" The question slips out before I can stop it. "To decide if I'm dangerous?"
He doesn't answer immediately. Just studies me with those unsettling silver eyes, like he's trying to solve a puzzle that keeps changing shape.
"I was sent," he says finally, "to investigate the surge. To assess the threat."
"And did you volunteer?" I press.
Silence. Which is answer enough.
"So what's your assessment?" I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly cold. "Am I the threat you were expecting?"
"No." The admission seems to surprise him as much as it surprises me. "You're something else entirely."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Thane leans against the wall, some of the formal distance leaving his posture.
For a moment, he looks almost... tired. "I expected someone power-hungry.
Someone who would try to use their awakening to claim what they thought they deserved.
" His gaze finds mine. "Instead, I find someone who's spent weeks trying to convince herself she doesn't deserve anything at all. "
The observation hits harder than it should. "You don't know me."
"Don't I?" He tilts his head slightly. "You're afraid of your own power. Afraid of hurting the people you love. You'd rather run than risk being the thing that destroys their happiness."
Heat crawls up my neck. "Stop."
"You want to know why I care?" His voice drops, becomes something rougher. "Because if you're real—if you're what I think you are—then everything changes. The Council, the balance of power, the way magic itself works in this realm."
"What if I don't want it?" The words tear out of me, raw and desperate. "What if I just want to be normal? To have a normal life with normal problems?"
"That won't stop it."
The certainty in his voice makes my stomach drop. "Then what am I supposed to do?"
"Learn what you are before someone else decides for you."
The mist stirs around my ankles, responding to the spike of anxiety in my chest. Thane's gaze tracks its movement, and something in his expression shifts. Becomes almost... hungry.
"They'll come for you," he says quietly. "Others like me. Others worse than me. And they won't care what you want or don't want. They'll see power, and they'll try to take it."
"And you?" I meet his eyes, needing to understand. "What do you see?"
He's quiet for a long moment, silver gaze searching my face. When he speaks, his voice is barely above a whisper.
"I see someone who could change everything. And someone who's terrified of that responsibility."
The sigil pulses once more, bright enough to cast shadows, then fades back to ordinary wood. Like whatever magic called it forth has decided we've said enough for now.
I should go. Should put distance between myself and this conversation that feels too big, too heavy. Should hide in my room and pretend none of this is real.
Instead, I find myself asking, "Have you ever wanted something you knew would destroy you?"
The question catches him off guard. For just a moment, his careful mask slips, and I see something raw underneath. Something that looks almost... vulnerable.
"Every day," he admits.
The honesty in his voice does something to my chest. Makes the space between us feel charged with more than just magic. Like we're circling around truths neither of us is ready to speak.
"Then I guess I'd better figure out what I am," I say finally, "before someone else does."
I turn to go, needing distance before I say something I can't take back. But I only make it a few steps before the air behind me stirs.
I glance back.
Silver mist curls around Thane’s boots—slow and quiet, like fog rolling in on instinct. It brushes the hem of his coat, lingers there a beat too long.
He doesn’t move.
His eyes widen—just barely—but I see it. A flicker of something raw behind all that control. Like he felt it too.
I frown, chest tight.
The Ether isn’t supposed to do that. Not with anyone else.
So why does it look like it’s reaching for him?
The mist pulls back slowly, reluctantly, and drifts toward me like nothing happened. But I catch the way Thane's breath catches, the way his hands clench at his sides.
And just before I disappear into my room, I hear him whisper something that makes my heart stutter.
"Brielle."
Not Bree. Not the name everyone else uses.
Brielle.
Like he knows something about me that I don't know about myself