Chapter 24 Bree
Bree
The hill is steeper than it looked from the road.
My legs burn by the time we reach the top, and I'm trying not to breathe too hard because Thane and Stellan don't even look winded. Of course they don't. I bet they could climb mountains without breaking a sweat.
But when I see the ruins, breathing becomes the least of my problems.
"Oh," I whisper.
It's not what I expected. Not some crumbling pile of rocks or tourist-trap ancient monument. It's... broken, yes. But broken beautiful. Like someone took something magnificent and scattered the pieces just deliberately enough that you can still see what it used to be.
Arches that frame empty air. Walls that stop mid-sentence. Ivy threading through carved stone like it's trying to hold everything together with green fingers.
The mist around my ankles shifts, and for a second I swear it feels... eager.
"Where are the crews?" Thane's voice cuts through whatever moment I was having.
I look at him. He's scanning the ruins like he's reading a report that doesn't match the data. Expecting noise, maybe. People working.
Instead, there's just quiet.
A man emerges from behind a half-collapsed wall, dust coating his work clothes. He looks tired in a way that goes deeper than a long day. More like a long month of days that didn't go right.
When he sees Thane, his shoulders sag with relief.
"Finally," he says. "Thought you weren't coming back."
Thane's expression tightens. "Progress report?"
The man laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Progress. Sure." He waves a hand at the ruins. "We try every day. Doesn't stick. Every night it goes back."
"Goes back?" Stellan asks, like he's only mildly curious.
"Stones we move end up where we found them. Walls we shore up fall down again. Tools disappear, then show up exactly where we left them yesterday morning." The worker shakes his head. "Place has a memory, and it doesn't want us here."
Thane frowns like this is personally offensive to him. "That's not—"
But I'm not listening anymore. Something's pulling at me from deeper in the ruins. Not scary pulling. More like... like when you hear your name called from another room and you go to see who it was.
My feet start moving before I decide to walk.
"Bree." Thane's voice, sharp enough to cut.
I should stop. Should explain. Should do something other than wander off toward broken stone and empty spaces.
Instead, I keep walking.
The mist follows, but not like usual—no restless swirl. It knows where it's going.
There's an archway ahead—tall enough that I'd have to stretch to touch the top, carved with symbols that make my eyes water if I look too long. The stone is pale, almost white, and somehow it feels warm even though the day isn't.
My hand reaches out. Just to touch. Just to see if it feels as warm as it looks.
The moment my fingers brush the stone, light blooms under my palm.
Not harsh. Not sudden. Just... there. Like someone lit a candle behind frosted glass. Silver lines trace patterns in the rock, and the mist around my legs moves toward them like it's been invited.
Something low hums through the stone, like a memory remembering itself.
"Bree?" Jace's voice, closer than I thought he was. "What's that?"
I don't know how to answer. Because I'm not doing anything. Not on purpose.
But the light is spreading anyway.
It seeps into cracks in the stone, follows the edges of broken tiles, pools in spaces where things should connect but don't. And wherever it goes, things start... settling.
Vines that were choking the archway loosen up, winding around the stone in patterns that actually look pretty instead of destructive. The cracked tiles under my feet do this little pulse—barely there, like a heartbeat—and suddenly they fit together again.
A path clears in front of me. Not like someone swept it clean, but like someone pulled back a curtain to show what was always there.
"Is she doing that?" Jace whispers.
"Looks like it," Wes says, and there's something in his voice I can't identify.
I take a step forward because the path is there and it feels rude not to use it. The stone glows softly where my foot touches, not like a spotlight but more like moonlight on water.
The others follow behind me. I can hear their footsteps, careful and quiet, but it feels like they're watching a movie and I'm the one inside it.
We walk into what must have been a garden once.
The trees are massive—older than anything I've ever seen, with bark that has silver veins running through it like lightning frozen mid-strike. Their leaves are purple, falling slow like they're underwater. Pretty in a way that makes my chest tight.
But what stops me cold isn't the trees.
It's the daisies.
They're scattered in clusters, white petals catching the light like glass. Just like the ones I planted back home. Only… more. Larger. Sharper. Their crystalline stems hum with that same soft chime—but louder now. Brighter. Like they've been waiting for me to find them again.
