Veil of Echoes (The Ether Chronicles #4)

Chapter 1

Rhett

Heat jolts awake under my skin before my brain catches up.

I open my eyes to see the sanctuary’s runes falter—warmth ripped from the walls like someone snuffed out an ancient candle. My fire magic surges in response, wild and restless, and I’m fully awake in seconds.

The bed beside me is empty.

The sheets are cooling too fast, warmth being pulled from them by something unseen. No lingering scent on the pillow, no trace of how she’d curled against me after we’d finally collapsed into sleep, exhausted from everything that happened with the Oath.

She was here. She was definitely here when I fell asleep.

Now there’s nothing.

I sit up, heart hammering. “Bree?”

My voice echoes strangely in her circular bedroom, like the space is bigger than it should be. The horned mirror she found weeks ago sits untouched on her dresser, only reflecting my panic. The reading nook where Theo usually plants himself is empty.

Even the air feels wrong—too still, too quiet.

“Bree!” I call louder, already throwing myself out of bed.

Nothing.

I grab jeans from the floor, pulling them on as I stride toward the door. The sanctuary’s wrongness crawls up my spine like a warning. My hands are already warm, fire magic responding to my panic.

The common area is empty when I burst through her door. All the connecting bedroom doors are closed, the silence too thick.

“Bree!” The shout tears out before I can think.

I tear through their rooms—Wes tangled in sheets, jolting awake; Jace cursing as he rolls upright from sleeping upside down; Theo blinking groggily in his doorway; Gray standing next to his bed like he never even tried to sleep. Not one of them with Bree.

“What’s happening?” Wes asks, voice rough.

“Bree’s missing,” Theo says, and something in his tone makes everyone pause.

“Missing how?” Jace demands.

“I don’t know!” I’m pacing now, heat radiating from my skin. “She was there when I fell asleep, and now she’s just—gone. No note, no trace, nothing.”

“The sanctuary,” Wes says suddenly. “It doesn’t feel right.”

He feels it too. The warm pulse of protection that’s become as familiar as breathing is flickering like a dying flame.

We spread out through the common area, but before any of us can suggest where to search, voices drift from the main hallway. Low, urgent conversation.

I storm toward the sound, the others following behind me.

Thane and Stellan stand near the large windows overlooking the grounds, both fully dressed despite the early hour. They’re talking in the kind of hushed tones that mean trouble, heads bent close together.

They look up when we appear—a pack of half-dressed, panicked men led by me in nothing but jeans and barely contained fire.

“She’s not fucking here!” I announce before either of them can speak.

Thane goes completely still. “What do you mean she’s not here?”

“I mean she’s gone! Vanished! I’ve checked every room—”

“Where could she have gone?” Gray asks quietly.

“The chamber,” Stellan breathes, cutting me off.

Something that feels a lot like dread creeps up my spine.

“No,” Jace says immediately, taking a step back. “She wouldn’t. Not alone. Not without—”

“She would,” Thane says grimly. “If she thought it was her choice to make.”

Stellan is already moving toward the corridor that leads deeper into the sanctuary. “She shouldn’t do it alone. If she’s taking the Oath, we have to stop her.”

We follow him toward the back door that leads out to the garden—the path that winds deeper into the sanctuary grounds, toward the chamber.

We move like a pack of wolves chasing the scent of our missing heart.

Behind me, Theo’s breathing changes like he’s trying to force a vision.

Wes’s footsteps falter once, his hunger clearly gnawing at him.

Jace’s knives appear in his hands without him seeming to think about it.

Gray and Thane walk behind us, watching for threats just in case.

The journey to the Chamber seems longer than it was yesterday, the shadows deeper. Almost like the Sanctuary grounds are trying to prevent us from getting there.

When we finally reach the chamber entrance, the door stands open.

Silver light spills out from within, brighter than it’s ever been. But there’s something else threading through it now—something darker that makes my fire magic recoil.

“Bree,” I whisper.

We descend the stairs in single file, and I can feel the exact moment each of them sees her.

She stands before the largest mirror in the center ring, one hand pressed flat against the glass. Light radiates from the point of contact. Silver shot through with black, like ink bleeding through water. The kind we’ve become accustomed to since Bree’s visit to the Void.

As we watch her Ether swirls around her feet, and it becomes completely inverted—black mist threaded with silver. It moves differently too, more controlled, more purposeful.

I pull my focus away from the unsettling Ether and focus on Bree. She looks different. She still looks like the Bree I know, but there’s something about the way she holds herself. Straighter. More certain. Like someone who’s never doubted her place in the world.

“Bree,” I call out, but she doesn’t turn.

Her reflection in the mirror flinches at something unseen just for a moment, but when I blink, it’s gone.

Stellan makes a sound behind me—low, sharp, like recognition he doesn’t want to name.

“What?” I demand, but he’s already moving down the remaining stairs.

“Bree,” Thane calls, his voice carrying command I’ve never heard before. “Step away from the mirror. Now.”

That gets her attention. She turns, and when her eyes meet mine, something in my chest feels uneasy.

They’re still green, still beautiful, but they hold confidence I’ve never seen before, never thought I’d see on Bree.

“You came,” she says, and her voice sounds pleased rather than defensive. “Good. You should see this.”

“See what?” Gray asks quietly. He’s appeared beside me without my noticing, fully dressed and alert.

She turns back to the mirror, pressing both hands against the glass now. The light flares brighter, and her reflection moves completely out of sync with her actual movements.

“The completion,” she says simply. “The choice I was always meant to make.”

Flames dance under my skin, wild and restless. She stands in front of the mirror like she’s finally found calm, and it terrifies me.

The black Ether around her feet pulses once, like a heartbeat, and every instinct I have screams that something isn’t right.

The woman touching the mirror might look like Bree, might sound like Bree.

But she’s not afraid.

And Bree is always afraid, just a little. It’s part of who she is—the careful way she moves through the world, the defensive curl to her shoulders, the way she checks over her shoulder for threats that might be following.

This woman has none of that.

This woman looks like she’s never been broken at all.

“Bree,” I say carefully, “what happened to you?”

She glances back at me, and for just a moment, something vulnerable flickers in her expression. Like she’s afraid I won’t like what I see.

But then it’s gone, replaced by that unfamiliar certainty.

“I became who I was always meant to be,” she says.

The mirror pulses with dark light, and I realize with growing horror that we might be too late to stop whatever’s happening.

But looking at her now—confident, transformed, finally unafraid—I can’t tell if we’ve lost her to something terrible, or if she’s right and she’s finally found who she was always meant to be.