7. Thane
Thane
The chamber settles into an uneasy stillness.
Bree’s unconscious again, her chest rising and falling in shallow breaths.
The Nightmares hold their perimeter—creatures I never thought I’d see outside of myth, let alone standing guard over someone I’ve failed to protect.
Their presence fills the space like pressure before a storm, and I can’t decide if they’re salvation or just another variable I can’t control.
I lean against the obsidian wall, arms crossed.
If we survive this—when we survive this—we need to move fast. Get them somewhere defensible. Figure out what the year in this place has done to all of us. What it’s done to her.
Theo moves.
No warning. No announcement. He just crosses the chamber and drops to his knees beside Bree.
“She doesn’t deserve this,” he says quietly, reaching for the chains wrapped around her wrists. “I won’t sit here and watch her die.”
“Theo—” Stellan starts.
Too late.
Theo’s fingers close around the silver metal. “I see you,” he whispers.
Light flares—blinding, searing—and Theo gasps, muscles locking. The chain burns through his skin, but he doesn’t let go.
His eyes glow white-silver, Sight fully open. Patterns overlay the chains, intricate and alien, pulsing with the same rhythm as the veins in the walls .
“I can see it,” he grits out. “The pattern—”
Seth’s eyes snap open.
He sees Theo struggling. Sees Bree trapped.
Seth moves—shoves Theo aside hard enough to send him sprawling.
Black smoke surges from the Void, wrapping around Seth’s wrists and hardening like gauntlets. He grabs the chains with both hands.
The heat strikes the smoke and gutters out.
Seth pulls.
The chains scream—metal shrieking like something alive and dying. He tears them apart, silver dissolving into ash.
For one heartbeat, his eyes go completely black.
Then they fade back to normal.
Seth staggers backward, staring down at his hands. The smoke is gone. His skin is unmarked. He looks confused. Horrified.
“What—” His voice cracks. “What did I just do?”
No one answers.
Bree gasps—a sharp, desperate sound—and her body arches off the obsidian floor. Silver light flares around her, brighter than it’s been since we found her, and the veins pulsing through the walls react, some of them flickering from silver to black and back again.
The Nightmares shift, smoke curling thicker from their hooves.
Stellan moves first, dropping to his knees beside her. His hand hovers over her shoulder, then settles gently. “I’m here.” His voice cracks. “We’re here. We’ve got you.”
But the black threading her Ether remains, woven too deep to fade on its own .
Theo pushes himself upright, hands burned raw, skin blistered and red. Rhett presses a hand near the worst of it, heat sealing the edges. The skin still weeps.
The veins in the walls writhe.
Not subtly. Visibly. Like serpents trapped beneath stone, twisting and coiling as the silver light flickers faster.
Some of them turn black.
The temperature drops so fast my breath fogs.
“He knows,” Stellan says quietly.
Seth’s still staring at his hands. “What?”
“Ethos.” Stellan’s gray eyes lift to meet mine across Bree’s unconscious form. “He knows the chains are broken.”
“Then we make a stand here,” I start to say. “In his chamber—”
“No.” Stellan’s voice cuts sharp. “We can’t fight him here. This is his domain. His power.”
Movement catches my eye before anyone can argue.
The familiars appear—shadows slinking free from the obsidian glass. The fox, the raven, and the serpent uncoiling from Seth’s wrist. All three move toward the chamber entrance.
Their forms begin to glow faintly, silver light tracing through the darkness like breadcrumbs in the black.
Waiting.
“They’re showing us the way,” Theo says quietly.
The veins in the walls writhe faster, some flickering black. The temperature drops.
Gray moves without hesitation—noses beneath Bree’s shoulder, wedging his body under hers until she’s draped across his back. Then he’s already walking, following the lights .
The lead Nightmare’s voice flows through our minds. We hold the chamber. Follow the lights, bonded ones. We will find you when the path clears.
Theo moves toward Seth, hands still raw and weeping. “Come on.”
Seth blinks at him, still disoriented. “You—I shoved you—”
“You freed her.” Theo’s voice is matter-of-fact. “Move.”
The familiars pulse brighter, drifting deeper into the Void.
And we follow them into the dark.