The sight hits me harder than it should. These impossible flowers that started as seeds by a door I couldn't open, that grew in my backyard and chimed like music. Now they're here, in this ancient place, blooming like they belong.
Like they've always belonged.
"Are those...?" Rhett's voice trails off.
"The ones from home," I whisper, because there's no mistaking them. The same perfect white petals, the same glass-like stems. But transformed. Elevated.
As I watch, more flowers bloom around them. Just like that. Buds opening into white and silver petals. Paths straightening into perfect lines. Garden beds clearing of weeds, organizing into neat rows.
It's beautiful.
It's also completely wrong.
I stop in the middle of it all, skin prickling with wrongness. It's too clean. Too organized. Like someone took a song and forced it into the wrong key.
"No," I say out loud, surprising myself. "That's not right."
The mist around me goes still, like it's waiting for instructions.
I think about how the garden looked when we walked in. Wild, sure. Overgrown, definitely. But alive in a way that felt honest. The ivy wasn't destroying the stones—it was holding them together. The scattered flowers weren't messy—they were scattered like someone had thrown confetti at a party.
Even the daisies looked better when they were growing wild, nestled among the weeds and broken stones like secrets.
I liked it better before.
The thought is barely finished when everything changes.
The neat lines soften. Petals spill out of their perfect arrangements, scattering across the ground in patterns that look random but feel right. The ivy creeps back, but gently this time. Like it's hugging instead of strangling.
The daisies settle back into their natural clusters, their crystalline stems chiming softly as they adjust. Content now. Home.
The garden breathes again.
"Did she just... undo a week of restoration by thinking about it?" Jace asks, and he sounds like he's trying not to laugh.
I turn around to look at them. Rhett looks stunned. Wes is watching me with that quiet intensity that makes my stomach flip. Theo's eyes are wide like he's seeing something that rewrites everything he thought he knew.
"I have no idea how I did that," I admit, because it's true.
That's when Thane makes a sound like someone punched him.
He's standing next to what was definitely a pile of rubble when we walked past it five minutes ago. Now there's a wall. A whole, complete, perfectly intact wall that looks like it was built yesterday.
"This wasn't here," he says, and his voice is strange. Shaky.
Stellan walks over and runs his hand along the new stone. For once, he's not smirking. "Of course it wasn't," he says quietly. "It wasn't meant for us."
I catch something in the way he says it. Like there's more to that sentence. "Meant for who?"
His gray eyes find mine. "For you."
The mist pulses once around my ankles, and I swear the stones around us are listening. Waiting. The daisies pulse brighter in response, their light echoing the rhythm of my heartbeat.
I start walking again because standing still feels wrong. The path curves between walls that definitely weren't there before, leading deeper into the ruins. With each step, the glow under my feet gets brighter, tracing patterns that feel familiar even though I've never seen them before.
Symbols appear on the doorways we pass. Simple ones at first, then more complicated. Spirals and geometric shapes that hurt to follow with your eyes. They should mean something. I feel like they should mean something.
And then we reach the big one.
It's massive—at least twice my height, carved from stone that gleams like polished silver. The frame is covered in symbols so intricate they seem to move when I'm not looking straight at them. The door itself is heavy wood banded with metal that looks like it hasn't been touched in years.
I walk toward it because that seems to be what I do now. Walk toward things that probably shouldn't be walked toward.
The moment I get close enough to touch it, the door shudders.
Not like someone pushed it. Like it just remembered what doors are supposed to do.
The wood groans—not with strain, but with recognition. The hinges protest for about half a second, then give up and let the door swing open. Smooth as anything.
Darkness beyond. But not empty darkness. Expectant darkness.
I take a step back, hands up like I'm surrendering. "I didn't touch it."
"No," Stellan says, and there's something almost like approval in his voice. "It opened for you."
I stare at the open doorway. At the darkness that doesn't feel threatening, just... waiting. Like a room waiting for someone it already knew.
The mist flows toward the threshold, drawn by whatever's in there.
I look back at the others. At Jace's wide eyes and Rhett's careful stillness.
At Wes's quiet hunger and Theo's reverent expression.
At Gray, who meets my gaze for just a second, unreadable.
Quiet, like he's already felt something shift.
And Thane, who looks like his entire understanding of the world just got rewritten.
Then I look at the waiting darkness.
And because I'm apparently the kind of person who walks through doors meant for someone else now, I do.