4. Stellan
Stellan
No one speaks—there’s nothing to say.
We’ve arranged ourselves in a rough circle around Bree and Seth—silent sentinels keeping watch over the broken and the unconscious. Gray’s massive wolf form is curled at Bree’s feet, nose pressed against her ankle like he’s trying to will warmth back into her. His eyes haven’t closed once.
Seth lies motionless a few feet away, chest rising and falling in shallow, uneven breaths. Alive, but barely. Wes checked him twice already, hands shaking so badly he could barely find a pulse.
No fire. Rhett tried earlier, but the flames guttered out almost immediately, swallowed by the same pressure that made the air feel thick and wrong.
The only light comes from the silver veins pulsing through the floor and threading up the obsidian walls, and the silver flames flickering in sconces along the perimeter. The veins are brighter here, more concentrated. All of them converging on this chamber like arteries leading to a heart.
Leading to her.
I study the pattern, tracing the lines with my eyes. They spread outward from where her bare feet touch the floor, branching and splitting until they disappear into the dark beyond the chamber walls.
I’ve heard of this before.
The realization hits cold and certain, settling in my stomach like a stone .
I kneel, pressing my palm flat against one of the veins. It pulses back—faint but rhythmic. Not random. Not ambient magic.
Feeding.
My hand jerks back.
“Stellan?”
Thane’s voice cuts through the silence, sharp with suspicion.
I don’t answer immediately. Just stare at the veins, watching them pulse in time with Bree’s shallow breathing.
I’ve heard stories. Old ones, passed down through Feeder lines when the Council wasn’t listening. Tales of places where the something in the Void learned to drink power directly from a Source without touching them. Where simply being was enough.
The chains are just holding her in place.
Ethos is feeding on her.
Ethos is the something those stories were talking about.
Horror crawls up my throat.
“Stellan.” Thane’s tone hardens. “What do you see?”
I stand slowly, brushing ash from my hands. “A theory. An old story.”
“Elaborate.”
“These veins.” I gesture at the pulsing silver threads. “They’re not part of the Void’s natural structure. They’re hers. Her Ether, pulled from her just by being here. Ethos is feeding on her, using her power for something.”
Jace swears under his breath. Rhett’s hands twitch, and I notice—
Heat.
Faint, but there. His palms glow with warmth that wasn’t there before .
My stomach drops as the second realization hits.
“So he’s draining her,” Theo says quietly. “Just by her being in the Void.”
“Yes,” I say, but my eyes are still on Rhett’s hands. On Wes, who’s stopped shaking. On Jace, who looks less gray than he did an hour ago.
They’re feeding too.
All of us. Bonded to her, pulling from the Ether that saturates this place now. Not from Bree directly—thank fuck—from what she’s already given. The silver veins pulsing through the floor and walls, the ambient power soaking the air.
It’s passive. Automatic. Our bonds drinking from the source she’s become.
Just like Ethos.
The horror of it settles like ice in my chest. They didn’t choose this. Don’t even realize it’s happening. But they’re feeding nonetheless, growing stronger while she drains away. It also explains why Thane didn’t end up like the rest of us being here.
“Her Ether is being used by Ethos for something,” I finish quietly. “The chains are just keeping her in place. The real drain…” I touch the vein again. “His reach is everywhere here.”
Wes makes a sound halfway between a growl and a sob. His voice is stronger now—the bond feeding him even as we speak. “Can we stop it?”
“Not here.” The words taste like ash. “As long as she’s in the Void, it’ll keep taking from her. The only way to stop it is to get her out. ”
“Then what do we do?” Rhett demands, fire sparking in his palms—not struggling now, but there . Real flame growing stronger by the minute.
Fed by her, just like everything else in this cursed place.
I’m quiet for a long moment.
Then Theo’s voice cuts through, flat and exhausted and done with my evasion.
“You said you’ve been here before.” He stares at me across Bree’s unconscious form. “So start talking.”
The demand hangs in the air.
I could deflect. Redirect. Change the subject like I’ve done for centuries.
But we’re out of time, and they deserve the truth.
Most of it, anyway.
“I was lost here once,” I say finally. “A long time ago. Before the Council. Before most of you were born.”
“How long?” Thane asks.
“Centuries.”
Silence. Heavy and disbelieving.
“How did you get out?” Jace’s tone is carefully neutral, but I hear the edge underneath.
“I made a deal.” I look at the veins again, remembering. “With Ethos.”
Silence. Sharp and horrified.
Thane’s silver eyes go cold. He already suspected, but hearing it confirmed is different.
“What did you give him?” Rhett asks quietly.
“That’s not part of this story. ”
The silence that follows is tense, but I don’t elaborate. What I gave Ethos stays between me and the dark.
“He betrayed you,” Theo says softly. Not a question—a certainty drawn from whatever fragments of vision he’s catching.
