34. Bree
Bree
Riley steps out of the shadows across the clearing—and her knees buckle.
I move. Around the well’s stone rim, through the glowing daisies.
“Bree, don’t!”
“It’s a trap!”
“Stay back!”
Voices behind me. I don’t stop.
My arms wrap around her waist before she falls.
The Ether between us flares—silver meeting black. Then settles.
No attack. No trick. Just grief.
I brace her weight, adjusting my stance. The ground gives beneath us. The well rises behind me now, stone veined with faint light.
The air tastes of the Void—thin and wrong.
Up close, I see the details I couldn’t from across the clearing. Shoulders curved inward. Hands trembling. Silver threads barely flickering through black Ether that clings like ash.
My own Ether rises, steady and bright.
She looks hollow, waiting to break.
My Ether reaches toward her—slow and careful. Recognition like a scar I know the shape of.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and her voice cracks. “I’m so sorry.”
Behind me, the guys close in. Rhett’s flames dim to embers. Thane’s face is carved from stone. Theo’s eyes go unfocused. Wes shakes his head. Seth stays at the edge, silent.
Riley’s staring at me like I’m the last light in existence .
“I thought it was my idea.” Her voice breaks, knees threatening to give out again. I adjust, lowering us both until we’re kneeling. “Ethos just… whispered. Said he believed in me. Said I could fix what you were too afraid to touch.”
My chest tightens.
“He told me power was the same as love.” A sob tears free. “That if I took your place, people would adore me. That I’d be the one they chose.”
Her fingers curl into my shirt. “People suffer because of me. All those people—enslaved, starving—because I wanted to be… enough.”
Enough .
The word breaks something in my chest.
I know that word. I know that weight.
“You were always enough,” I say quietly.
She shakes her head, frantic. “No. I wasn’t. That’s why I did it. Why I let him convince me that switching places would—” Her voice catches. “I thought I was using him. I thought having one of the most powerful beings in existence bonded to me meant I had control.”
Behind us, Thane’s voice cuts in, low and dangerous. “Ethos is bonded to you?”
Riley’s eyes squeeze shut. “He told me it was different. That our bond was special. That with me, we could reshape everything.”
“And you believed him?” Gray’s wolf ripples beneath his skin.
“Yes,” Her voice drops to barely a whisper. “I wanted to believe someone saw me as more than just a reflection. More than just… her shadow. ”
The Ether pulses between us—recognition, understanding, shared pain.
I’ve spent my whole life being told I was too much or not enough.
She spent hers being told she was only an echo.
“Riley.” I wait until she meets my eyes. “What did he do to you?”
Her breath hitches. “After you escaped, he came back. Angrier than I’d ever seen him. Said you weren’t worthy of him. That he needed to feed to regain what you’d taken.” She swallows hard. “Every time I tried to pull back, he’d whisper that I owed him. That this was the cost of becoming you.”
Ice slides down my spine.
The guys exchange looks, tension crackling in the air between them.
“How long?” Stellan’s voice is colder than I’ve ever heard it.
Riley’s laugh is bitter and broken. “I lost track. Time doesn’t work right when someone’s feeding from your soul.”
Wes moves closer, his hunger carefully controlled. “Is he still feeding?”
She shakes her head slowly. “He stopped. Two days ago, maybe three. Just vanished.” Her voice drops. “I think he’s done with me. Used me up.”
The forest goes silent.
Even the daisies seem to dim.
Riley’s fingers tighten on my shirt.
“We could still be whole.”
Everyone stiffens.
“What?” I breathe.
Riley lifts her head, and for the first time since she appeared, there’s something other than despair in her eyes .
Hope.
Desperate, fragile hope.
“Your Ether,” she whispers. “It can do it. Even without the mirrors. I can feel it. You could… we could…”
“No.” Thane’s voice cuts through the moment like a blade.
Riley flinches but doesn’t look away from me. “Please. I don’t want to be alone in the dark anymore.”
The Ether between us swirls—two threads reaching for each other. Mine hesitates first, because it remembers what happens when I don’t.
“Bree, don’t.” Rhett’s hand lands on my shoulder. “We don’t know what she’s carrying.”
“That’s exactly how Ethos baited her,” Thane adds, moving closer. “Promises of wholeness. Of being enough.”
Theo staggers forward, eyes whitening with vision, breath caught mid-word. “If you merge with her, you merge with him.”
Gray’s voice is rough, half-growl. “She’s still tethered. I can smell it on her.”
“She’s the conduit,” Stellan says, his expression carefully blank but something sharp beneath it. “If you fuse, you finish his work.”
Riley’s breath hitches. “No. It’s not like that. I just—I don’t want to disappear. Please, Bree. You’re the only one who can—”
“Stop.” My voice cracks.
Everyone freezes.
I look down at Riley—at my own face hollowed out by betrayal and hunger and regret—and feel the Ether inside me reaching toward her.
It wants to heal. To make her whole.
That’s what it does. What it’s always done.
But it also taught me something in that chamber of ash and mirrors .
Creation through choice. Not compulsion.
“I can’t,” I whisper.
Riley’s face crumbles. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t know where you end and he begins.” The words tear out of me. “And I won’t risk losing myself to find out.”
The Ether lashes once—like something wounded—before sinking back into my skin.
Her sob echoes through the clearing.
Something between us finally shatters—not with light or sound, but with understanding.
The guys move closer—a protective ring around us both, magic and weapons ready, Ether bristling.
But Riley doesn’t attack. Doesn’t fight back.
She just slumps in my arms, every bit of fight draining out of her as consciousness starts to slip.
“Without the mirrors,” she murmurs, voice fading. “It’s still you and me. We could be whole.”
Then her eyes close, and she goes limp.
The daisies’ glow dims. The forest holds its breath.
I lower her carefully to the ground beside the well, my hands shaking.
The guys close in, forming a tighter circle.
“What do we do with her?” Jace asks quietly.
“We can’t kill what’s left of her,” Thane says, though he doesn’t sound happy about it. “But if Bree listens to her, Ethos wins.”
Rhett plants his palms on the ground, fire flickering under his skin, the heat steady—anchoring all of us. “Then we don’t leave her side. ”
I stare down at Riley’s unconscious form—at the silver threads still woven through her Ether, at the exhaustion carved into her features.
“She’s not wrong,” I say quietly.
Everyone looks at me.
“If we could rejoin—maybe I could close him off. Cut the connection. Make her whole without…” I trail off, unable to finish the thought.
The clearing seems to darken, as if the Void itself is leaning closer to hear my choice.
“Bree.” Theo’s voice is gentle. “You don’t have to save everyone.”
“I know.” My throat tightens. “But what if I can?”
Thane crouches beside me, silver eyes meeting mine. “And what if trying costs you everything?”
I don’t answer.
Because I don’t know.
The daisies pulse with silver light, and somewhere in the distance, I swear I hear Ethos laughing.
“If wholeness means losing myself,” I whisper, “what does that make me now?”