38. Rhett
Rhett
By the time we reach the gate, the guards are out cold—laid down gentle by Bree’s Ether, not a mark on them.
Thane and Bree stand inside the courtyard, every eye fixed on them. Every collar still glows faintly in the morning light. Every breath feels wrong.
I step through the arch and stop.
She’s shaking.
Not from fear—from everything she’s holding back. Her Ether rises around her, bright enough to paint the air itself silver. The sun climbs over the wall behind her, turning the mist into light.
The Feeders stare like they don’t believe what they’re seeing.
Maybe they don’t.
Hell, maybe I don’t.
Gray moves up beside me, tension coiled in every line of his body. Theo’s eyes are distant, seeing futures I don’t want to know about. Jace’s usual grin is gone, replaced by something harder. Zira next to Riley, who’s almost standing on her own.
The courtyard is too quiet. The kind of quiet that comes from people who’ve forgotten what hope sounds like.
It’s deafening.
The collars hum—faint and constant, like insects in summer heat. But underneath that, I feel something worse. The pressure of despair radiating off the crowd, thick enough to choke on.
My fire senses it like temperature. Pain has weight. Grief has heat.
And there’s so much of it here I can barely breathe .
Bree lifts her hands.
The Ether swirls around her—not wild, not chaotic. Deliberate. Controlled. Like sunlight turning solid.
I instinctively move forward, ready to shield her if this goes wrong. But Gray catches my arm, shaking his head once.
She’s in control.
The Ether surges outward in a single, rolling wave.
The Feeders flinch back. Some drop to the ground, arms raised to protect themselves. Others brace, eyes squeezed shut, waiting for pain that’s always followed power like this.
It crashes over the courtyard like dawn breaking—silver light wrapping around every collar, every throat, every bound soul standing in the dirt.
The collars flare bright.
Then crack.
The sound hits like shattering glass in a thunderstorm—hundreds of silver chimes fracturing at once. Pieces fall to the ground, ringing against stone, disappearing into dust.
Gasps tear through the crowd. Someone sobs. Another laughs—broken and disbelieving.
People fall to their knees, hands flying to their throats, touching skin that hasn’t been free in months. Maybe years.
The air smells like ozone and burned metal, but there’s no pain. Just release.
I feel it through the bond—her determination, her compassion, her exhaustion threatening to pull her under.
But she doesn’t fall .
She stands in the center of it all, glowing like the dawn itself, and when she speaks, her voice carries.
Not loud. Just impossible to ignore.
“You did not deserve this.”
The Ether flares brighter with the words, and every freed Feeder looks up.
“No one does. You have a right to freedom. To peace. To your magic—just like everyone else.”
Her hands shake, but her voice doesn’t.
“This sanctuary will be safe again.”
A woman near the front touches her throat, tears streaming down her face.
“You will not mine another bit of Ether for anyone.”
The Ether pulses with each vow, alive and answering.
“The oath is here for you. Take it if you choose—or not. The choice is always yours.”
Silence stretches, heavy and alive.
“I understand if you want to leave. But if you stay, we rebuild this place the way it was meant to be.”
Bree’s breath catches, just slightly. I see it in the rise of her shoulders, the way her fingers curl.
“I didn’t run. I was captured. I didn’t leave you. I couldn’t escape.”
Her voice cracks on the last word—but she pushes through.
“But I will fight for you. For this sanctuary. For everything it stands for.”
She meets their eyes—one by one, steady and certain.
“The freedom to choose.”
The words hang in the air like lightning about to strike .
No one moves.
No one breathes.
Then Mairen—the cook who came here with her family, who Bree promised safety—touches the broken collar at her throat and sinks to her knees.
Not in worship.
In release.
Her husband drops beside her, pulling their son close. The boy’s shoulders shake with sobs.
One by one, the rest follow.
Heads bowed. Not to Bree’s power, but to what she just gave them back.
Choice.
The Ether settles, still shimmering faintly in the morning air. The courtyard glows with it—silver threads weaving through stone and soil, through the people kneeling in the dirt.
It’s beautiful.
It’s devastating.
Bree sways.
I’m moving before Thane can, before anyone can. My arm slides around her waist, catching her before she falls.
She leans against me, breath shaking, eyes wet.
“You did it,” I say quietly.
“We did,” she whispers back.
Her weight settles against my side, and I hold her steady while freed Feeders begin to rise, touching their throats, touching each other, confirming the collars are really gone.
I’ve seen fire burn cities to ash .
I never knew it could heal.
Thane steps forward, his expression unreadable—something between pride and grief and determination. Stellan’s already scanning the horizon, calculating retaliation from the Counsel.
In the distance, ravens call from the treeline.
A warning or a witness, I can’t tell.
Bree straightens slowly, exhausted but unbroken. She looks at the crowd of newly freed Feeders—at faces that are starting to remember what hope looks like.
“We begin again,” she says quietly.
Almost to herself.
But I hear it.
We all do.
The sun clears the wall completely now, flooding the courtyard with full morning light. The daisies at the gate bloom brighter, spreading through cracks in the stone.
And for the first time in longer than I can remember, I think maybe we’re not just surviving the fire.
Maybe we’re becoming it.