I nod once. “The deal was simple: my freedom in exchange for…” I pause. “Something he wanted. But Ethos doesn’t honor bargains the way you’d expect. He sent me to the outer edges of the Void. The parts where nothing survives. Where even the darkness is afraid to go.”
“Why there?” Wes asks.
“To die, probably.” My mouth curves into something bitter. “Or to be forgotten. Either way, it was meant to be the end.”
“But it wasn’t,” Gray says.
“No.” I look at Bree’s unconscious form, remembering those years in the dark.
“I was dying. Magically starving. There was nothing to feed on out there—no fear, no connection, no life force. Just… emptiness. It doesn’t kill you quickly, but it hollows you out until there’s nothing left but desperation. ”
I pause, choosing my words carefully.
“That’s when I found them.”
“The Nightmares,” Theo breathes.
I exhale slowly, choosing my words carefully.
“There are things that live in the Void. Most of them hunt. Some of them feed. A few of them… remember what they used to be.”
I pause, letting the weight of that settle.
“I thought I was hallucinating at first.” The memory is vivid even now.
“Creatures that looked like myths—like unicorns pulled inside-out and remade in shadow. Black as the Void itself, but when the light hit them right, they shimmered silver. Two horns instead of one. Eyes that glowed like molten mercury.”
Jace’s blade stills in his hand. “You’re describing dream-steeds.”
Theo looks at him, eyebrows raised. “How the hell do you know that, Jace?”
“Hey, I read too, you know.” Jace shrugs, but there’s an edge of defensiveness in it.
“That’s what they are.” I meet his gaze. “Nightmares. They feed on fear and terror, but they were something else too. Something majestic. Wild.”
“And you just walked up to one?” Rhett sounds skeptical.
“I collapsed in front of one.” The truth is far less heroic than they probably imagine. “Hollowed out by hunger, barely conscious. Should have been trampled, or possibly consumed. But one of them…” I shake my head. “It didn’t kill me.”
“Why not?” Wes asks.
“Because I offered it something it wanted more than my death.”
“What?”
“Order.” The word tastes strange after all these years. “Purpose. A reason to exist beyond hunger and fear.”
Thane’s silver eyes narrow. “You taught them to serve you.”
“I taught them to survive.” I meet his gaze. “They were going feral, consuming each other when there was nothing else to feed on. Magnificent creatures eating themselves alive in the dark.”
“So you gave them structure,” Theo murmurs.
“I gave them discipline. Rules. A way to exist that didn’t end in self-destruction.” I look at the veins pulsing through the floor. “It took years. But eventually, they trusted me enough to help me find a way out.”
“How many?” Thane’s voice is cold. Calculating.
“Enough.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.” I turn to face him fully. “Their leader eventually grew strong enough to tear open a way back to the mortal world. A few dared to follow me through. The rest stayed behind—too afraid of what waited outside, or too changed by the Void to leave.”
My jaw tightens. “I promised them freedom, someday. They swore they’d ride for me again if I ever called.”
Understanding ripples through the group.
“That’s the debt,” Rhett breathes.
I nod. “That’s the debt.”
“And you’re calling it now.” Thane’s voice carries no judgment. Just cold assessment. “For her.”
“For all of us.” I gesture at the veins. “Ethos is using her Ether the way the Nightmares once used fear.”
Silence stretches taut as wire.
“Can Ethos be stopped?” Thane asks finally.
I stand, brushing ash from my hands. “That’s what we need to find out.”
“How?”
I meet his eyes. “We get her out of here first. Then we deal with him.”
The veins flicker .
A tremor runs through the stone beneath our feet—subtle at first, then stronger. The silver light pulses brighter, faster, like a heartbeat accelerating.
Theo’s head snaps up, eyes going distant. When he speaks, his voice is hollow.
“They heard you.”
I feel it too—a shift in the air, a change in pressure. Something moving through the dark, drawn by my voice carried through the Void’s twisted pathways.
Something answering.
Gray lifts his head, a low growl rumbling in his chest. Sharper now. More alert. The wolf growing stronger with every passing hour.
Rhett’s fire burns steady in his palms—blue flames that would’ve been impossible when we first arrived. “How long?”
“I don’t know.” I stare at the veins, watching them pulse.
“Could be hours,” Theo murmurs. “Could be minutes.”
Jace’s blade appears in his hand, reflecting the silver light. “And when they get here?”
I don’t answer immediately.
Because the truth is, I don’t know what they’ve become in the centuries since I left them behind. I don’t know if they’ll remember our pact or if the Void has twisted them into something unrecognizable.
I don’t know if calling them was salvation or suicide.
But it’s too late to take it back now.
“When they get here,” I say quietly, “we’ll find out if the dark remembers its debts.”
The veins pulse brighter—steady, certain.
And somewhere in the distance—faint but unmistakable—I hear hoofbeats.