2. Theo
Theo
The silver veins pulse through the dark like exposed nerves, and my head throbs in time with them.
We’ve been walking for hours. Maybe days. Time’s a joke here, but exhaustion isn’t.
The vision hits again—third time since Thane gave the order to move. I don’t fight it anymore. Fighting just makes it worse.
A horseshoe.
Right…
Suspended in black water that isn’t water, turning end over end. Silver script covers the curved surface, glowing like the eyes of the creatures Gray hunts. I can read it this time—shapes that feel like words, though not in any language I know.
Luck. Warning. Path.
The horseshoe spins faster, and I catch the reflection in its surface: not my face, but something with too many eyes, watching back.
Then it’s gone.
I stumble, reach for nothing. The Void doesn’t offer handholds.
“You good?” Jace’s voice cuts through the dark, closer than I expected.
“Fine.”
“You look like you’re about to puke.”
“I’m fine .”
I’m not fine. I haven’t been fine since we fell into this place. But I’m functional, and that’s all that matters .
The visions haven’t stopped—they’ve sharpened. Every step we take toward Bree, they get clearer. Louder. More insistent.
And I’m done pretending they’re just fragments.
Gray’s massive dire wolf form moves ahead of us, white fur catching the faint silver glow. He still won’t shift back. Can’t or won’t—no one’s asked, and he can’t answer. Just hunts, tracks, moves forward like that’s all he has left.
Wes walks behind him, hollow-eyed and too thin.
We all are, but it shows most on him—hunger etched into every line of his face.
His hands shake when he thinks no one’s looking.
Rhett keeps close to Wes, heat flickering under his skin like he’s trying to burn away the cold that’s eating all of us from the inside.
And Stellan—
Stellan drifts at the back, lips moving silently in the dark.
Again.
I’ve been watching him for the past hour. The whispers started faint, barely audible over the sound of our footsteps on stone that shouldn’t exist. But they’ve gotten louder. More desperate.
“Please,” I hear him murmur. “Just a little longer. I need—”
He cuts off when he notices me looking.
The silence stretches.
I’m done with silence.
“Stellan,” I say, voice flat. “You wanna tell us who the fuck you keep talking to?”
Everyone stops.
Gray’s head swings toward us, silver eyes reflecting nothing. A low growl rumbles from his chest—warning or question, I can’t tell .
Jace turns, one hand on his blade. Wes looks between me and Stellan like he’s not sure if he should intervene or run.
Thane’s gaze locks on Stellan, cold and unreadable.
“Can’t imagine it’s normal,” I continue, “having friends in the Void.”
Stellan’s expression doesn’t change. “Lonely men talk to echoes, Theo. You should know—you’ve been muttering prophecies for months.”
“That’s different.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah.” I take a step toward him. “Because my visions don’t answer back.”
“If he’s got a book club in here,” Jace says, “I want the reading list.”
No one laughs. He shuts up.
“I’m saying,” Stellan replies, voice smooth and controlled, “that when you spend enough time in the dark, your mind fills in the gaps.”
“Bullshit,” Thane says quietly.
The word instantly makes everything fucking awkward. Good.
Stellan’s jaw tightens. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” Thane moves forward, deliberate and unhurried. “We’ve all been listening to you for weeks. That’s not your mind filling gaps. That’s you begging someone—or something—for help.”
“You don’t know what you’re—”
“ Please tell him I need him, ” Thane interrupts, voice dropping into a perfect mimic. “Your exact words—three turns of Rhett’s fire ago. I was two paces behind you; sound carries in here.”
Stellan goes still .
The silence that follows isn’t empty. It’s the kind of silence that comes right before something breaks.
“You’ve been spying on me,” Stellan says, voice low and dangerous.
“I’ve been surviving,” Thane counters. “And part of that is knowing when someone in my group is keeping secrets that could get us killed.”
“Oh, that’s rich coming from you—”
“Stop.”
The word shears through the ringing in my ears. We all turn to look at Wes.
He’s staring at the ground, arms wrapped around himself like he’s trying to hold his own shape together. His hands are shaking. His jaw ticks.
“I can’t keep the starving saint act,” he says, voice raw. “And I know I’m not the only one barely holding it together.”
