Chapter 4
Wes
There’s a ringing in my ears that won’t stop.
My body is shaking. I can’t make it stop either.
Bree isn’t moving.
Riley’s eyes are still open. Still fixed on her sister. Still seeing nothing.
I look away. I can’t—I can’t watch her die twice.
The others are frozen around me. Gray trembling silently, one hand still hovering near Bree’s shoulder.
Jace staring straight ahead like if he blinks he’ll shatter.
Rhett’s fire flickering at his fingertips—weak, useless, guttering out.
Theo pale and wide-eyed, lips moving without sound.
Thane’s hands shaking so hard I can see it from here.
Stellan frozen. Watching something in the magic I can’t see.
All of them.
Kneeling.
Waiting.
Doing nothing.
My chest caves in.
The hunger that’s lived in me since I woke up wrong—since I started needing things I couldn’t name—it collapses inward. Becomes something sharper. Something that feels like drowning.
Bree. No. No, no, no. Please no.
I can’t lose her. I can’t—
“What are we doing?”
The words come out broken. Barely audible.
No one hears me.
I try again. Louder. My voice shaking so hard the words almost don’t form.
“What are we waiting for?”
Silence.
Something in me snaps.
“What are we waiting for?!”
My voice cracks. Raw. Unstable. I don’t recognize the sound of it.
Everyone turns to look at me.
I jab a shaking finger at Bree.
“She’s dying! She’s—she needs—Riley told us—she said—”
I choke.
I can’t finish.
Theo’s voice comes quiet, steady. Repeating the words I couldn’t get out.
“Touch her… or it burns her.”
Stellan shifts. His voice is rough, stripped of its usual elegance.
“She’s absorbing the Ether that kept the sanctuary alive. She’ll rupture if she has nowhere to send it.”
Jace’s head snaps toward him. “But send it where—?”
Theo looks around at each of us. One by one.
“Us.”
Gray makes a sound. Broken. Wounded.
Thane whispers, horrified. “It’ll kill her if she tries to hold it alone.”
My hands curl into fists. My whole body trembling.
“Then we don’t let her do it alone.”
The moment stretches.
No one moves.
The moment stretches.
No one moves.
Then Gray reaches first.
His hand trembles—I can see the effort it takes—but it lands on her shoulder. Solid. Committed.
Jace next. He presses his palm flat against her back, jaw tight.
Rhett sets two fingers over her wrist. His fire dies completely, but he doesn’t pull away.
Theo cups the back of her hand. Gentle. Careful. Like she might break.
Thane touches the place over her spine. His eyes are closed. His lips move without sound.
Stellan’s hand hovers. One breath. Two.
Then he commits.
Jace looks at Seth—still unconscious, still angled toward her like his body knows where she is even when his mind doesn’t.
“He’s bonded too.” Jace’s voice is rough. “He needs to be part of this.”
He reaches over, takes Seth’s limp hand, and places it against Bree’s arm.
Seth’s fingers twitch. Even unconscious, they curl toward her skin.
I wait until last.
My vision blurs. I don’t bother wiping my face.
I place my palm over her heart.
Something clicks.
Soundless. Immense. Like reality itself acknowledging alignment.
The ground lights up.
Not the veins. Not the Ether pool.
Her.
Bree lights from inside—silver flooding her skin, spreading outward from where our hands touch. The glow pulses once, twice, then surges.
The magic hits us first.
I inhale sharply—all of us do—like being plunged into ice water. It rushes through my palm, down my arm, into my chest. Through the bond already formed.
The hunger that’s lived in me since I woke—the ache, the emptiness, the constant need—
It fills with something unexpected.
With her.
Around me, the others gasp. React. Change.
Gray’s leg snaps back into place with a crack that makes my stomach turn—but he doesn’t scream. Just breathes. His whole body straightens.
Rhett’s burns fade. The angry red skin smoothing over, healing in seconds.
Theo’s eyes clear. The constant strain behind them—the pain of Sight that never stops—eases. He pulls his glasses off. No longer needed.
Jace’s ribs knit. I hear them shift, settle, realign.
Thane’s exhaustion vanishes. The gray pallor lifts from his skin. His silver eyes sharpen.
Stellan’s magic stops fraying at the edges. I don’t know how I know that, but I do—I can feel it, the way he stabilizes, calms.
Then Seth.
He arches off the ground.
Black smoke tears out of him—pouring from his mouth, his chest, the places where the Void corruption lived. Silver floods in behind it, filling the empty spaces, burning clean what was rotten.
His skin glows white-hot.
Then settles.
His first clear breath in months, maybe years escapes him with a gasp.
He slumps back—unconscious, but clean.
The magic pulls back.
Silence.
For one horrible moment, I think we failed.
Then—
Bree inhales.
Not soft. Not gentle.
A full, body-wracking, desperate breath—like someone who’s been drowning finally breaking the surface.
Her fingers twitch.
Her chest rises again.
Something in my chest cracks open. My breath hitches—once, twice—and then my whole body is shaking, shoulders heaving, a sound tearing out of me that I don’t recognize.
The sob comes out silent but it wrecks me anyway, doubling me forward until my forehead nearly touches her shoulder.
My hand stays pressed to her heart, feeling it beat—steady now, real now—while tears stream down my face and drip onto her shirt.
The others are reacting around me. Voices. Movement. Relief.
I don’t hear any of it.
I lower my forehead to her shoulder.
“Don’t ever do that to me again.”
My voice cracks on every word.
Softer.
“Please.”
She doesn’t answer.
But she breathes.
And thank the gods for that.