49. Stellan
Stellan
I’ve never been more in awe of this beautiful woman.
The courtyard is still vibrating from her speech. The Feeders nearest the epicenter flex their hands, shaking off the residual Ether like static crawling under their skin.
Bree’s Ether flares bright enough to leave afterimages burned into my vision, silver light pulsing through the stone beneath our feet like a living heartbeat.
She stands ringed by Gray, Rhett, Wes, Theo, and Jace—Thane a step off her shoulder.
The Feeders around us are standing taller, breathing deeper, believing for the first time in their lives that they might be worth something.
Bare. Dangerous. Necessary.
And then I see them.
On the ridge beyond the gates, silhouettes appear against the dawn—dark figures cresting the hill like a wave of shadows.
The Council. I recognize their formation, the way they hold themselves above everyone else even from this distance.
Phil. Taller, broader, moving with that infuriating confidence that comes from never having been told no.
And behind them—
My lungs forget the motion.
An army. Five hundred at least. Maybe more.
Soldiers. Enforcers. Followers ready to tear down everything we’ve built.
But that’s not what makes my hands curl into fists.
It’s the others I feel before I fully see them .
Feeders.
Dozens of them scattered through the ranks, their emotional signatures pulsing beneath the surface like cords of hunger and compulsion.
Even at this distance, their signatures rasp—hunger harnessed to someone else’s leash.
That specific rhythm—suppressed, twisted, trained into obedience until it calcified.
They taught them to kneel so well they forgot how to stand.
Rage floods through me, cold and immediate. Not the wild, reckless kind. The controlled fury that sharpens every sense, every thought, every breath.
Of course they brought them. What better weapon than the ones they taught to fear themselves?
I watch Bree standing at the center of the courtyard, chin high, Ether still glowing around her like armor. She won’t flinch. She won’t back down.
So neither will I.
I step to her right, Thane a shadow at my left. Gray, Rhett, Wes, Theo, and Jace hold the arc behind her. The shape of a wall.
I keep my voice low enough that only she and Thane can hear.
“Thane and I have the Feeders,” I say quietly. “If you’ll let us.”
She turns, meeting my eyes. For a fraction of a second, I see the hesitation—the weight of trusting someone else with this. Then her shoulders relax slightly.
“I trust you.”
She’s never said those words to me before. They settle something in my chest I didn’t know was waiting.
I nod once and turn away, already moving .
Thane falls into step beside me without needing to be told. We’ve done this before—different battles, different stakes, but the same dance. He knows when to lead and when to follow.
Right now, he follows.
The Feeders respond before I even open my mouth. They feel the shift in my energy, the way my focus clicks into place. Some straighten. Others tense. All of them watch.
My voice cuts clear through the rising wind:
“Mothers and children—lower hall, east corridor, the rooms there.”
A few women move immediately, gathering children close. Others hesitate.
“If you want to fight,” I add, meeting their eyes one by one, “stay. The choice is yours. Not mine. Not anyone’s.”
Several nod and step back into formation. The rest move toward safety without shame.
Good.
I turn to the rest—the fighters, the ones whose hunger has been sharpened into something useful.
Zira steps up beside me, her presence steady and sharp. She doesn’t need to be told what’s coming. She already knows.
“Fighters in thirds: northern wall, low gate, gardens.”
They move without question, already positioning themselves. Zira’s voice cuts through, reinforcing the command with quiet authority.
“Stay low. Stay sharp.”
“No one shows early,” I add. “You move on my signal.”
Thane steps forward, Zira falling into formation beside him, finishing the distribution with that clipped authority that makes people obey without thinking .
“The moment they breach the threshold, you hit from both flanks. Don’t give them the chance to organize.”
I reach for my magic—not to feed, but to command.
The Ether responds, curling outward from my chest in threads too faint for most to see.
It’s stronger than I remember. I watch as it weaves through the clusters of Feeders, dampening their fear, sharpening their focus.
Amplifying the quiet confidence that comes from knowing you’re stronger than they think.
I’m surprised as I feel Wes’s magic join mine as I lock eyes with him still standing near Bree—subtler, but just as precise. Learning from my lead in real time. He steadies the nervous ones, the young ones who haven’t fought before. I nod once. ?? I knew he had it in him.
Then I push outward, toward the approaching army.
I lay a thin field over the approach—boredom, false ease, a whisper to the hindbrain. Not a glamor, just a nudge. Enough to make a watchman blink the wrong second. A soldier who thinks he’s safe is already halfway dead.
They may see our numbers, but they won’t know our strength. Zira stands at my left, eyes scanning the horizon.
I remember what it was like to be hungry and leashed. To be told I was dangerous, broken, lesser. To watch others like me believe it.
Bree’s voice still echoes in my head: They’ll have to go through me.
Not while I still breathe.
Thane appears at my shoulder, silent for a moment before speaking.
“You take the south flank,” I murmur. “I’ll keep the heart of it steady.”
He nods once. “Try not to kill them all before I get there.”
I don’t look at him, but my mouth almost remembers how to smile .
Zira’s voice is dry. “Save some for the rest of us.”
Then the moment passes, and we’re moving again.
The Sanctuary hums like a living thing around us—Ether threads glowing faintly beneath the soil, matching the stormlight above. Bree and the others stand near the courtyard center, a constellation of power waiting for the storm to break.
I position myself at the edge of the assembled Feeders, Zira a shadow at my side, every nerve tuned to the distant rhythm of approaching footsteps.
Five hundred heartbeats. Maybe more.
And beneath them, those familiar signatures—Feeders marching toward their own destruction because someone told them it was loyalty.
My pupils dilate, bleeding black from the edges inward. Beside me, Zira’s fangs extend.
The world sharpens. Every emotional thread in range snaps into focus like drawn wire.
I feel the fear in our ranks, the determination, the hunger barely leashed.
I feel the false confidence radiating from the approaching army, the obedience threaded through the enslaved Feeders like chains they can’t see.
Lightning flickers on the horizon, illuminating Phil’s silhouette at the head of the formation.
I let my power coil tighter, ready to strike.
Thunder cracks overhead.
The air tastes metallic, charged.
The first boot strikes Sanctuary stone.
The field hums against my teeth.
“Let them come.”