His eyes lift, meeting each of ours in turn. “But if Stellan has a way out—if he knows something we don’t—then we need to hear it. Now.”
The truth of it settles over us like ash.
Stellan’s mask cracks.
Not much. Just enough.
I see it in the way his shoulders drop, the way his hands unclench at his sides. The way he looks at Thane and says, voice tight, “You’re an ass.”
“Frequently,” Thane agrees. “Now talk.”
Stellan exhales slowly, like he’s been holding that breath for months.
“I wasn’t talking to the Void,” he says finally. “I was talking through it. ”
“Through it to what?” Jace demands.
Stellan’s gaze flicks to me, then away. “To someone who might actually be able to get us out of here.”
Before anyone can respond, the vision slams into me again.
Harder this time. Sharper.
The horseshoe spins in black water, and now I see more—chains attached to darkness. And at the far edge of my vision, something moves. Something massive and wrong and alive .
Silver eyes in the dark. Dozens of them.
But not watching us.
Waiting.
I gasp, stumbling backward. Jace catches my arm before I fall.
“Theo? What did you see?”
I shake my head, trying to clear it. “Something’s coming. Not hunting—answering.”
Stellan goes very still.
“You called them,” I say, looking at him. “Didn’t you?”
His expression shifts—surprise, then something almost like relief.
“Not called,” he says quietly. “Asked.”
“Asked what ?” Rhett’s voice is tight with restrained fire.
“For reinforcements.” Stellan’s eyes meet mine, steady now. “The Void isn’t empty.” He exhales. “It never has been. And some of the things that live here…” He pauses. “Some of them remember me.”
The silence that follows is heavier than before.
Thane’s the first to break it. “You’ve been here before.”
It’s not a question .
Stellan nods once. “A long time ago. Before any of you knew what the Void was. Before Bree.” His voice drops. “I barely made it out. But I didn’t make it out alone.”
“What does that mean?” Wes asks.
“It means,” Stellan says, turning to face us fully, “that I know someone who knows how to navigate this place. I know what hunts here. I know what can be bargained with, and what should be avoided at all costs.”
He looks at each of us in turn.
“And I know who owes me a debt.”
Gray growls again, deeper this time. Insistent.
The horseshoe flashes in my mind, but fainter now—like it’s retreating, waiting. Not a warning. Not luck.
A marker. A path they’ll recognize when the time comes.
“What did you ask for?” I press.
Stellan’s quiet for a long moment. Then: “Protection. Passage. A way to find what we’re looking for without being hunted by everything else in here.”
“And they agreed?” Thane’s voice is skeptical.
“They owe me,” Stellan repeats. “But it’ll come with a price.”
“What kind of price?” Jace asks.
“The kind I’ll pay when the time comes.” Stellan’s expression closes off again. “Not before.”
The weight of that sits on all of us.
Rhett’s fire flickers brighter. Wes straightens slightly, hunger momentarily forgotten. Gray’s massive form shifts, and he lets out a short, sharp bark—the first sound he’s made in weeks that isn’t a growl .
But it’s Thane who speaks, voice cold and measured.
“Then you better hope they remember you fondly.”
Stellan’s mouth curves into something that’s almost a smile. “They will. I made sure of it.”
The silver veins pulse brighter, and I feel the Void shift around us—not threatening, but aware . Like it knows something’s coming.
Like it’s been waiting for this.
“We keep moving,” Thane says, voice cutting through the moment. “Toward Bree. If your reinforcements show up, they can catch us on the way.”
No one argues.
We start walking again, but the silence is different now. Not empty. Not exhausted.
Expectant.
I drift to the back, watching Stellan ahead of me. He’s not whispering anymore, but his fingers trace the inside of his wrist—checking for something that should be there but isn’t.
The horseshoe doesn’t spin in my mind anymore. It’s settled. Waiting.
Everything in this place waits for something.
I speed up until I’m walking beside him.
“The things in my vision,” I say. “The ones with the silver eyes. What are they?”
Stellan’s jaw tightens. He’s still processing—I can see it in the rigid set of his shoulders, the way his hands flex and unflex at his sides. Anger. Irritation. Resignation, maybe, that he has to explain at all.
He doesn’t look at me when he finally answers.
“Nightmares,” he says quietly. “They’re called Nightmares.”